muscular tightness in your body. Let your back settle into the floor. Let your shoulders release downwards into the floor, and focus your attention on allowing the holding in your neck to melt away. Release any tension in the small of your back. Imagine that your breathing releases any backache and heals any pain in your body. Let the soles of your feet sink into the earth.
Now concentrate on widening your body. Let your hips spread out over the floor, taking up more space.
Every time you breathe, mentally encourage every cell within your body to expand. Send your breath down to the bottom of your ribcage, letting your chest expand more with each breath. Release any sense of holding or constriction, leaving more space for your heart to fill your chest. Let your shoulders spread out and take up more space. Let the healing energy of your breath dissolve muscular tension, stress and worry. Your healing breath can relieve tension and liberate your mind.
As you breathe, close your eyes and visualize your inner self; deeply relax and allow this sense of you to be free to find its own state of rest.
If your mind is distracted and busy, try to turn your eyes upwards. This reduces brain activity and promotes deep relaxation. Our bodies do this naturally when we sleep. You can also try this eye-turning technique during meditation or lovemaking, to still your mind if thoughts distract you.
Relax and chant
This exercise helps you relax deeply, using your voice to deepen your relaxation. The techniques here incorporate sound, so that your body sings as tension is released. The sound ‘Om’ expands your energy-body, or subtle inner energy and brings peace, clarity and bliss.
Make yourself totally comfortable on a duvet or blanket folded on the floor, lying flat on your back with your arms by your sides. It helps if you focus on the heaviness of your body, letting the weight of it drop into the floor.
When you feel relaxed, observe the rise and fall of your abdomen as you breathe in and out. Notice how your breathing slows down as you observe it.
Allow your breathing to fall into a calm, easy rhythm. Let any muscular tension in your ribcage and abdomen melt away as each breath is expelled.
Relax all the parts of your body, slowly moving from the tips of your toes, through your ankles, calves, knees and thighs. With each breath direct your awareness to that area of your body, allowing yourself to relax more deeply with each out-breath.
Focus your attention on your buttocks, relaxing them on the out-breath, and let your pelvis sink deeply into the floor. As you relax your pelvis and abdomen, say a long, drawn-out ‘Ah’. Do this for several deeply relaxing exhalations. As you make the sound of ‘Ah’, let the vibrations from your chest spread through your pelvis to the rest of your body and down your legs. ‘Ah’ is a sound of openness – open yourself with every vocalization.
When your lower body feels relaxed and energized, move your attention to your fingertips. Spend a few breaths relaxing your fingertips before moving through your hands, wrists, forearms, upper arms and shoulders. Allow your shoulders to relax more deeply with every out-breath, and let your spine sink into the duvet or blanket underneath.
As you focus on your upper chest, draw your breath into the area of your heart. As you release the breath, release an audible ‘Oh’ sound, letting the sound vibrations travel through your torso and down your arms.
After several minutes breathing and chanting ‘Oh’, relax your neck, jaw and face. Spend the next few breaths relaxing your facial muscles, moving upwards towards the temples and to the top of your head. As you exhale, hum ‘Mm’, and allow the vibrations to resonate through your whole head. Do this for a few minutes.
Now focus on your whole body fully relaxing. Combine the sounds ‘Ah’, ‘Oh’ and ‘Mm’ into the Sanskrit word for the sound of the universe: Om. As you exhale, chant ‘Om’, and let the vibrations spread throughout your whole body. Lie in a deep state of relaxation. Imagine every out-breath emanating from your vibrating body and into the endless space around you. Find repose and refreshment as you rest in this tranquil spaciousness.
Bring in the sun
The sun is a traditional Tantric symbol for the belly. In this exercise, you energize your belly through visualizing the warmth of the sun. This helps to release tension around the pelvis, freeing up your sexual energy.
Unfortunately, Western culture regards flat bellies as a sign of sexiness; however, in Tantra this muscular tightness is interpreted as a sign of sexual defence. Muscular tension is also a sign of stress – holding negative feelings in the area of your navel blocks the flow of energy through your body, producing further emotional and sexual disharmony. When your belly is hard and armoured as a result of anger or fear, it prevents your body from responding freely to the fire of your sexual passion, which also blocks the connection between your sexual desire and your loving emotions.
You can also benefit from this visualization exercise if your belly is loose and flabby, which in Tantra is a symptom of neglect of your vital and sexual energy. By imagining that you are absorbing sustenance from the sun, you refuel with energy. In allowing the energy to fill you up, you encourage your belly to charge your life force, a resource for your whole body.
To begin, stretch out on the floor with your knees up, relaxing your spine as described in the Total relaxation exercise above.
Become aware of your breathing. Breathe in and out of your mouth for some minutes, then relax and let your breath breathe itself.
Now focus on slowing down your breathing, and let each breath sink into your belly. Let your belly soften. Allow your belly to rise with every inhalation, and fall with every exhalation. Keep breathing into your belly until you lose track of time. Become your breathing.
After a while, draw down your breath from your lungs into your abdomen. At the end of every inhalation, briefly pause, holding your breath, and visualize an imaginary sun resting in your belly. As you continue to draw in the rays of the sun, let your belly absorb its light and heat, and allow your abdominal muscles to soften. Encourage the sun’s warmth to spread throughout your body and limbs. Your whole being feels languid and completely relaxed, just as it does when you are sunbathing. Luxuriate in the goodness of the sun.
Heal your body
Many of us have stress patterns in our bodies as a result of old injuries, shock and illness. However, day-to-day pressures also imprint stress in our tissues. This creates a pattern of stress that means we habitually react to challenges in a harmful way; our stress causes energy to become constricted in the body, which in turn creates physical tension and pain. Chronic tension produces common problems such as headaches, insomnia, anxiety and irritability. Tension can lead to a host of other problems, which may often prove unresponsive to medication.
Some couples use sex as a way of releasing tension, but this is a waste of the potential riches that good love-making can bring you. Conversely, too much stress may put you off sex all together. If you are carrying tension in your body, you need to release it before sex rather than during sex. You can’t hope to access sexual bliss if you are using sex to deal with the build-up of stress in your system. If you’re relaxed, balanced and harmonized before making love, you will get so much more out of the experience. Below are two Tantric techniques to get you started – the Healing breath exercise below,
