Let’s leave sexuality out of the picture, in general do you like being touched? This might not be a question you’ve asked yourself but definitely a worth while question when it comes to understanding how aware and confident you are in your body and with your physical boundaries. Perhaps you enjoy touch and so it’s a question you’ve never had to contend with. Perhaps you don’t enjoy physical touch in general but you’ve always had healthy boundaries. Perhaps you enjoy touch but don’t enjoy touching or vice versa.
Some people don’t mind being touched as long as it’s not by a stranger for example. I’m sure you’ve all heard at least one or two people in your life say they don’t like going for treatments such as massage therapy because they don’t like being touched by strangers. I’ve come across this frequently in conversation over the years, particularly because I studied massage therapy a decade ago and this highlighted the benefits of touch and how a lack of physical touch can lead to all sorts of mental and emotional stress.
There are many reasons why we should ask ourselves this question, most importantly to establish ways of reintegrating healthy touch into our lives if it’s non-existent, especially if we’re someone who fears it or has rejected it all together. There’s no better medicine than healthy touch. It’s therapeutic on all levels, mind, body & soul. I think the biggest problem we face when trying to integrate healthy touch is understanding the difference between heart based touch and a sexually charged touch. You might be able to separate those two very different types of energy when it comes to physical affection with family vs physical affection with a spouse or lover but are you able to clearly distinguish the difference in all physical interactions?
Tantra teaches us the difference between these types of energy and from what I understand it’s not black and white, sexual or non-sexual, there are different degrees, just like a sliding scale. During touch we exchange life force, if the life force is shared through the heart chakra it can be non sexual unless the second charka (sexual) energy centre is also being activated. When it’s not filtered through the heart first it is can be felt as raw primal sexual energy. Sometimes we are sharing non sexual life force from the heart but receive sexual life force in return or vice versa. A typical example could be at work where you are in physical contact with other people. You might notice that in some instances you sense a sexual charge from someone you’re touching and realize it’s because you’re attracted to them or you feel a sexual charge from the other even if you’re not attracted to that person.
We are constantly navigating and negotiating through energy exchanges, learning about what kind of energy we are sharing with others and what kind of energy they are sharing with us, it’s a practice of awareness. Sometimes we are sharing very consciously and other times we share unconsciously which causes some unexpected situations to arise. Some might receive sexually charged energy during an exchange when they’re only offering heart based energy and not feel bothered in the least by it, while others will become completely offended.
What I’m learning as I explore this topic and the different qualities of energy that I encounter is that we are only as comfortable in navigating through the various types of life force energies offered as we are at trusting ourselves to know and enforce our own energetic boundaries. So for example, if every time you go to that monthly gathering and hug that one person who’s exchange of energy makes you feel uncomfortable but you never stop hugging them non-the-less because you don’t want to be impolite or break social etiquette, than you’re not respecting your personal boundaries and won’t trust yourself to do so in the future. We first have to acknowledge when we don’t feel safe or comfortable and second we have to honour that through respecting our boundaries. This gives us permission to expand our energy further out into the world.
Some of the benefits of touch are, taken from here. “It reduces social anxiety and stress. Physical touch increases levels of dopamine and serotonin, two neurotransmitters that help regulate your mood as well as help your body relieve stress and anxiety. Dopamine is also known to regulate the pleasure center in your brain that is a good counter to feelings of anxiety.” It’s obvious that we need touch to maintain healthy lives but many of our societies are set up to either receive touch only during sex or only with family, if they’re lucky enough to have an affectionate family whom they are close to. So where do we go from here?
My family gives me tons of affection but I don’t particularly like to be touched by male strangers, so I’ve recently been exploring my personal boundaries with touch to heighten my awareness, increase my level of comfort, learn to differentiate the types of energy I might share unconsciously and how to honour my boundaries in a healthy way. Montreal is such an awesome city in the sense that you can find such a variety of events and activities to participate in and so recently I was invited to an event that focuses specifically on all the things I was wishing to explore. I’ve taken some tantra workshops but this event was not instructional, simply experiential with an intention to explore in a healthy way both touch and personal boundaries. Anyone working as a therapist that deals with touch should participate in one of these in the least and at best take some form of tantra training, don’t you agree?
If people were to start exploring they would increase their awareness of the different types of energy they can share and exchange to truly begin to differentiate the difference between heart based life force and sexual life force, creating less fear of our own sexual energy while learning how to detect it in others. We know that repressing sexual energy has many negative effects and leads to all sorts of sexual dysfunction both within a person and within society as a whole. We know that when a person both denies and represses their sexual energy it usually ends up being shared in ways that are unhealthy and diminishes their creative forces and capacity to be innovative. We want to bring the light of acceptance into the darkness of sexual taboos so as to create a healthy way for them to exist within society while simultaneously educating our children to have a healthy awareness of heart based energy vs sexual energy. We especially want to give them the confidence to express their personal boundaries. I can only imagine what an impact it would have on society as a whole if we were to bring such types of education into our schools. We only learn so much from lectures and books, experiential classes are way more effective but currently so far off the radar to be a part of an acceptable curriculum.
Our life force is what enlivens the very body we inhabit, we can not reject it nor can we not assume responsibility for it. It is the precursor to everything, it contains the energetic imprints of our destiny as well as our self-generated intentions. We are inextricably bound to it and thus we must learn the finite business of it.
This is a brief description of the event I went to that left me with a feeling of greater self-trust, inner peace, confidence and self-worth:
A sacred circle is formed, everyone shares in a short meditation together to connect with their centre and the group as a whole. An exercise to move into the body is offered, each person shares their name and why they are there. Anyone is allowed to leave at any moment, you’re actually very much encouraged though out the whole event to honour yourself and leave if you feel the desire to do so. The guidelines of the event are then shared which everyone has to follow if they wish to participate. Everyone stays completely dressed, all touch is heart-based respecting off limit areas of the body. Each person is required to offer verbally how they wish to touch or be touched and then each person in response is required to either accept or refuse the offering verbally. If touch is refused you are required to reply with, “thank you for honouring yourself”, and then the person is allowed to negotiate the offering if they so wish. The touch offerings vary from simply holding someones hand to giving them a massage, intuitive move your body with theirs or lying down next to them, full body contact. Participants are asked to be aware if sexual energy has been sparked and if so to stop, move away for a moment and come back when the life force is heart centred again. Participation is not required, you can simply practice saying no during the whole event. The event ends in sacred circle and each person is given a moment to share something if they wish.
It was such a healing experience to which the health benefits I felt for days, highly recommended!
Blasting Love!
Image Sources
Cover
Alex Grey Art
Boundaries
Hands