What REALLY happened at the Tantra workshop
I REALLY did NOT want to go to the Tantra workshop. But I had to. Because of my Policy of Yes.
I didn’t want to go to the Tantra workshop. I had to. Because of my Policy of Yes.
The Policy of Yes arose from spending the better part of a 10-year relationship under house-arrest. Not physical or legal chains. Worse. Domestic psychological chains.
There was hell to pay
My then-partner was pathologically jealous with a hair-trigger temper. He was okay with me attending some events alone, but not others. The difference between the sanctioned and unsanctioned events was the presence of other men – who, obviously, I might leave him for.
He never explicitly forbade me to go. But if I did, there was hell to pay. A huge fight would erupt about something apparently unrelated. There would be accusations of selfishness and hours of shouted abuse.
I incline to being a homebody anyway, and it became far easier not to go out than risk an hours-long angry tirade. His goal was my goal.
Since I worked from home, that was a lot of my life spent in a small space. By the time I finally left him, my life had shrunk. I hated it, but I was also used to it. A small life had become my norm.
I returned to the city along with returning to university. It was thrilling being back at university, but it was tough. I was physically and psychologically exhausted. I’d dropped out of university 15 years previously, and navigating returning to study alongside navigating a separation as ugly as the former relationship was almost impossible.
Staying a shut-in is easy
Despite being physically free, I felt the persistence of the psychological bars. Even though I was now free of my pathologically jealous ex, study requirements and sheer exhaustion made it all too easy to spend yet another night at home.
Despite the open door in front of me, my life had been small for so long I was at risk of staying a shut-in. And I realized - if I wasn’t to waste my hard-won freedom - I had to force myself out that door.
Hence the Policy of Yes.
The policy rules are simple. If I was invited to an event - no matter how boring or bizarre sounding - unless I had a prior engagement or a note from a doctor, I had to say “yes”.
So when a date invited me to an evening Tantra workshop, I had to say yes. I had no prior engagement. I also wasn’t yet a doctor. So, as desperately as I wanted to, I couldn’t (legitimately) write my own doctor's note. My date's assurance the Tantra workshop was of the ‘clothes-on’ variety wasn’t very reassuring.
Scroll forward a week, and I’m standing in a dark car-park at the edge of a beach. A full moon plays on the water, and the boat club - the tantra workshop venue - lies at the far end of the beach.
I'm crawling out of my skin
My date is late and I’m crawling out of skin with discomfort. I worry I’m at the wrong place. I worry I’m at the right place.
People start to arrive. They look like Tantra-workshop types. Maybe it was the one person with dreadlocks, maybe it was the two women in long flowing skirts. Maybe it was because they were carrying blankets and pillows down the beach towards the boat house.
OMG!!!
This is not my scene. I have never done anything remotely like this. My vaguely-liberal, secular, middle-class upbringing suddenly seems ultra-conservative. I do not want to be here.
Just as I’m contemplating doing a runner, my date materializes out of the dark. We take the long beach walk.
Inside the boathouse, we are greeted by Scarlett, the Tantra teacher. Oozing Zen and smiling beatifically, she embraces us as we enter.
They looked normal
Inside was an assortment of maybe 25 other humans. There was an even gender and age mix, ranging from 20s to 60s. And they were attractive, normal-looking people rather than the weirdo-Tantra-workshop-attendees of my anxious imaginings.
However, my brain couldn't handle this novel situation & began unravelling almost immediately.
The workshop started innocently enough with a simple dance warm-up - which is where the trouble started. The problem wasn't the simple warm-up. The problem was me. I felt incredibly, ridiculously, self-conscious.
And I was startled at being so self-conscious. I prided myself on not caring what others thought of me. So what the hell was there to be self-conscious about? It was just people moving to music, in their own space, and - as instructed by Scarlett - with eyes closed. And I know their eyes were indeed closed because I opened my eyes to look.
But their closed eyes made it worse. How can I be self-conscious when no one’s even looking at me!?
Of course, the word ‘pride’ was a massive hindsight-hint. I started beating myself up for being self-conscious. And then - because I prided myself on not beating myself up - I started beating myself up for beating myself up. And then I started beating myself up for beating myself up for beating myself up.
A vicious hall of mirrors
And so I slid down the hall of mirrors. At the end of the hall was the realization that a huge part of myself - my identity - was a complete fabrication. It turned out that the calm, reasonable, rational, non-socially anxious, non-beating-self-up part of me simply didn’t exist. A huge part of me wasn't.
And this resulted in the most surreal week of my life.
Before I tell you how I survived that week, and its lasting legacy, I’ll re-cap the remainder of the Tantra evening.
Although Scarlett may have over-used the word 'savoring,' the rest of the workshop - like the warm-up exercise - was physically very innocent. There was lots of eye-gazing, hand-stroking, and walking towards and away from people. There was lots of testing of physical and emotional boundaries, but not even remotely the stuff of mainstream porn.
But physiologically and emotionally it was one of the most erotic experiences of my life. I began the evening deeply uncomfortable and guarded. I ended the evening, as someone pointed out, glowing.
The morning after
The glow got me through the night. The full impact of my mind-unravel hit the morning after. To explain the extent of this, the part of me that turned out not to exist, was the core of my self-identity. It dictated how I interacted with the world. This meant my social rule book had vaporized along with my fictional self. I didn’t know what the rules were anymore. I didn’t know how to talk to anyone anymore.
I felt like a baby born into an adult’s body.
It was truly bizarre. Possibly like a bad drug trip - not that I’d know from first-hand experience (my illicit drug symptoms are restricted to a sore throat from smoking several alleged cannabis joints - they were probably oregano) but I can’t think of a better way of describing not knowing how to be in the world.
It was a rough week. The first two days – the weekend - were frightening. Like, really scary. It was because I realized how controlling our everyday conversations are. We say something with the intent of triggering a particular response in the other person. A simple example; “How are you?” will - nine times out of 10 - trigger the response “I’m fine. How are you?”.
And it was scary because I no longer knew what response I wanted from anyone, let alone what to say to trigger it.
Fortunately by Monday - back to my PhD office - I was calmer. I had a plan. As I didn’t know what to say to people, I figured I’d just give up the whole ‘knowing’ part. I would just say whatever occurred to me in the moment – or not.
Fortunately, the first person I encountered was the nicest person in the world, my friend Mathijs. Equally fortunately for my bewildered brain, he spoke first: “Hello, how are you?”
I’m feeling a bit peculiar
That was easy. I could answer that question. “I’m feeling a bit peculiar,” I said carefully, trying out some words and trying not to sound too peculiar; “I don’t know how to talk to people anymore.”
He gave me a funny look and said “You look okay.”
I was relieved. "That went quite well," I thought. The week improved from there. It was the ultimate in mindful speaking. I focused on saying whatever occurred to me in that moment. I responded to people's questions, or asked people questions that I wanted answers to.
I tried not to worry about the fact that I couldn't predict or control any conversations. One conversation at a time.
And it worked. It got me through the week. The week after that I was back to normal. But it was a new normal.
Who the hell am I?
I drew on a conversation I'd had many times during my eight years as a Lifeline telephone counsellor. Many callers no longer knew who they were after a major life change, such as a redundancy or a divorce, that had previously defined them. Consequently, I found the question “Who am I really?” wasn’t particularly useful for these callers. More often than not, the common counseling question; “Who am I?” led to a distressing dead end.
Fortunately, I found a much more useful question. That was “Who do you want to be?”
It turns out that “Who am I?” wasn't useful for me either - I had no idea. There was a life-redefining upside to the surreal Tantra workshop experience. It freed me from the tyranny of who I thought I was - and freed me to be whoever I want to be.
It has also freed me to acknowledge, rather than deny, when I act like someone I don’t want to be. It’s much easier to course correct when we can admit that we strayed off-course. And it’s much easier to admit we’ve strayed off course when we aren’t wedded, or welded, to our fabricated self-identities. And not identifying with these fabrications is much easier when we can recognize that they are fabricated.
In ACT (acceptance and commitment therapy) this is known as ‘psychological flexibility’. It’s considered a good thing – highly conducive to robust mental health. The kind of mental health that can scale Mount Everest in a single bound.
I would recommend Tantric workshops if you’re interested in unraveling your mind and boosting your psychological flexibility (and getting hotter sex), except I can’t. Last I heard, Scarlett was in Thailand.
Make love not porn
I do think Tantra is a good thing – especially at a time when intimacy-bankrupt pornography is the norm. And I hate this is where so many of our young people are getting their sex 'education.' There’s plenty of books on the topic of Tantra, but in lieu of Scarlett’s workshops I suggest looking up Cindy Gallop’s website: ‘Make love not porn’ The website features real couples and triples having real sex. Including, apparently, off-duty porn stars.
But the point of this article isn’t Tantra per se (which is just as well, as I know stuff-all about it). The point is trashing our comfort zones. Which is why I developed my Policy of Yes. I didn’t know exactly how my life had gone so badly wrong, but I knew there had to be something better and I was going to find it.
And I did. And I still am.
Further Resources:
Invisible wounds - This book is for you if you suspect you, or someone you know, is in an abusive relationship. It's is the best resource on psychological, or emotional, abuse I've found. While it doesn't directly address physical or sexual abuse, all forms of abuse are underpinned by psychological abuse. Unfortunately, it doesn't deviate one iota from the stereotypical view of the male abuser: female victim. However, if male abuse survivors can stomach the gendered pronouns, it's still a valuable book.
Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence - international best-seller by sex therapist Esther Perel - a must read if you are worried about lack of sexual desire in you or your partner.
Want to read more?
Unusual 1st date advice: They say never to ask your date this question [I disagree - the answer can tell you whether your date is potentially a keeper or whether to run away as fast as your legs will allow ... ]
What the sex therapist told me en route to the burlesque show [OR what the Lifeline sex callers taught me about relationships]
The biggest myth of self-control (+ marshmallows!) Hint: you have PLENTY of self control - you just need to learn how to access it!
Enough about me - how about you?
What’s helped with your lovelife - any books, courses, concepts? What have you struggled with? I’d love to hear about your experiences - hit the ‘Leave a comment’ button to do just that …
