Tantric Touch Q&A

From Yogini Annwen, a touch work practitioner in this school:

Tantric Touch Work ~ Q ‘n A

                Client: So what is tantric touch work, exactly?

Annwen: In this Advaita tantra school, we have two ways of working. From the top down –eroticism, in other words working with the mind’s ideas around sex- and from the bottom up: touch work. Touch work supports the person into expanding their capacity to feel: Learning to feel pleasure, trust the body, love the body- learning how to love themselves and then they can be more qualified to love another.So Shakti Malan, for example, is a Dakini. I am a Yogini. A yogini follows the forms of touch work and works within that structure. Dakinis have less use for structure. They will do whatever it takes to get you to awaken…. They have licence to scare the hell out of you to speed up the process. Touch work may be considered a gentler approach, but it is in fact just as challenging for the one who is holding on tightly to that which has protected him/ her, but now imprisons and prevents intimacy. A Dakini may start with this work and then move on to eroticism work. I will leave eroticism up to the Dakinis… for now.

                Client: So, through touch you experience more... emotional feelings?

Annwen: Yes… and through more deep emotional feeling you experience more physical feeling too

                Client: hmm, does not make sense to me, must be an experiential thing.

Annwen: do you know the term body armouring?...
When experiences happen- especially as children- that are too much for us to feel, we put the experience away for later. We develop this armouring in the body (a holding, a tension- an unconscious pattern) to protect us from that feeling.
In Tantra, Now is Later.
Being supported by having someone see this armouring and work with you to soften and dissolve it will release the blocked feeling…which can be tough... especially when we really resist this happening, as we are likely to do because we're scared. And of course then you have to Feel everything you have been resisting all this time.
But, once this kind of congealed holding is softened and dropped, our capacity to feel bliss deepens. Bliss is our birthright.
From the other direction, when you become willing to feel more emotional depth - like, the tricky, sticky, yikky emotions... you will find, surprise, surprise... that your capacity to feel in the body increases too. This has been my most recent learning

                Client: Aaaaah, OK I get that
                So what are the forms of touch work?

Annwen: The three approaches that I am using are Tantra Massage, Chakra Massage and Tantric Balancing.
Tantra Massage involves developing an awareness of sexuality and love beyond our conventional interpretations.
Chakra Massage addresses resistance, numbness, discomfort, repression, trauma and judgement
Tantric balancing supports integration and inner love making of the masculine and feminine

I will make use of these different approaches as I see the need for them arising.