***Healing Early Trauma & Sexual Abuse with Tantra

When we create life in a Tantric space of merging – with connected, loving, expanded lovemaking - we can conceive a baby that feels loved even in the womb. Goddess, in her infinite wisdom, decided to join pleasure and creation together. When two people, joined in love, move and expand their sexual energy until all the cells of their body vibrate with a powerful mixture of sex and spirit, they can reach the highest level of ecstasy.

When your body is full of love you can empower your intention to give birth to a baby. Tantra suggests that you visualize the strongest sperm of the man succeeding in its glorious journey to unite with the Ovum of the woman to conceive a wonderful spiritual/sexual being. If gratitude for the miracle of creation is added to the mix, that baby will be conceived with an even higher vibration, and from this point onward he/she will have a cellular structure that is capable of knowing love and gratitude.

Sadly, however, not all babies were consciously created. You yourself might have been a product of an accident; an ejaculation that happened too soon, or as a result of sex that wasn't connected and loving. Perhaps you were not really wanted – maybe your parents were not ready to conceive, and yet did. In the womb, you absorbed the pain or confusion your mother felt, and this has, on some level -usually subconscious- been in your body and will later affect your attitude to sex and your ability to be intimate.

The first breath as you come out of the womb might have been taken in fear - giving birth can be a painful and fearful time for many mothers. As a baby you are very susceptible to the environment you come into and how you are treated. If you are not being taken care of and nurtured the way this little bundle of spirit and flesh deserves to be, this can be deeply wounding. Later in life, this wound may influence your ability to trust that you are loved and protected. If you cannot trust, your emotional growth can be stunted.

If sexually unhealthy adults touch you inappropriately as a toddler or child your body can go into shock, while at the same time absorbing the shame and guilt of your abuser. (As a child, you are too small to deal with grown-up sexuality.) A healthy child has no shame. Healthy children feel good to be alive and to experiment with their own body and their environment without judgment.

Inappropriate sexual touching of a child can be painful, shameful and pleasurable at the same time, which can create confusion around sex. Pleasure, guilt and shame merge together to create the first unhealthy marriage within your psyche. The most efficient way to restore the innocence of sex in a person whose boundaries were not respected growing up is through Tantric healing. Tantra gives us the most powerful tools to free you from the burden of guilt and shame.

Tantra suggests that pleasure is good and that sex is an innocent energy that wants to be expressed by consenting people. Obviously a child does not have the ability to make those choices.

When you are abused sexually - that means used in some way to satisfy the lust of someone else without your consent - you feel powerless. I am not going to list here the myriad wounds that can occur from sexual abuse. The bottom line is that both the perpetrator and the victim separate sex from love.

Sometimes, issues or wounding around sex are a result of shame or guilt that you have inherited from family of origin or absorbed by culture. Whatever the wounding is, Tantra can help you free yourself to be the men and women you came to this life to express.

By talking with a psychotherapist about past abuse, we can overcome our intellectual blocks toward sex and enjoyment, but it is through body-centered modalities like Tantra that we can integrate this learning into the body, freeing ourselves, and our cells, from shame and fear. A helpful analogy: For intellectual understanding - You can get over a fear of flying by analyzing the origins of the fear, but for bodily integration, it may be necessary to get on a plane with someone who can hold safe space for you, and physically move through the fear.

The Tantric therapeutic approach to healing is powerful because it goes beyond acknowledging and talking about the abuse and/or the internalized shame. Children who were abused at a pre-verbal age cannot even verbalize what happened. When clients come to me I create a Tantric environment of safety, warmth, beauty, acceptance and nurturing. This, together with the Ocean Breath, cuts through the mental noise that keeps you from feeling your uncomfortable internal climate. Within a few minutes you will feel comfortable enough to tune into yourself and really feel what is happening in your body: what emotions are stirring you, and where you may have blocks that impede the free flow of energy.

We would connect softly through soul gazing until you feel accepted unconditionally so you can trust to be yourself with me. Trust is the absolute prerequisite to any kind of healing. In this safe space I will offer the basic keys of Tantra and you can easily feel the power of these teachings and how they are natural.

If there are blocks in the energy system, with your permission we will explore together any past traumas that may be preventing you from fully accessing your vibrant sensual, sexual nature. I observe the way you breathe, the way you look at me or avoid looking at me, the way your body moves, the way you change your tone of voice. I’ll wait for you to invite me into your psyche to see what is the best way to help you access the memory if necessary and to start the healing process.

Sometimes it is not necessary to access the memory. Many clients can free themselves from old wounds just by feeling and melting the blocks. They are ready to move on and receive the fulfillment in life they have always longed for. All they needed was a safe and nurturing place and person they could trust to guide them through their healing.

When sex and spirit feel united, there emerges a new you: a healthy being that can bring light and harmony to yourself and others around you. Everything is Spirit, even our bodies. The body is really just a ‘slower moving Spirit’. Our sexuality mixed with our spirituality is at the core of our being: they are inseparable on a body level. They are only separate from the ego’s point of view.

Kundulini energy, your psycho-spiritual energy, (or Shakti) is usually coiled at the base of the spine. When Tantric techniques clear the chakras the Kundulini can move upward along the spinal column to heal and nourish the whole body before meeting Pure Consciousness (or Shiva) at the crown chakra. When Shiva and Shakti merge, you enter an incredibly pleasurable space beyond the ego separation and beyond time. Tantra gives us the tools necessary to reach this high place of ecstasy and merging, having freed our bodies from old trauma and pain. This is an enlightened space.

© Carla Tara 2009