Can pleasure heal pain: How tantra massage deals with effects of negative sexual experiences
Have you ever experienced that you are together in bed with the one you love, you want to be open and intimate, but it is somehow challenging to relax, to open up and to trust? Or when you are being caressed by your beloved and you suddenly have a memory of a painful experience of the past and you close down? Or are you even staying away from any kind of intimate relationship?
Many of us are limited in our erotic experience of life by the inhibitions, taboos, and shame that we carry inside.
Apart from these inhibitions that affect a great amount of people, there are a few who have experienced actual sexual trauma, that limits their free enjoyment of intimacy. Sexual trauma can happen to children, adults, men and women alike, creating painful imprints that mark their lives. It
harms their body and being and leaves an impact in their cellular memory, mind and heart.
Since we don’t claim to be a place for therapy, we recommend severe cases of trauma to find assistance with proper psychotherapy. However, we do receive guests with sexual traumas and have experienced that a genuine tantric massage can offer surprisingly supportive effects.
How does a tantra massage deal with the effects of negative sexual experiences? And is it the pleasure that heals the pain? Here we will explain sexual trauma and its effects and describe how a tantric massage can assist in a process of healing. We will explore how a conscious touch given with active love, charged with pure erotic energy, which generates profound waves of uplifting pleasure, can contribute to a deep process of transformation.
Characteristic effects of Sexual Trauma
* Inability to trust & fear of intimacy
* Feelings of confusion, guilt and shame
* Triggering past emotions and memories: flashbacks
* Withdrawal, dissociation & inability to enjoy
* Pain, contractions, numbness or dysfunctions in the genitals
Difficulty to trust & fear of intimacy
People who have experienced sexual trauma, often find it hard to surrender to the love of their beloved and to deeply trust them and their connection. When they go into the bedroom, they might discover that even though it might be easy to get physically naked, they cannot let their beloved one come close. The sexual experience becomes either tense, superficial or without surrender, trust and love. Some become overly sexualized and show promiscuous behaviour. Their sense of insecurity is covered by an intense search for validation and appreciation in a sexual way.
Others stay away from love and intimacy completely. They build a strong protective wall around their hearts and don’t let other people come close. Instead of being open and vulnerable they cope with their fear of intimacy by building a strong shield or shell around their heart that is seemingly safe. While active love is the real cure for broken hearts, they unfortunately keep far away from daring to be the first to courageously offer their love again and again. Instead of being warmed by the burning fire of their radiant love, they turn cold by the coolness of their isolation and disconnection.
Triggering of past emotions and memories
The body holds the memory of past events. Even though we think we might have moved on, suddenly a smell, a touch, or an image can re-evoke the unprocessed emotions from the past as if they are happening right now. That is why, for the one suffering from such trauma, deep feelings of sadness, disgust, fear or anger might suddenly surface during lovemaking. Sometimes a subtle cue, such as the smell of cologne or having a partner whisper in your ear, can trigger anxiety and panic. Even though in reality they are safe now, they are taken back in time and re-experience the lack of safety, the fear, the anger or the pain from the past and they project it upon their current partner and their current situation.
Confusion, sin and shame
Many times, the sexual trauma also creates a disturbed wiring of the body, creating deep inner confusion. When for example an abuse happened at a young age, the child might associate pleasure with fear, with pain, with guilt or with something sinful or wrong. This is because when a sexual assault happened, it is possible that the person was physically getting aroused. This might cause them to feel confused and ashamed. And later in life, when they experience pleasure they connect it to something which they believe is bad.
Another trauma response would be to continue to seek out sexual experiences where sex is associated with pain or domination or submission. For that person, what turns them on is not an intimate loving and safe environment, but instead they follow the pathway of pleasure in the body of associating it with negative emotions.
Withdrawal and inability to enjoy
A trauma response might also be to withdraw, disconnect and dissociate. Since a person might not want to feel the painful memories from the past, they consciously or unconsciously disconnect themselves from the body and flee into their mind. Instead of being present here and now and fully enjoying all the sensations of touch or intimacy, one might experience themselves becoming numb and kind of empty. Rather than relaxing deeply and opening to the sensual experience, one can feel that they automatically ‘leave’ the interaction, while they is still physically present. They are unable to connect to the other one, to really open their heart, and to unite and let all the pleasure of the moment flood them like a pleasant stream of joyful delight.
Tension, pain and performance pressure
It is also possible that the unwanted experience caused tension in parts of the body and in the genitals. Tensions later become painful areas and can even become numb after a while. This explains why for some women who suffer from sexual trauma they either experience pain or closedness in their Yoni during lovemaking. They may also simply feel nothing, they have become numb inside their Yoni. For men, the sexual trauma can disturb their feeling of self-confidence and ability to relax into intimacy creating a high pressure to perform, inability to have erections or suffer from premature ejaculation.
Releasing the chains of the past: how pleasure heals pain
In the Tantra Temple we sometimes receive guests who specifically seek out the Tantra Temple to heal the sexual traumas they have and to overcome these chains of the past which haunts them today. Some are referred by their sexologists or psychologists, while others come on their own account. It also sometimes happens that guests don’t come with the intention of wishing to heal a trauma, but the massage evokes deep memories and they suddenly become aware of traumatic experiences they have had, which they had buried in their subconscious until then.
Even though we don’t claim to be healers or psychotherapists, we can still assist guests in their journey of healing.
Ingredients for healing sexual trauma through tantric massage
* Unblocking energy
* Loving awareness
* Godly Love
* Intense Pleasure
* Pure Eros
Healing through loving awareness
Through pressure points, stretching and massage techniques, tensions, blockages, pain and stuck emotions get released. The memory which is stored in the cells can be liberated and freed. When deep emotions come up, they will ask for our loving attention. Just to be with them, to see them and to become totally conscious of them. In a space of safety, in support and the healing light of awareness they will then be processed and healed. When we become completely aware of all that we feel, we naturally process the emotions and the stored memory gets released from the body and the stuck energy can flow.
While consciously processing the emotions helps, an efficient and less known method of healing is that which the tantra massage offers as well. It is not by going directly in and to the trauma, but instead to provide the person with an opposite experience. An intense experience of pure eros and pure love and intense pleasure is very efficient in healing, without needing to spend many words on re-evoking the past traumas and events.
Healing through love
When one is being touched by universal love, the overwhelming love that pours into the receiver can be felt like an ocean of grace that washes away all memories, all tensions, pain and contractions. This energy of love works as an absolutely amazing healer. As masseurs we consciously tune into this source of endless energy and channel this love through our hands. We charge the other one with this universal love through our touch. When we really allow love to flow through our heart, a lot of imbalances get realigned again and we get back in our heart. Without the guest even needing to be aware of what emotions or memories are being processed, they will simply feel a greater flow of energy, a sensation of lightness and a release of heaviness. Like a waterfall of love that washed you clean and refreshed you with its purifying stream.
Healing through pleasure
Also pleasure has an effect of relaxation and healing. Even if there is tension and contraction at the start, once the nervous system starts to experience that it can actually relax and that the touch is only bringing warmth, pleasant sensations and nourishment, it calms down. Intense pleasure relaxes the body and the being, and naturally releases the tensions and contractions and releases its defence mechanisms. When you are able to open to pleasure more and more, the positive energy that floods your being fills you with joy, with bliss, with happiness that simply drives out the shadows of the past. It is like an opened window where the fresh air simply purifies the smell of a dusty room.
Healing through Eros
The energy of Pure Eros is also a very efficient healing modality. It has the attribute of dissolving tensions and contractions quickly. It’s that which takes you easily through and beyond the pain and brings you to a place of ‘pure beingness, pure happiness, pure expanded consciousness’, as this is Eros in its essence. From such a state of freedom, you relate very differently to what kept you a prisoner of the past.
From trauma to trust
In a true tantric massage, the masseur and the guests connect deeply, from heart to heart. An oasis of peace, calmness and safety is created, together with a pure kind of intimacy. In this gentle and gradual process of connecting, a safe space is created for guests to lower their guards. The conditioning of the body that associated the sense of touch, the intimacy and the eroticism with something bad, negative and fearful gets slowly reprogrammed in this experience. After a few minutes or hours of massage, or sometimes only after a few massages one opens up to the healing effects of touch, love, eros and pleasure.
Many people testify after a massage that they feel their heart healed, they are able to have beautiful connections and love-relationships. We recommend guests always to also do a practice at home. This could be a practice of Hatha Yoga, meditations of self-love or exercises of forgiveness. While the duration of the journey is uncertain, it is certain to say that once a person dares to embark on the journey of healing trauma, they will take steps towards a life of greater inner freedom, intimacy and fulfilling connectivity.