I recently met with an old student who has been working through years of recovery from a very abusive relationship.
We reflected on the hurdles and accomplishments of his healing path, yet there was still something missing.
The biggest stumbling block seemed immovable. No matter how much “healing” in the form of guided experiences into higher states of consciousness through pleasure and arousal, this person was still not able to step out of their “view of doom,” as I call it.
We nearly ended up having an argument around the glass of life being half empty and half full. This person was content to argue all day long about life being a loosing game. No matter how much I tried to explain that how you view life is how life appears, he clung to countless examples of other people’s miseries, like a newspaper reporting bad news, as evidence that life sucks.
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Upon reflection, the irony of this is that our work together paused when he was given homework to masturbate. More than just wack off, this exercise was the tantric approach to masturbation, what we call self-pleasuring. This student was instructed to spend 20-30 minutes gently touching their own body and saying kind things to his self like “I love you.” Things one would say to a lover, you say internally, basically making love to yourself.
The focus was not to get off, but just to enjoy the experience of touching your own body with loving care and erotic stimulation.
This was the biggest stumbling block for my student. He avoided this like the plague, and would come to see me for assistance. Insisting that he needed “help” with his homework. He would loose his sense of misery in my presence, and focused on me, he would be able to find arousal, touch himself, and reach climax even without me touching him.
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To self-pleasure is to express love for your self.
The “exercise” of regular self-pleasuring is a healing act, to bring to the person a sense of appreciation and wonder for the human you are.
This is the integral question for all of us. Who can love you more than yourself?
I realized after our frustrating follow-up that this student did not love himself. Not only did he not love himself, but he didn’t even believe in loving himself. He was so convinced that he was unworthy of love that he would argue for days about his right to not love himself.
“Argue for your limitations and they are yours,” one of my favorite quotes, and I’m not sure who said it, but this case is a classic example.
This person was literally recreating his own wound and refusing all help, even though he was willing to spend money and time meeting with me. Ultimately he did not want to heal.
In the profession of healing, the question of calling yourself a healer can be tricky. Most good “healers” will agree, that we don’t heal people, that people heal themselves, and that we are more guides leading people to the place where they can heal naturally from within.
More than a healer, I am a wayshower, or illuminator, but people don’t really understand this when they are hurting, so the word healer has been often used to describe someone who can help lead you home.
In my view, returning to health is a natural process once unhealthy things are removed from the situation. Toxic relationship patterns, exercise or eating patterns, negative internal views of self, environmental stresses or lack of clean water, air and light, are common interferences with health.
In the past, I worked as a sexual healer helping remove people’s blockages around their views of self. For example an intimate relationship that has broken up can leave someone with a negative view of their self on a deep level. With care, trust, love, time and arousal, we can often reach places most psychologists would consider inaccessible. Not only can we access that space, but we may also re-align or infuse the wounded person with a correct view of their self, based on love. When we remove the blockage, false belief, or the scar of a past relationship, then we allow the pure love to flow through restoring wellness to the person – or what some call healing.
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In the case of the student who was unwilling to love themselves, unwilling to experience themselves and unwilling to believe themselves lovable or deserving of love, I would call this situation hopeless … because love is the answer.
There are countless examples of babies denied love during development and how they suffer from this. Most every major religion and spiritual path points to love as the key to healing, happiness and human relating. Ultimately, God is love.
To know love as yourself – is to know God as your essence, you are part of divine creation. On the other hand, to block this is to block your life force, on a subtle or gross level, it’s a blockage of the most fundamental energy of life.
While tantra is easy in many ways, it does require certain perspectives. Once you have the perspective, then life becomes a dance of increasing wonder, pleasure and joy.
There are several key components to this perspective, and one is love.
For example in one of the most basic tantric practices, eye gazing, self-love is the basis of this entire exercise.
When we look at another person in eye gazing or any tantric “practice” we are seeing the light of God, or love, in the other that is the light of love within.
The practice of eye gazing is about sitting in full contentment with the person we look at and see the mutual beauty within; thus we feel love for the other and the self, at the same time.
The effects of this practice are very “healing,” they are uplifting, soothing, awakening, gentle, kind and often arousing. We are aroused and awakened, by the power of love.
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So love is the answer, the beginning and the end.
Without love, there is nothing,
all the healing practices in the world will not suffice,
if at heart the person is resisting love.
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Sometimes people resisting love, have adapted to focus on others, almost as a way to avoiding loving themselves.
Sometimes self-haters can get caught up in serving and loving others, as a way to give love and flow in love and received the love vibration, but ultimately for there to be wholeness, we must be able to give and receive self-love.
Sometimes people are stuck because they have not received enough love to understand how to love themselves. These folks can benefit from loving relationships to help them remember the love that we all deserve. Ultimately they must open up and receive …. Love is our birthright.
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While it seems so simple, it can be viewed as a modern epidemic. People walk around every day lacking in love and believing that there is not enough, or that they don’t deserve love.
The answer is love, love yourself, love each other, love each other as yourself, as all the great saints have done and said, love yourself like your dog loves you, like the greatest examples of love have loved, love with all your heart and you will be fulfilled.
Peace be with you.