Imagine that light is flooding every tissue of your body, throwing a spotlight on any darkness, tension or pain. See this healing light fill your shoulders, head and spine, your heart, chest and pelvis. Let the clarity of the light rest on any tension. As you breathe out, release this holding pattern of energy.
Encourage the light to become more intense throughout your body, and feel it hum with vitality as your body is radiated. Let the light illuminate every cell and pore.
Visualize the light pouring through you, like a pure, fresh rain drenching you, washing your body from your toes up to your head.
Spend several minutes resting in the luminosity as your body fills with light. Let the light dissolve any shadows within. You are clear as a crystal, full of light yet opaque. You are made entirely of light. Imagine that everything in the universe is composed of light, and that light surrounds you everywhere.
Get supple
Look after your body’s primary needs. Your body needs to move, to stretch and work out. For good sex it helps if you are supple, limber and fit – but you don’t need to become obsessed about working out in the gym in order to achieve this. The simplest way to improve your energy is to become more physically active. If you’re chronically tired, remember that expending energy usually gives you more energy. Any exercise that you enjoy will boost your metabolism and improve your natural energy.
Pilates is superb, because it combines working the muscles of the pelvic floor with stretches and breathing; in Tantra, it is essential to work on your breathing and improve your pelvic floor muscles to enhance your ability to feel erotic pleasure during sex. Yoga is a beautifully balanced combination of stretching, breathing, relaxation and inner focus.
You will also benefit from the tension release that regular exercise brings. The upper body, the small of the back and the pelvis are common tension sites, so these areas will respond well to stretches. Swimming improves your lung capacity and releases tension around the upper body. You can also free up your pelvis with oriental belly dancing, or Latin dance such as salsa. These styles of dance are great for making you feel sexually confident, playful and flirtatious. Remember that Tantric sex is about relaxing into your sensuality and your erotic relationship. To achieve this, you need to deal with the tension in your body before lovemaking, rather than rely on your partner to give you release through orgasm. Your partner is probably just as stressed as you are.
Exercise should be a pleasure rather than a chore; listen to your body and take note of what you enjoy, rather than forcing yourself to work out for the sake of it. It is important to think about what your body responds to, and decide what you can do to feel enlivened. If you decide to devise your own workout, start with gentle stretches, but remember to breathe deeply as you stretch. Deep breathing nourishes your body with oxygen. This cleanses and detoxifies your muscles, helping them relax and preventing injury.
Dancing for sexual energy
Dance styles such as tango have long been described as akin to horizontal sex. In this exercise, you treat yourself and your partner to a session of sensual dancing at home. Without anyone watching you, you can forget your mutual inhibitions and enjoy the mutual buzz of dancing together. Dancing lessens your self-consciousness because the music encourages you to respond instinctively. If you find this fun, enjoy a regular dance session in which you play all your favourite music.
With your lover, take turns playing music you love, sometimes dancing for their delectation while they watch, sometimes dancing together.
As you get absorbed in the dance, abandon yourself to expressing the music through your body. Free yourself. Don’t think about what you are doing or how you look. Let the music dance you.
Explore the various dynamics between you, sometimes creatively sparking off each other, harmonizing, complementing, finding your own space, melting together.
Explore different rhythms – staccato, lyrical or wild. Try periods of stillness when it feels appropriate, when you just stop and sense your being vibrating with the rhythm of your dancing and the grace of your movements.
Eating for energy and sensuality
Self-nourishment is a primary need – food is literally used to nurture. If you’ve withheld food from yourself you may wish to relearn how to feed yourself with abundant good food. Your body needs healthy foods: a basic nutritious diet includes whole grains, legumes, pulses, lean meat, fish, and plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables to feed your body with essential vitamins and minerals. A nutritious diet and regular meals also promote a sustained release of energy throughout the day. This helps avoid the blood-sugar highs and lows that can lead to cravings for carbohydrates and foods high in fat and sugar that are so common in our fast-food culture.
Tantra is not an ascetic path that recommends self-denial in any way. Indian practitioners used alcohol and cannabis as part of their rites, as well as meat and fish, which are normally prohibited for Hindus. It’s not what you eat that has erotic potential, but how you eat it. As a path of sensual pleasure, Tantra emphasizes the natural sensuality of preparing and eating good food. Eating is also a ritual celebration of togetherness, which is communally expressed at mealtimes in Mediterranean and Eastern cultures. You can make any small meal into an occasion for expressing your love.
Sexiness is about paying attention to what your lover enjoys eating, and taking time and care in its purchase and preparation. Don’t forget the table setting, with candles and flowers, and do dress (or undress) for dinner.
Choose ingredients that stimulate your palate, balancing tastes so that different flavours complement each other. Consider the texture and visual qualities of the food, as well as the taste.
Serve your partner in an attentive manner, making sure that everything needed is available. There’s nothing sexier than an ardent waiter offering you tasty titbits.
If you want to use food as part of your lovemaking, a fun idea is to prepare soft foods that can be eaten off your lover’s body – avocados, bananas, strawberries and mangoes have the ideal consistency. Chocolate has aphrodisiac properties and can be melted, painted on and then licked off.
The yoga of tantra
Yoga postures encourage the release of any tension held around the hips, pelvis and shoulders. Yoga was used by Indian Tantrics to develop physical suppleness and breath control. The art of yoga is centred on your breathing, and your energy is centred, or grounded, down in your sacrum. Yogic breathing builds your energy in your pelvis and then directs it from your hips and upwards through your body.
Warm up
These warm-up exercises stretch and loosen the hips, pelvis and inner thighs. Begin by sitting comfortably on the floor with your legs crossed loosely and your back straight.
Concentrate on your breathing, directing your inbreaths into your abdomen. As you inhale through your mouth, relax your jaw. Relax your throat and open your lungs as the air moves down. Release your ribcage so that your lungs can open fully. Relax the muscles under your ribcage, opening the diaphragm and letting the air fill your belly. Keep your belly soft and relaxed.
As you breathe, release your lower back. Do this by moving your waist from side to side, letting the rhythm move upwards so that your upper back, shoulders and neck are gently undulating. Let your back uncoil, and keep moving your shoulders from side to side to release tension. Let your neck join in. Once your back feels more flexible, spend a little time releasing your neck. If you don’t suffer from neck pain, you can roll your head around