Mar 21, 2018
Get the Most Out of Your Tantric Session
Perhaps you are thinking about getting a tantric massage (or a yoni massage, or a lingam massage, or a sacred spot massage, or a tantric healing session, or a sexological bodywork session, or even just a sensual massage). Maybe you already have your session planned. The difference between a good time and a powerful, life-changing session is not just a matter of finding an amazing practitioner—it is also a matter of taking your experience into your own hands. You don’t have to follow all (or any) of the suggestions I offer here, but my experience as a practitioner has shown me that these are the truly pivotal things you can do to get the most out of your experience.
Note: this piece is a companion to Tantric Bill of Rights and How to Find a Tantric Healer.
1. Know what you want… and what you don’t
When you first speak to your practitioner, the more clarity you have around what it is that brings you to the experience, the better your experience is likely to be. There is a phrase in architecture: “A good client makes a good architect.” This is just as true in somatic work.
Offering clarity helps the practitioner design exactly the right session and deliver exactly the right experience to match your intentions.
Perhaps you are just curious as to what the fuss is about; perhaps a friend told you about her amazing experience; perhaps you have only a vague sense that something is missing in your life. These are all perfectly valid reasons to seek out a tantric practitioner.
But even so, spend a little time thinking about what you are most curious about, or what your friend said that really spoke to you, or what that vague sense feels like in your body and when it occurs. The more information you can bring in the door with you, the better your experience will be.
Similarly, knowing what you don’t want, or are not ready for, is an essential preparatory task so that you can offer your practitioner excellent boundaries.
This may be as simple as: “Please don’t tickle my feet, even by accident.”
It could be something far more important like: “I am not ready for any internal touch.”
Or… maybe you just don’t want oil in your hair.
No tantric practitioner should be surprised or concerned by any request.
Whatever it is that you want and don’t want… give yourself some time to prepare your thoughts around this.
2. Know your practitioner
Get a good sense of your practitioner by any means available. If she has a web site, make sure to give it a thorough exploration. Not just the photos (although spend some time getting a sense of her face, and her eyes), but also any background information she provides, and especially any guidance she offers for the etiquette she prefers.
Follow links the practitioner may provide: whether it’s to articles, schools of training, or other resources. If she took the time to create the link, it’s good insight into what is important and relevant to this practitioner.
Allow yourself to feel into the sense of the person this investigation reveals.
In particular, you may want to match this to your intentions. If you are looking to deal with trauma, does this person seem to have the training, strength, and compassion you will require? If you are looking for an outstanding sensual experience, does this person seem to have the credentials and credibility for that offering?
Most importantly, avail yourself of a free consultation, which should be available in some form or another, even if it’s just a phone call. Write down any questions or concerns you might have ahead of time so that you don’t forget to raise them during the conversation.
3. Prepare yourself
The day before your session, get your normal amount of sleep or a little more if you can. It is ideal to arrive rested, or as rested as possible. Even if you have difficulties with sleep, whatever you can do to arrive more rested rather than less will help make your session better.
Also, hydrate. Of course, this is something we should always be attentive to, but an appropriate amount of hydration improves our body’s functionality in many ways. The trick to proper hydration before a tantric session is to drink a bit more water than usual the day before, a normal amount the day of, and not to gulp down a half gallon right before — because the other thing you don’t want is an urgent need to pee every ten minutes during your session!
A third aspect of preparing yourself is preparing your schedule. You will not want to be doing anything particularly intense afterwards. Even if you are just giving yourself a birthday treat, it will be to your advantage not to schedule your session right before going clubbing with your friends. Similarly, if at all possible, don’t do something super stressful right before your session. Coming straight into a session from arguing with your partner is going to have an impact. Sure, a tantric practitioner is a great person to help you process a deeply emotional experience, but quite honestly, you would be missing the true power of somatic work if you are using it to treat day-to-day stress.
Finally, let the logistics of getting to your session and getting home from your session be as low-stress as possible. This is a great time to call a cab or similar service: let someone else navigate traffic.
4. Make your intentions — and boundaries — clear
If you did the work of getting clear within yourself on what it is that you want, make sure you communicate that to your practitioner!
Most practitioners will explicitly ask about your intentions in each and every session. But even if that’s not part of your practitioner’s process, find a way to communicate what the desires are that have brought you to the experience.
One of the advantages of having gotten clear on your own intentions is a better chance of communicating them clearly to your practitioner.
An important distinction to make is between goals and intentions. Goals are outcomes. “I want to have the best orgasm of my life!” That’s a beautiful desire, but it’s a goal. Setting goals for your session is counter-productive. A skilled practitioner will redirect you from goals: one of the most important techniques in tantra and other conscious-touch experiences is coming into the present moment and letting go of outcomes entirely. I always tell a newcomer: “Orgasms are never the point. They are beautiful when and if they happen, but it’s not what we are striving to achieve.” Instead, a comparable intention would be: “to stay present with pleasure and be open to new discoveries within my body.”
Just as you prepared yourself with clarity around your desires, you also prepared yourself around your boundaries. If a practitioner does not clarify boundaries with you, that is a strong sign that the practitioner is not the mature professional you might want. But even so, you can still claim your strength and communicate your boundaries. Naming your boundaries is a strong act of self-protection, and once you feel that your boundaries are respected and honored, you will be able to experience the true liberation that comes from a place of safety.
5. Stay present
Many practitioners will offer you verbal and somatic guidance to help you stay present throughout a session. By “stay present” I mean: keeping your alert, conscious attention actively observing your bodily experience. Not lost in thought, not asleep, not “blissed out.”
(Personally, when I receive a normal massage—or an energy healing session—I tend to go to a place that’s not quite sleep, but neither is it normal wakefulness. Nor is it trauma-induced dissociation. So I call it blissing out, and it’s lovely, and it’s absolutely not what I want to do when receiving a tantric session!)
Keeping awareness and attention in the body and really listening to the nuances of touch that your body can experience is a central key to having the most powerful experience possible.
6. Breathe
One very particular area to return your attention to from time to time is breath.
Breath is perhaps the single most significant factor in transforming our experiences from the ordinary pleasure of sensual touch to the deeply profound experiences possible through tantric and other conscious touch.
By returning attention and awareness to breath — breathing consciously and deeply — throughout your session, in accordance with the guidance of your practitioner or on your own, you will substantially intensify your experience.
7. Pay attention to sensation
This may seem like an elaboration on “stay present” — and it is.
If you can begin your session by alternating between paying attention to breath, and paying attention to the many physical sensations your body is offering you, you can transform your session into something profound even if your practitioner is not offering strong guidance on these elements.
One of the truly beautiful moments is when you start to be able to be completely conscious to both touch and breath at the same time! Mystical things start to happen when you can be this present.
8. Push your edges
So: you named your boundaries. Now —allow yourself to push right up against them!
This is most true for those internal hesitations, uncertainties, inhibitions, and shames, but it is also true for exploring the edges of the named boundaries.
For example, many people have some inhibition about making sound during pleasure. When you first began to explore your body and self-pleasure, it is likely that you did so in silence, not wanting your parents to hear what you were up to. Sexually repressed cultures and sub-cultures are notorious for requiring sex to be a silent activity. If this describes you, prepare yourself to try to make as much noise as you can, even if that is a tiny, breathy little sound. It’s a start.
Especially if your practitioner gives you guidance that feels awkward or makes you self-conscious, go there! Pushing the edges of your comfort zone is how you expand your pleasure zone.
More seriously, sometimes the hardest, scariest places you can go are the places where the trauma needs you to be in order to really release.
That said, there is a fine line between pushing your edge and crossing your boundaries. If you imagine your boundaries as a baseball field, you might find that you are really only comfortable in the infield; that the outfield is too open and vast; and that the warning track is a truly terrifying place—all within the boundaries!
A skilled practitioner will take you out of the infield, and as close to the warning track as you are ready to go. A terrible practitioner will take you off the field entirely.
A practitioner might invite you to push your edges, but will never intentionally cross your boundaries.
Nonetheless, it is up to you to ascertain your comfort level, to allow yourself to move into discomfort, and to honor your own intuition and stop yourself when you feel you are in or heading towards a place you are not ready for—regardless of what the named boundaries are.
Some of the biggest change happens when you get off the usual path that you already know so well. But a true victory is standing up for yourself when you know you things are not in the right place for you.
We want our practitioners to be miracle workers, to know every inner state and every thought, every fear and every anxiety. And very often, the good ones are. But even the good ones are not perfect. Your best session is in your own hands!
9. Listen to your practitioner
This may seem obvious, but you are investing in this person to help you. Give real weight to the guidance your practitioner offers: before, during, and after the session.
10. Ask questions
An experiential session is not a conversation. When we find ourselves getting chatty, there’s a good chance we are avoiding something deeper.
That said, the time to ask a question is when it occurs.
Certainly, make sure any questions or concerns you have are addressed prior to the beginning of a session.
Within the session itself, you can give voice to any questions that arise and your practitioner may give you a very concise answer, or may suggest that she will wait until afterwards to provide an answer. Either way, you have honored your question and, more importantly, it is no longer your responsibility to remember to ask it later!
Many people will have questions immediately after a session; and sometimes the questions don’t arise until hours or days later, or until other experiences have provided some context. Don’t be afraid to reach out to your practitioner at any time with your questions.
11. Get homework
One question that is always beneficial is: “What can I do at home to deepen this experience.” Some practitioners are very careful to assign homework for every session. Others, such as myself, only offer homework when there is something crystal clear that invites at-home work… or when a student asks for it!
So: ask for it.
12. Get feedback
Another question that is good to ask at the end of a session is: “Did you have any insights or observations that might be helpful to me?”
Many practitioners don’t want to overload you with a lot of information right after a session, and may themselves still be grounding themselves after an intense experience.
Nonetheless, this is a good time to get any important or relevant feedback from the practitioner: while it is still fully alive in their awareness. If it doesn’t seem like the practitioner is going to volunteer her own perceptions, feel free to invite them. There may be wisdom there neither of you expect!
13. Practice after-care
I have already mentioned that it is important to give yourself some spaciousness after your session, so the first and most important way to take care of yourself is to get yourself to a quiet place where you can reflect, nap, or otherwise continue the nourishing process after your session.
You hydrated beforehand… keep up the good work and keep yourself replenished with water and healthy, uncomplicated food afterwards.
Allow yourself to sleep a little more if you feel you need it.
In any other ways that are customary or natural for you, allow yourself to make healthy, uplifting choices for some time after your session. The more you allow the session to be a turning point for you, the more it will turn out to be exactly that!
14. Do your homework
This may seem obvious, and yet it is the number one difference between people who find tantric healing to be a powerful, life-changing experience, and people who find it to be a pleasurable addition to their life path.
If your practitioner invites you to chant 1000 mantras a day for the next two weeks… try it! Even if you think he is crazy!
In fact, once we find ourselves back in our ordinary life—once the experiences of the session fade—the homework you invited or received may seem like just one more silly obligation in an overcrowded day.
But (especially if you feel called to a series of sessions or ongoing work with your practitioner) truly investing your serious and diligent effort in the process will accelerate and intensify your progress.
15. Pay attention to your dreams
Energy work in general, and the combination of energy and somatic work inherent in tantric healing in particular, tend to stir up dreams.
These may or may not be important or relevant to the intentions you brought to the session… but often there’s something there.
If you are not already keeping a dream journal or dream log of some sort, this can be a good time to start one. Surprising wisdom and personal insight can come from dreams. (And so can all kinds of crazy utterly incoherent dream stories!)
A good way to really make use of this part of our human experience is to invite dream before going to bed, and immediately on waking, to jot down just a sentence or two that evokes the central image of your dream. Returning to this image later will call to life the whole of the dream, if it turns out you need to do that. But once it’s gone… as you probably already know… most of the time it’s gone!
Paying attention to your dreams both enriches your future dream life, but also helps liberate some of the more powerful benefits and insights that the somatic work initiates.
16. Review your session after 2–3 days
Finally, give yourself a couple of days before revisiting the whole of your experience. You might want to journal it after this time, or write an email to the practitioner articulating any insights, questions, or future directions you want to take, or you might just want to write a friend.
Whatever it is for you, give yourself an opportunity to revisit the whole of your session after two to three days to allow the subconscious work to bear more fruit and offer more direction and raise questions for further exploration.
If nothing else, I encourage you to take charge of your own healing, and your own exploration process.
When we become active participants in the work of freeing ourself from all our limitations and awakening to the full possibilities of our existence, everything about our life becomes richer and more powerful.
A tantric session has the potential to be one of the richest and most powerful experiences our body, mind, heart, energy body, and spiritual essence can experience: but until we actively engage with the session and bring our determination to get the most out of it, we will, as they say, be leaving something on the table.
