Anger and Power Tantric Style

AASECT again!
There is so much here but much of it just doesn’t fit the model of Sacred Sexuality and Tantric philosophy, as I see it. It is more about the systematic model of breaking down and reconstructing the issues that concern, confuse and cause us grief about our relationships and sex. The issues that, for what ever reasons, keep us separate from our lover and partner. But we must live in relationship to others and we must relate to the world we live in and function in. The higher our functioning the better our lives will be.
Marty Klein, famous and prolific sex therapist that he is, held a workshop on Anger and Power in relationships. Power and Anger manifest in many different ways in all relationships but I’ll focus here on one of the ways it comes up in relationship to Tantra.
These kinds of issues come up in couples where one wants to take a Tantra workshop and the other can’t understand why, or sometimes even listen to the reasons, their partner wants to go. Though the one lover may be trying to charge the relationship up a bit, and cause transformation to occur, the other partner sees it as a direct attack on his or her sexual techniques, lovability or any other of a myriad of assaults on their integrity as a love and partner.
Tantra has been affiliated with saying ‘Yes’ to your lover and to life. That doesn’t mean that any particular ‘Yes’ is forever but it means that you are willing to stretch a bit to experience something your partner wants to try. If one partner, in any relationship, is the one who is always suggesting a new strategy, this can get very one-sided and become a ‘power’ play. If this happens in your relationship, any relationship in your life for that matter, try stretching to be the one who suggests a new adventure or path of learning and expanding. See what happens. Start slowly and relatively safely at first if this is foreign to you. Witness how you feel doing it – even thinking about doing it. Are you being straight-forward and clear in your telling? Are you fully behind yourself and what you are asking for? How does it fell in your ‘body’ right before and right after you ask? Witness how you handle yourself and applies this to next time so that you can learn how to be more assertive and yet gently powerful on your life and your relationships.
Life is relatively short. There may come a time in your life when you say to yourself “Why didn’t I stretch a little more? What would it have cost me? And what would I have gained?” You might want to apply this sooner than later. At first you won’t be good at it but I bet over time and with a patience from you partner you will get it and the both of you will soar with your new-found equanimity.