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0:00:06 - Speaker 1
Welcome to the Sensual Artistry podcast, exploring erotic awakenings and liberated love. I'm your host, luna Agnea, Sensual Arts and Intinacy Facilitator, relationship Coach, tantrika and Artist with a passion for the path of liberation through love. In this podcast, you will receive first-hand stories of sacred erratic awakenings, transformational experiences and love that goes beyond limits. This podcast is here to inspire, educate and awaken your own essential artists, because when you liberate your eros, you liberate your alive. Today's episode is an outtake from the Sex and Love Satsung, which is a new free monthly offering that I'm doing in the Sensual artist community, which you can get access to through my website. It's a space where, each month, I start talking about some relating principles and approaches and then invite Q&A and discussion based around those or people's lives so you can bring your relationship queries along for it. So, yeah, enjoy this section of the replay. If you want to go on the site, you can find the replay. That will have also the Q&A and some guided meditation. So that brings us to our topic of the day, which is around presence in relationships and love and our ability to bring this awareness, cultivation, presence into our relationships and seeing how that affects us. So, yeah, most people that are on the spiritual path will at some point be getting into this meditation and this practice of cultivating presence.
I find, especially in some of the modern embodiment world, people are kind of not emphasizing it as much, while it's generally been a big part of all spiritual practice is like this being aware of awareness and being present and being able to be the still silent witness, and that's like a big part of most spiritual paths. But I found that actually a lot of the modern, especially the neo-tantra world that people are all about, like the dance and the emotions and the catharsis and the expression, and that it's like, oh yeah, maybe we do have a little bit of meditating. What happens if we're focusing so much on all of the we call of Shakti practices and tantra that are really focused on like the energy and the aliveness that we're not cultivating as presence, is that we can just get caught up in the drama and caught up in all this energy and our thoughts and our emotions and all of this. We lose touch with the part of us that's just able to be with what is and just be content and be in stillness and presence.
Particularly in relationships, this can be quite toxic because people end up just constantly in these drama spirals and always wanting to change and fix their partner or changing and fix themselves, and they just can't be with what is and be present with what is. If their partner brings to them something that they're struggling with or a strong emotion, then instead of being able to do holding space or just being lovingly with what is, then that's when you come in and you try to fix it or change it or give it advice, or you react to their emotions. They're like I'm really angry about this thing. You might either be like I'm going to get angry too, or you might be like are you angry? You shouldn't be angry, or you get upset. I'm like, oh my God, something wrong with me. Is there angry? There's just this reactionary process that can happen. Awareness of presence is something that most of us really need to train and cultivate.
I was terrible at this. I was so un-present. I couldn't like.
eye-gazing was such a struggle for me. Giving a massage was a struggle because I would just get bored so easy and I'd be stuck in my head. I'd be like when is it over? Or when are we doing something more exciting? That was so hard to just be with someone and constantly getting stuck in these drama spirals, um, reactivity, and it's only been since having a regular meditation practice and then also bringing that into relationship, not just having them as a separate thing, like, oh, I do my daily meditation and then I have my relationships, like bringing meditation into the relationship, uh, that I really started seeing a lot of things changing and, you know, being able to not take it personally if my partners are having some kind of experience and to me I would have just be like okay, yeah, that's what's happening right now, there's an emotion here and there's a situation, and like it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with me. Maybe it does, but I don't need to like react or whatever to that. I can just kind of be with it and be present and move on and and uh, so this shows up in like the relating dynamics a lot, uh, being able to, yeah, just be with what is um to also, yeah, notice the part of me that wants to fix or change something.
My partner like I don't like that thing that they're doing. You know they used to be like okay, we need to like talk about it all the time and you need to do this and we need to try hard or something Like sometimes that needs to happen. But then after a time's it's like okay, can I just realize that's just what's happening or that's just a pattern within them and like not, you know, be like okay, and I don't like this, but so what? It's going to change a few minutes later and something else is going to happen. Like I don't need to. Uh, then yeah, because what happens then is that we then create a story or we attach to it and then we're like oh, they're always like this and they're always like that, and it's only this and this.
And then our mind starts like going into this loopy spiral and taking like one moment of something that's happening and then dragging it out throughout the whole day. So the presence is like kind of breaking that loop in the cycle and being able to be like okay, this is what's happening now, and now something else is happening and I I could be with that something else and not drag this moment of discomfort from before into the rest of the day, into the rest of the week and into the rest of the relationship. So cultivating presence is about being able to just stay with what's happening here and knowing that you know we're always changing, or partners always changing, the situations always changing and to be able to like keep up with the new experience and not be stuck in the past and stuck in that. So, yeah, there's that element to the practice and this is where, yeah, like we do our solo practice of meditation and doing things like what we were just doing in the intro, like a personal meditation, and this technique's like the pastana or you're just being really still and noticing the you know itchy thing and you're not even allowed to scratch it and you just have to like notice that it's just going to pass away and it might be really itchy and uncomfortable now but like, eventually it's going to go and to just like really practice, like surrendering to that and allowing discomfort to be there. And there's a lot of other techniques too. So, yeah, there's practices that we do solo and then we also bring it into the relationship.
So this is why it's really great to have, if there are tense conversations of things that need to happen, to really create a sacred space for that and to really have an intentional space where you're like, okay, it's going to be a triggering conversation and I'm going to breathe and I'm going to just not say anything. And I'm going to want to say something and I'm going to want to defend myself or respond or whatever. But I'm going to sit there and be like and not say anything, and breathe and allow them to share their thing and not say anything and to use that as a spiritual practice, just like meditation. Okay, I'm just going to sit here and notice all the responses and notice the way that my trauma comes in or my pattern comes in, and I want to do this and I'm just very consciously resisting that. Your partner can help you as well, being like okay, if you need to not interrupt me, give me my space and notice that pattern and that need to respond.
Yeah, like Tristan, I just had a perfect example of this the other day an energy topic that we're really avoiding and we like to go out into nature when we're going to have these triggering conversations, rather than being at home. It just feels nice to be in a neutral space and somewhere pretty and whatever. So we go for a walk and we go sit down in nature and then we're like okay, now's the time to speak and we're not allowed to interrupt each other. We just need to sit there and just notice everything that's coming up while they're speaking about this and especially in long-term relationships, but even short-term ones, like there can be some really heavy things that really hurt your ego to hear, and it's really challenging and it's this meditative practice to just okay, it's happening, and then you take a few breaths and it's your turn to speak and you're just noticing like okay, like, yeah, when you're saying that this came up in me and this came up, and you're kind of speaking through your inner process and my cultivating this presence helps you to, yeah, stop picking a pot the stories.
Yeah, the story came up and this came up and this sensation came up, and you can start to share that, which then creates more connection rather than the usual defensiveness or just like being stuck in your story. It's to be able to see that it's a story and see like, okay, that thing came up but I'm not attached to it and I'm not having to make it mean anything. I'm not saying like, just because the story in my head came up, that you don't love me doesn't mean I have to believe it. Like it's just a thought that came up when you said that and like, yeah, it wants to be expressed but I don't need to like attach to that thought. So the more present you are, the more you can just see that like thoughts and stories and all kinds of things come up, but it doesn't have to mean anything beyond just that that's what is alive.
So, yeah, there's that element of presence in relationship, but when it comes to like discussion and then there's just the general state of presence, like with being with a body and being in intimacy practices and how present you can be and how there you can be with your partner when you're making loves or when you're massaging each other. And a lot of people can struggle with this, especially with our dopamine addicted brains from all the technology and stuff or we're used to all these like quick hits and quick dopamine hits and short contents, and it's actually really negatively affecting our brains and our ability to be present with a partner because, like our brains just used to having so much information that when we're just trying to be in a very simple experience like giving a massage, then our brain just kind of starts wanting to go off in all directions. So it takes quite a bit of training especially if you do have like neurodivergence or something that's a bit more obvious to be able to like train yourself to just really stay there and stay interested and stay present with your partner. So that becomes the meditation then as well. It's like, ok, I'm noticing the desire to check out, or I'm noticing that my thoughts are now on what I'm doing tomorrow, or on this email someone sent me when I'm wanting to be with my partner, and then can I like learn to just like, let those fall to the side and keep coming back. So a lot of people find it helps to find an anchor, like whether that's the breath or whether that's like the sensation or a certain sense maybe helps you drop.
In Tristan I were doing a really interesting practice where we were eye gazing and breathing together and we had to rate how present our partner felt on a scale of 1 to 10 every few moments. So you'd be like, yeah, fine, eight, two, and like it was very confronting and it was interesting because it brings up quite a few triggers, because you'd be like so present right now. And then they're like five and you're like I'm only here, but the practice was about seeing, like also how it felt, like what you need to feel from someone else for them to be present, so that we could give each other feedback. So you know, for him, like me, moving around so much mean it seemed like I'm not as present. Well, actually for me, staying still and needing to be like holding myself up because I have this hypermobility and I need to move a lot Like that actually for me, felt like it drew my presence away because I had to focus so much on being upright and not moving, that, yeah, I didn't feel as present, but I felt more present, to hint. So it was just a really interesting thing also around like how we might feel more present at a certain time. Someone might not receive it that way. It kind of like loved languages so we found out.
It was like a really good experiment or just like testing this thing of like the difference between what's happening within us and what the other person is feeling and sensing about that. So it can be good to like have this feedback with each other. But, yeah, it's a practice and I've been loving exploring this like for quite some years and to just see that it's this endlessly deep process that there's not like. Oh, I did some eye gazing workshop and I managed to not look away for five minutes. So now I'm present with lovers, great, take care of, like help on to the next thing.
It's like, oh well, like this is really a place of mastery, like how present can I stay with it? And especially, yeah, if there's something like if it's during sex or making love, and like staying present, and you know, if it's like maybe right now I feel like something else, like maybe something a little bit more fiery and intense, but they're more soft, and like you can then notice that you can start like checking out or getting stuck in the thought of like I want it to be a different way, and how much you're able to either like let that go to the side and just be present with what is and be like can I find enjoyment in what's actually happening, that this is what my partner's into right now, and maybe they don't want to meet me in that fireiness. So maybe, like this is the speed that wants to happen and instead of like getting trapped in comparison and like wanting it to be something other than it is, how much can you bring yourself fully to the moment and be fully with your partner and what's happening, even if it might not be your ideal preference. And in that comes discerning, like when is a time to say like, okay, this isn't what I'm wanting and I want something changed, or to make an action towards change, or where is it time to just be with what is? Because I think this is a common thing, especially if you're wanting more intensity, but that's just not what your partner wants in that moment. Maybe they're tired or they're feeling really squishy and sensitive. So it's like, okay, can I really let go of this wanting it to be something else and be fully here? And if I can't be fully here, then yeah, maybe we need to do something else. Because, yeah, there is this thing once you're sensitive to being present with each other, then it can be a bit jarring when you're fully there and you're fully present, but the other person's checked out, and yeah, then that can also be part of the practice.
Once you've gone through like being present with yourself, then it's like how present am I with what's going on in my partner?
Can I notice the moment that they're checked out or when they're not really enjoying it, and can I keep track of them?
So first you're learning to be really aware of what's happening in your inner world and then you become super aware of what's happening within you and within your partner at the same time, and how much can you really intimately track all these little subtle changes in their behavior or their energy or their presence and stay in tune with that, which is really beautiful for energetic consent as well, where you can notice when they're actually kind of contracting or numbing out or something.
And, yeah, especially if you're with someone that can kind of dissociate a bit, to be able to notice before they notice that they're not fully present and to be able to move it towards something else.
So, yeah, it's a skill that can use a lot of mastery and, like anything, bringing it into your own practice is the best place to start to, in your self pleasure practice, to be really training this presence and being fully present with yourself and noticing the way that you check out and get lost and get frustrated or whatever, and learning to be with that and then bringing it to a partner. And, yeah, this is where it becomes like sexual yoga, when you're doing it with intimacy, where you're really bringing this sense of meditation and yoga into your practice with your partner and to be able to have shared language, for it is really beautiful. Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode. I hope you've enjoyed it and found it inspiring. You can connect with me on Instagram, youtube, facebook and through my website, sensualartistry.com and sensualarts.school, where you can get some freebies and sign up to my mailing list to stay in touch. Hope to see you again soon.
