Tantric,Love,Yoga

You’re on high alert. Your heart beats faster, you’re wide awake and aware, but you’re not thinking. It’s like the moment before a dam bursts. Then the energy rushes out, along with an outpouring of thoughts. You may call what you’re feeling “anger” (because you have to call it something). But in your heart, you know you’re also feeling many other things too: sadness, relief, fear, resentment, jealousy and so on. So there’s a rich pool of feelings, and then we put the label on top of it.

Once emotion bursts out and overflows, all bets are off. We get caught in its momentum and abandon all reason. We may often say or do things we’ll regret, so we end up fearful of our emotions. If we feel anger rising up toward our partner, for example, we might panic and try to shut it down or get rid of it. In that case, we might turn the anger in on ourselves or let it loose on an innocent target—a co-worker, a child, or the family pet. Or we might be successful in keeping our angry mind quiet for a few weeks, then blow up one day for no apparent reason. When it’s over we’re exhausted, but not necessarily any clearer about what happened or why. Because there’s no real resolution, the seeds are planted for a repeat performance.

On the other hand, we might really enjoy this energy. It can be exciting to give in to our impulses and let our inhibitions run wild. We have a brief feeling of freedom and being in control. We’re taking action and expressing ourselves. We may get lucky, win the argument and get the girl, so to speak, or we may be unlucky and cause a catastrophic accident.

Either way, when we try to gain control of ourselves by battling with our emotions, they can take us on a nice rollercoaster ride. Our rollercoaster will take us up quite high where the view is very beautiful—then when we suddenly fall downward we start screaming. But the ride’s not over. It turns us upside down and rolls us around before going up high again. The bad thing about this is that our emotional states last a lot longer than an actual rollercoaster ride, which takes only a few minutes. You scream and then it’s over. But when we get trapped again and again by our compulsive and neurotic emotional patterns, we just keep on screaming.

Riding with Courage

If we’re a little more skillful at working with our emotions, we might catch our anger, jealousy, or whatever, before we react to it. We can simply take a look at it. Instead of stopping it or indulging it, we can explore it a little, give ourselves a minute to feel its texture and just observe it. In those moments, we can also contemplate our usual reactions and their results. Then we’re prepared to look ourselves in the eye and say, “I’m going to use this powerful emotional energy to do something positive. Instead of the usual helplessness I feel when I’m upset, I’m going to use all of this emotional strength to confront my fears.” When you take that moment to look at your emotions mindfully, you can actually interrupt their momentum. You slow down the rollercoaster and begin to discover ways to work with the energy. It takes time to feel like we’re steering instead of being taken for a ride, but gradually we can begin to trust ourselves and our emotions. We don’t fear our emotional highs and lows anymore, because we no longer feel we’re at their mercy.

By Shakti Sunfire
on Jul 2, 2010
On Intimacy in Relationship and Community.

This morning I woke up to a clean, empty house, a considerably small to-do list, a well-managed order queue and a brimming heart. This profound sense of next level understanding invites journeying to the depths of a deeper meaning I didn’t know was there. How is it, I ask, that there is so much more – infinitely more, to learn, to grow into, to celebrate?

In fog-provoked reverie I sat and tasted the flavor of this unfolding chapter. Hints of the usual excitement, joy, and wonder and their counterparts, anticipation, desire and anxiety – but within the usual a new ingredient, a better understanding, a silver lining threw in its hand and took the shape of sweet communal intimacy.

I recently listed to a pod cast with my favorite poet, David Whyte, where he spoke of parenting. He said, “everyday the person you love is growing away from you and so you play an endless game of catching up.” I have learned that to be effective in our intimate relationships is to practice seeing that person in light of what is arising at this present moment, not in light of yesterday, or the day before, or even the year before that – to hold space for the flux of personality that growth requires – and I learned this first on myself.

The real zing of this new flavor is a reconstitution of the person I believed myself to be -fiercely independent, self-motivated and competitive, firey and fast moving. The biggest act of self-love I’ve performed lately has been to allow myself to be/to see more than who I thought I was – flowing, free, compassionate, co-creative, open and community-oriented. David says: “You are trying to overhear yourself say something you didn’t know you knew.” In Tantra, ignorance is defined as knowing a little and believing that to be all there is. How often do we place ourselves within limited and out-dated “I-am” constructs? The stories we tell ourselves shape our world.

Which is all a really long way of saying that at the pith of my current experience sits the support of my community, the sweetness of my friendships and the space held by my family. Anodea Judith in her delightful and illuminating book, ‘Waking the Global Heart’ says: “The hero’s quest begins with the striving of an individual-but ends in the healing of community. The quest illuminates our power, but the return is an act of love.”

Last weekend 200 of us gathered at Movement Play, a Northern California festival that is the love-baby of one of my dearest friends in San Francisco, Miss Rosie. A gathering of that size is totally conducive to co-creation, and co-participation – to cooperation and community interaction that supports real, authentic self-expression. When we allow others to be at their best, to be the expert in their experience of life we encourage a state of empowerment that holds us all. In other words, when we see others in their best light, we invite them to step into that more fully. When others are more fully their best, they invite growth in us…and the circle continues without end.

www.movementplay.com

It’s no secret to many of us that we’re moving into an age where the collective is king. In my studies of Indian philosophies we see more and more that the guru of old is now the community of today. The synergy existent within conscious groups of people accelerates change. At Movement Play I feel that I danced that truth of interconnection as witnessed by the community and was hit with a profound and earth-shaking opening under the full moon – an opening that was not unique to me alone. In closing circle we looked around, one to the next and interconnectedness moved from an existential philosophy and settled into a very real, and very present embodied experience.

And there have been other awakenings lately – synchronistic time well spent with old friends, a merging on the horizon – away from competition to cooperation on a business level, and a celebration of archetypal balance. And all of these things, these growth metrics, boil down to a fundamental understanding of reality where we humans are gifted relationship with others so that we may better know ourselves. Anodea Judith says: “In the realm of the heart, we reconstitute the archetype of sacred partnership: balanced, respectful, and mutually enhancing.”

Now more than ever before my door is open – clear boundaries, no limits as Douglas Brooks says. I have my friends, my family and the global community to thank. In Tantra we learn the self is a dancer, playing different roles – Nartakatma. On the dance floor we move in partnership with each other in respectful, spatial awareness, and in grace to the music pulsating us alive.

The universe is a gift of intimacy. How do we as individuals, choose to ask the question of life?

www.movementplay.com
Laura Blakeman a.k.a. ‘Shakti Sunfire’ has a diverse and interesting background as a brand communications copywriter, a hula hoop performance artist, crafter and teacher, and yogini. Shakti continues to witness her own transformation inside the hoop. Now a resident of San Francisco, Shakti draws on her experiences and her heavy participation in the community to encourage unfettered self-expression centered in the heart. She teaches hoop workshops and performs internationally. Shakti was certified in 2008 in Beginning Hatha Yoga at the Shambhava School of Yoga on the Big Island of Hawai’i. She is currently undergoing intensive training in Anusara Yoga specifically, and is studying Tantrik philosophy, and sanskrit with Yogasthana, The Foundation for Yoga. In her writing Shakti dives deep into human experience, exposing universal connection and poignant synchronicity through personal narrative.