Episode 31 - TANTRIC LOVEMAKING: SLOW COOKING AND HEATING IT UP with Lisa Schrader

Transcript

Francesca Gentille: Welcome to Sex: Tantra and Kama Sutra, Bringing You the Soul of Sex. I’m your host, Francesca Gentille, and with me today is Lisa Schrader. Lisa is an amazing women, I’ve met her, I’ve taken her class, her women’s retreat, and she is a professional sensual esteem coach for men, for women and for couples, and tantra and sacred loving teacher who has appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show and who’s also appeared on The Fabulous Life on VH1. She’s been teaching for years, now probably thousands of people. She has been married for 20 years, and is the mother of a fabulous teenage daughter. She lives in the Sierra Foothills in California and I’m so happy to have her on the show here today.

Lisa Schrader: And I think that tantric loving as a feast, as a slow cooked, deeply nourishing, probably organic, lovingly prepared feast, and when we sit down for a meal like that, we are nourished on such a deep, full, embodied level.

Lisa Schrader: From a religious context is, you know, schools have thought that pleasuring the body are, you’re going to get into trouble, you know, those are, that’s a path that you’re not going to be able to control, and so then you have the whole philosophy of repressing or suppressing sexuality in the body.

Lisa Schrader: You know, I hear a lot from women actually and from men that there’s this, we have an agenda, we know sexually how it goes, we’ve been practicing it a long time, we know there’s this period of arousal, and then there’s this movement, sometimes really rapid movement, to get to orgasm, to get to the finish line, to get to the spot, and we’re, we’re, we can really be locked into that in lovemaking, and one of the most profound things I think in terms of starting to incorporate some of these more tantric or sacred loving practices is just to simply drop that agenda.

Lisa Schrader: The tip of the iceberg of where our sexual power lies and the beauty of out sexual potency, and that, you know, the energy that we have inside of each of out bodies, this spark of divine energy, it is, the sexual energy that we possess, it’s the most potent form of energy that we have access to. It’s literally the big bang.

Francesca Gentille: Welcome Lisa.

Lisa Schrader: Thank you Francesca, I’m delighted to be here.

Francesca Gentille: And Lisa, you and I were talking and I’ve taken your course and I know that you have such a beautiful way of brining people into the world of sacred loving and the world of tantra, and…

Lisa Schrader: Mm hmm.

Francesca Gentille: could you give us a little bit of, a little taste of what you might say to someone who’s really, you know, may, beginning the practice or wanting to deepen their practice.

Lisa Schrader: Mm, that’s a great question, you know, I like to use a food metaphor. I think that when you’re really hungry and your body’s needing nourishment, it can be like, it can be very easy to just grab something, you know, grab something if you’re really hungry, and I think that a lot of times particularly in our culture we’re used to sexuality being like that, I like to think of it as fast food sex. You know, you’re hungry and you grab a bite. And although that can satisfy you temporarily, typically with fast food we’re left hungry, we’re not really deeply nourished, and then we find that we’re craving more of that junk food later, and it can be kind of this cycle, and I think of tantric loving as a feast, as a slow cooked deeply nourishing, probably organic, lovingly prepared feast, and when we sit down for a meal like that, we are nourished on such a deep, full and body level that we just get something completely different from sex and lovemaking. And I would say to people there’s nothing wrong with fast food. It’s fine to grab a burger when you need it. There’s nothing wrong with sex the way that you’re doing it. And what’s available to you with tantric loving practices and sacred loving practices is a kind of nourishment that, that your soul is really hungry for.

Francesca Gentille: That, as the saying goes, sounds so delicious, and…

Lisa Schrader: It’s very delicious, very delicious.

Francesca Gentille: And how does someone shift? So, lets say they’re even enjoying, you know, the, the quickies or they’re enjoying the, you know, “lets turn off the lights” and…

Lisa Schrader: Mm hmm.

Francesca Gentille: you know, just kind of go for it. But they’re getting intrigued by this idea that there is a feast and…

Lisa Schrader: Mm hmm.

Francesca Gentille: that something could be, you know, richer and, but where do they start?

Lisa Schrader: You know, where I like to start with people is just to have them really look at their capacity for pleasure. So, you know, if you’re going to grab fast food, by definition it’s fast, you know. So, yes it’s pleasurable and you eat those fries and then boom, you’re done. But what about your capacity to really enjoy and savor pleasure in your life, and I coach a lot of women who a lot of times will come to, you know, either workshops or coaching sessions and just say, “I just am not really feeling very sexual. You know, my life is really busy, I’m running a family, I’m a professional woman. I don’t know where my mojo is, but I just don’t feel that”, and then that can create so much pressure in relationship, because they want to kick into gear as it, as it were, but they just don’t know where to find that. And so, for, for women or men that are just wanting to increase pleasure in their life, I have them actually not go so much even to sexual pleasure right off the bat, but have them really look at what brings you pleasure during your day. And that for me relates to my five senses. So, am I seeing visually beautiful things, colors, you know, for me flowers or nature, or even clothing, you know, is my visual still being stimulated, am I smelling things, am I in my body feeling the sunshine as it is right now that’s hitting my thighs and making me feel warm and wonderful, am I present to senses and my body and pleasure there, because when we go through our day tuned in to pleasure, by the time we get into, you know, a situation with our lover or our partner, we’re already tuned in to pleasure, it’s not like we’re beginning from zero and trying to get to sixty. So I would say really look at what brings you pleasure and how can you expand your capacity for pleasure.

Francesca Gentille: So you’re really saying that the openness to the senses in the bedroom really starts, it could start in the morning, during the day, just taking, taking the time to fill your life with more of what you like. Now is this selfish? I think we have a culture that says, you know, work, work, work, think about what other people need…

Lisa Schrader: Mm hmm.

Francesca Gentille: You know, and then we have these binges sometimes, whether they’re sexual binges…

Lisa Schrader: Yeah.

Francesca Gentille: or shopping binges, but I don’t think we have a culture that says “How can we really nourish ourselves day to day?”

Lisa Schrader: Yeah. I think we, you know, we split it. It’s like you have to eat all your vegetables and if you eat all your vegetables then you can have dessert. You know, and I think we do that with pleasure also or we’re afraid of pleasure, you know, we tend to, you know, what we, what we see even from a religious context is, you know, schools have thought that say pleasure in the body are, you’re going to get into trouble, you know, those are, that’s a path that you’re not going to be able to control, and so then you have the whole philosophy of repressing or suppressing sexuality in the body, and then you have, you know, plenty of people who are, you know, neo tantric practitioners who might say it’s all about pleasure, you know, and you should just dive deeply into pleasure and, you know, there’s that sort of hedonistic energy of that also, and really both of these, both of these are the same coin, they’re just different sides of the coin. Whether you’re repressing your sexual energy or you’re overindulging your sexual energy, you’re still dealing with the same energy, and my, you know, personal journey has been more a middle way, you know, a middle path of staying in awareness, opening to pleasure without repressing it, but incorporating it. So what does that look like from a practical stand, point of view? I think it’s, you know, for me I’ll notice times of the day where, you know, for example, you know, there’s a sunny spot on the floor of my living room, and of course I have a million things to do, but I might just go sit myself in that sunny spot in the living room, I might take a couple of breaths, I might feel the warmth of that sun on my body, that might even make me feel a little tingly and excited sensually, and I’ll just give myself permission to feel that, and maybe it’s only for a couple of minutes and then I’ll get up and go do what I need to do, but I’ll give myself permission to incorporate sensuality or pleasure in my day. You could be driving to work and just see something that’s really beautiful, instead of saying like, “Oh, that’s really pretty”, you could stay with it for a moment and really soak in whatever that is that’s beautiful to you. You know, just, it’s more just expanding it even a little bit in your day.

Francesca Gentille: And just breathing that into the body, whatever…

Lisa Schrader: Breathing it into the body, exactly.

Francesca Gentille: whatever that is, and that can be anything from a beautiful tree to a beautiful flower to a beautiful buttocks or beautiful breasts or…

Lisa Schrader: Yeah.

Francesca Gentille: You know, and breathing it in, not like we have to own it, not like we have to do anything about it, but…

Lisa Schrader: Right.

Francesca Gentille: Just like, as we breathe it in it expands something in us and gets us more prepared for connecting…

Lisa Schrader: Yes.

Francesca Gentille: later in, later in the day.

Lisa Schrader: Yeah.

Francesca Gentille: I want to talk more about that and how we continue to expand our senses and how we bring this to our beloved because in some cases people listening, they’re the, they’re the ones that, they’re ready, you know, they’re, maybe even they’re good at this, and they really want to bring this to their partner, so maybe you could give us a little advice too about how we help the beloved, you know, our sweetheart start to open as well…

Lisa Schrader: Mm hmm.

Francesca Gentille: After we come back from a break and a word from our fabulous sponsors that we found so good, so delicious and that we offer discounts to when you type in the word ‘tantra’, and we’ll be back in just a few moments.

Francesca Gentille: Welcome back to Sex: Tantra and Kama Sutra, bringing you the soul of sex. We’re with Lisa Schrader, professional sensual esteem coach and teacher of tantra and sacred loving, and we were just talking about how we, how tantra can be a feast and opening up our own senses, and I’d asked Lisa, how can we give this to a partner who maybe isn’t listening to this show yet?

Lisa Schrader: Hmm, lets see, you know, the, the most profound thing for me and for my husband in terms of when we started tantric practices was the idea of really slowing down. And I think if you want to engage potentially a reluctant partner in some of these practices, the idea of slowing down or, you know, there’s a really strong movement right now about slow cooking if we want to think about our food idea, that’s really one of the best ways to do that. So, you know, I hear a lot from women actually and from men that there’s this, we have an agenda, we know sexually how it goes, we’ve been practicing it a long time, we know there’s this period of arousal, and then there’s this movement, sometimes really rapid movement, to get to orgasm, to get to the finish line, to get to the spot, and we’re, we’re, we can really be locked into that in lovemaking, and one of the most profound things I think in terms of starting to incorporate some of these more tantric or sacred loving practices is just to simply drop that agenda. And, in terms of pleasuring your partner, you know, I think just to jump right into it, a great way to look at this might be just in terms of arousing your partner, whether you’re doing that manually or with toys or orally, and rather than approaching your partner with this intention, you know, one tantric teacher I know calls it tongue fu, where you’re really trying to get your partner to orgasm, that you approach your partner, and I’ll just use oral loving as an example, in terms of this idea again of expanding pleasure without any agenda about an orgasm. So if you’re pleasuring your man for example, and you’re pleasuring his penis or in our teaching we use the word ‘vasra’, which is a sanscript word for thunderbolt or lightening, if you’re pleasing a man’s vasra, rather than, you know, that sort of that pornographic way that we’ve, you know, seen as with a goal of getting this man to ejaculate, you instead as a woman really find your own pleasure in what this feels like in your mouth for example or on the roof of your mouth. I know for me I’ve actually found erogenous zones in my mouth using this profoundly magnificent tool, and so I’m in my own pleasure, I’m expanding my own pleasure, and is that going to turn your partner on? I’d say so. And for them just breathing into pleasure and expanding it without trying to get to some place, and seen for orally loving a woman. You know, just really exploring her, exploring the folds, exploring the textures, all of the different feelings there, as a way to just simply worship and be with her, allowing her certainly to become aroused, but without an intention of bringing her to orgasm. Most women can get kind of shut down if they’re feeling some kind of pressure to perform an orgasm, whereas if they feel that they’re partner is there loving them simply as a gift of loving, that can actually be so arousing that you end up becoming orgasmic even when you may, might not have intended to, just because it feels so different to be loved that way.

Francesca Gentille: I love that you brought up the, the concept of, you know, the pressure to perform being something that blocks our, our enjoyment, and…

Lisa Schrader: Yeah.

Francesca Gentille: You know, my sense is male or female, if we feel a pressure to perform or produce it’s not going to feel like fun…

Lisa Schrader: Right.

Francesca Gentille: and whether that is that we have to give something, we have to give something to someone else or we have to stay erect or we have to have an orgasm, just not fun, and I love the idea that you brought up of worship, which is, you know, it’s very tantric, but something that you don’t often hear, we all, in, out in the world, you know, you worship a church. What, how do you worship? What does it mean to worship…

Lisa Schrader: Mm hmm.

Francesca Gentille: in your bedroom, you know?

Lisa Schrader: Beautiful question.

Francesca Gentille: Yeah, yeah.

Lisa Schrader: That’s a really beautiful question. And I think it’s a beautiful segway into another really key component I think of a fabulous feast, which is that you say grace and you, you appreciate, you know, the meal, the energy that went into it, where the food came from. You take a moment to appreciate the abundance. And I think in tantra, in the way that I teach tantra, it’s about love and spirit and energy, and the spirit component, this worshiping component is really getting that, you know, we’re all one and that when you look at another human being, you are really seeing a reflection of yourself and ultimately of our own divinity, and, you know, particularly if you’ve been with your partner for a long time it’s really easy to look at them as, “Oh, that’s my partner, my husband or my wife.” You know, I think part of incorporating tantric and sacred loving in your life is that you create a sacred space, you enter in to that space, you look deeply into the eyes of your lover or if you’re loving their body, you look at their body as a representative of god or goddess because that person is a spark or a representation of the god or the goddess. And so if you are going down on your woman for example, you see her yoni, her sacred place or cave as this magnificent gateway portal into the very core of her soul. I, for me really locate the seed of my soul now in this sacred place, this dwelling place of the goddess. And so, you might ask permission to enter in to this most sacred of places, whether that’s if you’re wanting to enter it with your finger or whether you’re wanting to enter it with your vasra, but just like in any sacred place you don’t just plow in there, you don’t just barge in there with your shoes on. You know, you stop, you take a moment, you ask “Do I have permission to enter this sacred place?”, and let your woman say, “Yes, please come into my sacred place”, or “No, I’m not ready yet. Can we do more of this or more of that?” You know, I think there’s, what I hear from women is that, you know, there’s this tendency to check, you know, is she wet, and if she’s wet that’s a green light, that it’s time to enter her. And I think, you know, for myself included I can be wet and not ready.

Francesca Gentille: You know, this is an important point and a key one that I want to go a little bit deeper into this and for both our women who are listening and our men that are listening, to support them to do this in a way that feels safe, fun, connective because, you know, for women we can be afraid of saying no because he won’t like me…

Lisa Schrader: Mm hmm.

Francesca Gentille: and, you know, maybe he’ll never come back…

Lisa Schrader: Right.

Francesca Gentille: And for men, you know, I would imagine that I would be afraid of hearing no, that I would be concerned that if I heard no or even not yet, that I was doing something wrong and, or that maybe yes would never arrive. So lets talk about that more after our break and a word from our fabulous sponsors and please support them because if you love this show, like this show, this helps keep this show going when you support our great sponsors, and we’ll be back in a moment.

Francesca Gentille: Welcome back to Sex: Tantra and Kama Sutra, Bringing You the Soul of Sex, and we’re with Lisa Schrader who was featured on the Oprah Winfrey Show as a fabulous tantra teacher and has also been on, featured on The Fabulous Life on VH1, and we were talking about giving permission and also for females sometimes saying “Not yet”, and how to do that without that fear of rejection, either “If I say no he’s not going to come back”, or if I say “If she says no or not yet, I’m a failure and I might as well give up or push through anyway because, you know, if I had to wait until a woman was ready, I’d never get any sex.” So, how do we deal with that?

Lisa Schrader: Mm, that’s a great question. So, it’s a great question because I think you have to, in answering it, I want to give, I want to just give the bigger, the bigger possibility I guess, or the bigger perspective here. What I see when I, when, my husband and I teach couple’s workshops and when we have shared this concept with couples there’s this palpable feeling in the room of the women, frankly most of them start to cry, and they feel so deeply touched by this idea that they can, you know, invite a man in, and men are so deeply touched by, you know, I don’t hear a lot of fear of rejections from them men, they are deeply touched by even knowing that they can honor a woman this way. And what I hear over and over again for, you know, men who might be afraid of getting a no, is that, you know, at the point where you’re ready to enter a woman, you know, you’re probably, you know, obviously she wants to be with you because you’re already naked and you’re already, you know, a few steps, you know, into this process, and when you honor her, give her this gift, what I hear from men and what I hear from women is that it’s such a flowering for a woman, it’s such an opening for her. There’s a feeling of being so honored and so cherished that usually it just creates more opening for a woman, it can bring her to tears, it can just really, you know, open her in a beautiful way. And for, you know, a man I was recently coaching about this, it was just this humongous elimination for him, he’s like, “I just never thought about that, I just never even knew to do that”, and it felt so beautiful to him, to be able to give this gift. And, you know, the connection, both, you know, sexually and from a heart place and just from a soul place that’s possible, this little step alone could elevate your lovemaking session to a level that you’ve never even been to before. And if you really do get a “no”, or a “I’m not quite ready yet”, take that as just a gift in authenticity, you know, a gift in communication, and that, and you know, she’ll be ready soon or, you know, she might not be, and that’s okay too, you know, but it’s, it’s a dance and it’s practice.

Francesca Gentille: It’s such a good point when you bring this up, I’m just, these visions are flashing through my mind in my own life where in wanting to be liked I often would say yes before I was ready.

Lisa Schrader: I think that’s a common experience.

Francesca Gentille: Very common, and what I hear from men that I coach, and I’m guessing you would too, is that they often have this unresolved question, “Does a woman really want me?” Like in some level, they almost intuit it, they feel it…

Lisa Schrader: Yeah.

Francesca Gentille: that the woman isn’t saying yes fully and it’s just unresolved, it’s like, “Am I really desired, am I really wanted?”

Lisa Schrade: Yeah, yeah.

Francesca Gentille: And, and so the gift, even though there’s a little risk, you know, of saying, you know, may, you know, “Are you ready to have my penis inside you?”, if you’re tantric, “Are you ready to have my vasra or my lingum inside you?”, or “May I enter you now?”, is that when she says yes, you know, I can see where that would be the feeling of, it’s like “Uh…

Lisa Schrader: It’s beautiful, yeah.

Francesca Gentille: I really want it, oh, you know, thank God.”

Lisa Schrader: Yeah.

Francesca Gentille: And that it’s…

Lisa Schrader: Yes!, and an exclamation point.

Francesca Gentille: Yes, and it’s this building of trust for both people. She really wants him, she’s really ready and he’s really wanted, how, what a beautiful, like you said, what an illumination, what a deepening of the relationship.

Lisa Schrader: Yeah.

Francesca Gentille: Oooh.

Lisa Schrader: Yeah, pretty yummy.

Francesca Gentille: And, you know, we have a couple minutes left and I know that you have such a wealth of information for us, is there any, you know, kind of last words that, time went by so fast, that you would want to gift to us about this, this tantric feast, so we have the, we have the embracing the idea of the feast, embracing our senses, we have the slowing down…

Lisa Schrader: Mm hmm.

Francesca Gentille: really savoring each moment of the, of this, of the cooking…

Lisa Schrader: Yeah.

Francesca Gentille: of the passion, and then we have the, you know, the saying, the saying grace and inviting in a presence, a preciousness, a sacredness, into what we’re doing, and the asking permission, male or female, you know asking permission. Is there, is there anything else that you would want us to know?

Lisa Schrader: You know, what has been so true for me is, is that I really truly believe that most of us have barely touched the tip of the iceberg of where our sexual power lies and the beauty of our sexual potency, and that, you know, the energy that we have inside of each of our bodies, this spark of divine energy, it is, the sexual energy that we possess, it’s the most potent form of energy that we have access to. It’s literally the big bang that happens, that creates life, you know, inside the womb. And I just really want people to know that they can use that energy, they can access it, they can channel it, they don’t have to just throw it away by only having sex basically below the waist, that they can start expanding the pleasure, expanding that energy, drawing it up into the heart, into the rest of the body for vitality and for energy, and they can dedicate it to whatever it is that they’re wanting to manifest, either in their personal life, whether that’s more creativity or more love or more abundance, and they can also dedicate their lovemaking to greater love and harmony and peace on the planet, and it’s, it’s no small thing, the energy that we possess, and the miracles that are happening in my life and in the lives of people I’m coaching and the emails I get from people who come to my workshops and start to get a sense of this energy and start to honor it, it’s absolutely phenomenal and everybody has it, and it’s free. You know, and so I just want to encourage people to cultivate it, to respect it and to honor it and to dedicate their lovemaking, whether that’s self pleasuring or lovemaking with a partner, to let it as that’s important to you in your life.

Francesca Gentille: Lisa thank you so much for being with us today and for bringing this concept of the feast of love…

Lisa Schrader: Mm hmm.

Francesca Gentille: and a feast of love that can create a world of peace.

Lisa Schrader: Mm, thank you Francesca for all the beautiful work that you’re doing in bringing these messages out to people. You’re such a phenomenal teacher in your own right and I’ve learned so much from you, so blessed to have been with you, thank you.

Francesca Gentille: And for those of you who are listening if you want to receive a transcript of this show, learn more about Lisa, sign up for the series of Sex: Love, of the, of the, Sex: Tantra and Kama Sutra, Bringing You the Soul of Sex, you can do that at www.personallifemedia.com, that’s www.personallifemedia.com. Thank you for joining us today.