Episode 63 - TOOLS FOR YOUR EROTIC REVOLUTION with Anna Marti

Transcript

Francesca Gentille: Welcome to Sex: Tantra & Kama Sutra, bringing you the soul of sex. I’m your host, Francesca Gentille, and with me today is Anna Marti. Anna is an intimacy midwife and evangelist. Someone who is passionate about the sacred in life and (era), she a featured speaker at conferences such as the Daka-Dakini Conference and at university, and I’m delighted to have her.

Anna Marti: You know, I work with people all the time, you know men or women——that they’ve numbed themselves out and sometimes for a very appropriate reason, and then they realize that they’re missing a quality of connection in the world the didn’t know how to bring themselves to it. So it can stat with maybe even inviting a friend or even alone in your own——sitting or meditation or even when you lie in bed before you get out of bed. Can you fell your legs. Can you feel your breath. Can you feel the rising and falling of breath. The ability to speak, listen and experience. Sometimes uncomfortable and challenging material, while simultaneously cultivating a climate of open hearted connection. Now what we’re doing is like, OK, I’m starting to feel my body now. What happens if there’s another person in the room? Or another person in my bed. And that’s where it becomes very uncomfortable. There’s not a magazine at the check out stand that doesn’t have an article about how to make love all night, how to have great sex. If the information is so readily available, how come we’re not having more fun?

What we’re talking about is we’re talking about what I believe is a life long learning curve. I don’t believe that like suddenly the skies open and we suddenly get this. I believe it’s something we practice and I don’t know anybody that came in being very good at it. In fact if we could go back to you, know when, we were young and experiencing our sexuality and eroticism——you know here’s what I got as a young woman: If you’re not becoming aroused, or you’re not having a good time, somehow it is my fault, and how we’ve learned to respond is withdrawal.        

Francesca Gentille:Welcome, Anna.

Anna Marti: Thank you so much, Francesca. It’s so wonderful to be talking here with you today.

Francesca Gentille: It is and we’re so lucky that we get to be in these conversations about life and sacred, and Eros and intimacy and we get to share benefits of our own life experience to our listening audience in a way that hopefully has them find it easier and quicker that in some cases we did ourselves. And Anna you had an amazing life. Could you tell us a little bit about you and what brought you to being this beautiful intimacy midwife and evangelist today.

Anna Marti: Well I’ve for a long time been real passionate about being a body and for me it’s been a way for me to really feel at home and express myself. That’s not true for everybody. I was raised in the Jewish tradition. A lot of your listeners may not know that in Jewish tradition there’s no sexual guilt. We have a lot of guilt about a lot of things——mother guilt and food guilt, but there’s actually [4:40——Tomlitic text?] that states you’ll have to answer to God and all those things that came before you that you did not take pleasure in. And there’s a way I unconsciously got that.

My parents were always very affectionate. I was really blessed to have very loving parents, and there was even a kind of a sniff of the erotic and that’s interesting looking back, because my parents were quite a bit older than the rest of my parent’s friends. They were in their forties when the had me so even in their fifties and sixties——you know my mother had this embodiment in the erotic. In my own path I——one thing she didn’t have was a way to talk to children abut sexuality, in fact in their world you didn’t talk about sex at all. Your daughter would find out when she got married and what happen as a result of that was that I became pregnant at a young age when abortion was illegal. That was a birthing for me of taking ownership of my body and my eroticism——this particular part of my life. It made me passioned about information because I didn’t have any so I really felt that disseminating information became a real important value for me.

Francesca Gentille: You know I just want to point to what you said, Anna, that’s so brilliant is that when we have those challenges in life, when things go wrong, or become difficult or we’re now in the unknown. Oh my God, what am I going to do about sex or about my body or about relationships, and if something’s not working or appears to be not working, we can as human being get bogged down under that. Get depressed, get despondent, get despairing, or what you did which is so brilliant is to say how can I harvest the learning from this and how can I contribute——in away for my own suffering and challenge——back into the world community.

How can I make it better for others and that’s——just happy hearing that. It just feels so uplifting. So thank you, I mean that’s a wonderful tip for people to bring in. Some of out listeners are going to be in a place of joy and bliss and pleasure right now. And some of them are going to be in places, you know, confusion, despair, despondency. Some of them are going to be curious, and where ever they are, their journey, their love journey, their erotic journey, their body journey, you’ve just given us that it can be a gift to others.

Anna Marti: And it may be a little kind of overstated but many people have heard that the Chinese symbol for Christ this is also the same symbol for opportunity, and I’m so delighted that you really shined a light on that because I am almost an evangelist about that and so any people——I think it’s…

Francesca Gentille: What’s that mean? What does it mean to be an evangelist? [Cross Laughter]

Anna Marti: I can be really noisy sometimes and it’s been reflected to be enough times that I own it——that I can have a pretty strong energy when I walk into a room or when I’m talking to someone. But I am passionate about people finding that door to solution, rather than getting lost in problem, in despair, in all those things that you mentioned and for any given circumstances of anyone’s life so often. And this is usually a collection of life experiences when we’re quite young, before we’re even verbal we become conditioned about how much space we can take in the world for you know——as an infant we learn that if I cry this long somebody will pick me up and feed me and hold me but perhaps if I cry this long maybe I’ll be put down, left alone, maybe I’ll be I’ll even get hit, so very early on we begin to organize ourselves energetically about how much I can put myself in the world. So someone that has a lot of anxiety about speaking for want they want or the belief that their could be a solution out there, for some people it’s a very, very difficult road to find that place of possibilities. Does that make sense?

Francesca Gentille: It does make sense and I want to thank you for bringing that up as well is that some of our listeners will have experienced being suppressed in their life. Whether emotions were suppressed, passions were suppressed, desires, self knowledge, knowing their own authentic response to anything may have been suppressed, and where they may be with partners that——you know when we ask our partner, what would you like right now honey, they look like a deer I the headlights. [Cross Laughter] My God someone’s asking me——I can be like that by the way. I came from that kind of background.

So I’m going to say to all our listeners who found this show, this show is that key in the door to unlock self expression. This show——like listening to it even right now——is part of a reframing and a permission to take up space in the world. To say I’m here, God put me here. I have a right to be here and I have a right to feel my feelings and discover what I want and request that of others, collaborate with others, to meet their needs and mine. 

Anna Marti: Right and you know again such great compassion starting from that place with the question that you stated. You now when someone says, a partner says what would you like and how do you feel and for many, many people, they don’t know what it feels like in my body. I can’t even feel my body, so how can I bring that to someone else when I don’t even have an experience of it. And that I believe is the real starting point. How can I feel myself? How can I begin to be fascinated with the expression of space in my body? Because that’s where that freedom is.

Francesca Gentille: Yes, I’m intrigued. I’m very intrigued. So tell me more, tell me more, tell us more about——so in a beautiful way, we’re destined, we’re meant to fell ourselves, to feel the space in our own body vessel——how do you do that? Anna, how do we start?

Anna Marti: Well the first piece and you don’t have to go and see a professional although that can be really helpful, it’s wonderful if an individual——even if you’re listening to this and you maybe recognize yourself, you recognize that pert of yourself that’s like, oh my goodness, I can’t even feel my own body. You know, I work with people all the time, you know men or women——that they’ve numbed themselves out and sometimes for a very appropriate reason, and then they realize that they’re missing a quality of connection in the world the didn’t know how to bring themselves to it. So it can stat with maybe even inviting a friend or even alone in your own——sitting or meditation or even when you lie in bed before you get out of bed. Can you fell your legs. Can you feel your breath. Can you feel the rising and falling of breath.

I had an experience that upholds a marker for me and I was walking with a friend and at that moment I had an experience, it was a beautiful day, I felt the sun on my body. My breath was so open and it was like there was happiness, there was space, there was so much space. In that moment walking with my friend, I didn’t want anything from here. She didn’t want anything from me.

The flowers I was looking at, they didn’t require anything. I didn’t have to bring anything to them. They weren’t shining their beauty. I had this experience of space and almost everyone has touched that briefly. Some people do it listening to music. Some people do it when they’re involved in some kind of physical activity, maybe dancing, or singing. Some people do it when they’re painting, or watching a child, but I’d invite all of your listeners to go back to sometime in their life where they felt that space. Where the boundaries of who they usually identify with, who they are dissolves. It was this experience of ease and space.

So remembering that experience, that becomes a place to return to, it’s like, OK, do I feel like that right now? What am I noticing? You know for many people you might notice your shoulders are up by your ears, or maybe your heart is feeling a little tight just listening to this, or maybe there’s a problem, and maybe it almost feels like there’s kind of a helmet on your head. Your brain feels really tight. That’s that contraction. That’s that density. So the first place is beginning to notice, when do I feel space, and when do I feel contraction?

Francesca Gentille: Right now, I love that you brought up right now. We can just take a breath. One of my favorite questions sometimes is can I feel my feet on the floor?

Anna Marti: Exactly, yeah.

Francesca Gentille: You know because it’s just——then I recognize am I in a sense mentally out of my body? Or am I tuning into my body? So that just asking ourselves questions brings an awareness, an attention. How am I feeling in my body? And when I’m in sexuality, I’ve experienced some trauma in my life. I will ask myself, can I feel my body? I will check out and then I’ll literally say if it’s true, I’ll say it’s safe now. It’s safe to come home now. And even when I say that right now my stomach starts to relax and my jaw starts to relax. It’s safe. It’s safe to be listening to Anna and I on this lovely podcast. And we’re going to have more beautiful, safe embodied things after a break and a word from our sponsors and I encourage all of our listeners to support our sponsors. It helps shows like this to continue to be in the world. And we’ll be back in just a few moments.

[Commercial Break]

Francesca Gentille: Welcome back to Sex, Tanta & Kama Sutra, bringing you the soul of sex with Anna Marti, intimacy midwife and evangelist. Passionate woman supporting all of us to be more in our bodies, more in our Eros, more in our life. And we just talked about asking ourselves questions, and breathing and feeling safe. What’s next on the journey, Anna? If we’re starting to feel our body. Maybe it’s comfortable or uncomfortable, what do we do with that?

Anna Marti: Well, I——to bring that to another person there are three qualities: the ability to speak, listen, and experience sometimes uncomfortable and challenging material while simultaneously cultivating a climate of open hearted connection. What we’re doing is like, OK, I’m starting to feel my body now, what happens if there’s another person in the room? Or another person in my bed. And that’s where it becomes very uncomfortable. My experience is that there’s not a magazine at the check out stand that doesn’t have an article about how to make love all night, how to have great sex. How do have thirty minute orgasms, how to ejaculate——you know, there’s so much information out. There’s so much information on your website alone. If the information is so readily available, how come we’re not having more fun?

Francesca Gentille: Yeah, how come?

[Cross Laughter]

Anna Marti: And my experience, Francesca, is what I need to develop is what I call internal muscles. These internal muscles to be able to stay——to stand in the discomfort of being able to communicate. First to myself and then to another person. You know, I’ve really shut down right now. So let’s back up a minute. So if I have that experience, OK, so I’ve been working with my body. I’ve been doing some practices. Dawnelle Oddi Yeah suggests a wonderful practice which is fifty times a day, ten to twenty seconds, take your attention for some sensation. Maybe it could be——you know you mentioned your feet on the floor, your back on the back of the seat when you’re driving, the water in your mouth when you’re brushing your teeth——fifty times a day. The next day fifty different ones, so you begin to build this kind of seemless returning to sensation. So I’ve been doing that for awhile, right.

I’m beginning to have an awareness of when I shut down, when I contract, and when there’s more space, OK. Oh, then I bring another person into the equation. What gets overlaid is the emotional and psychological peace. So, OK, I want to I want to tell my partner that I’m feeling really shut down.

Uh-oh, if I tell my partner that I’m shut down, maybe my partner will go away. Maybe my partner won’t know how to handle it. So I add another piece of shutting down. It’s like I can’t possibly say that because I won’t be loved. Does that make sense?

Francesca Gentille: It does make a lot of sense and I think I’ve been one of those people in my past that was so wanted to be liked, that I kept shutting down pieces of my own truth until I wasn’t actually in my relationships, and I was actually in the bedroom, because I kept hiding pieces of myself. And it really has been a journey to show up in my life——to know what I want, to feel my body, to be able to identify what might even be true for me or pleasing for me. And I think how we fit is so important. I’ve learned to say things like I would so love to learn more about my body. Would you collaborate with me in that discovery, rather than, you know, you’re not doing it right. Could you do it different? Or to even say, could we just stop for a moment, just for a moment? I want to be here with you and I feel like I just checked out here for a second. And so I’ll just take a moment to breath. So owning in a sense, owning that it’s my journey…

Anna Marti: Exactly.

Francesca Gentille: …and then inviting my partner to support me, but they’re not——the pressure is not on them——.                  

Anna Marti: Right.

Francesca Gentille: To do my journey for me, to figure out for me.

Anna Marti: Exactly and that’s the first piece. The one thing I can control, that I have control over is my communication. I’m using “I” statements. I’m communicating what’s true in present time. What’s true in present time is——I want to describe. What does that shutdown feel like? OK, right now maybe I feel like my throat is really tight, or if feels like there’s a weight on my heart, so I describe what’s true in present time. If I communicate from that place, is has nothing to do with the other person. It’s not about what my partner is doing or not doing, I’m owning what’s real for me. I can control that part.

Francesca Gentille: So if I’m caressing you, imagine…

Anna Marti: OK, thank you. Oh, how wonderful. [Laughter]

Francesca Gentille: And for some reason you’re starting to have an experience that’s not pleasurable. I mean my intention of course would be as your beloved, that I’m caressing you and you’re melting into my caress and adoring you, but for some reason that’s not happening. How would you describe that to me in present time in a way that I can feel connected in your description and not feel like I’m dong something wrong?

Anna Marti: Great. First of all, I’d own what was coming up for me and I’d go, Oh, Francesca, this is really scary for me. So immediately I’ve shown some vulnerability. This is really scary for me to say this but when I feel that touch on this particular my body, I don’t know what’s happening but I just kind of feel myself shutting down, and I really want to be close to you, so I want to let you know what’s happening. Maybe we can take a break for a moment and maybe you can just hold me. Would you be willing to do that?

Francesca Gentille: Sure, sure, sweetheart. Now that’s in a perfect world.

Anna Marti: What we’ve just described that’s in a perfect world. I’ve used “I” statements and you went, Oh yeah, I’d love to do that, but we often need to take into consideration that you’re bringing in all your wounds. And I can communicate as beautifully and openly with all the right words and you think I’ve seen this and you might——it might trigger something in you. You might be like, triggered like, all the times you felt you couldn’t get it right. And so when I talk about the ability to speak, listen, and experiencing challenging, and sometimes uncomfortable material in situations, the first part is my disclosing, my revealing those internal muscles that are scary enough for me to do, right?        

Francesca Gentille: Uh-hum.

Anna Marti: And then what becomes more uncomfortable is dealing with your response. You know——

Francesca Gentille: You know, let’s talk about that more after a break and a word from our sponsors and we’ll come back more about listening and taking in.

Anna Marti: OK.

Francesca Gentille: We’ll be right back.

[Commercial Break]

Francesca Gentille: Welcome back to Sex, Tanta and Kama Sutra, bringing you the soul of sex with Anna Marti, and we’re talking about receiving challenging information, and I’m so glad you’re bringing this up because I actually have a partner who is very adept at saying what he wants and what he doesn’t want——better than any man I’ve ever met. And my initial response was not, Oh, how delightful. My initial response is what, why are you telling me all this? Why can’t you just receive what I’m giving you and be happy about it. I mean really that’s what first went through my mind, was not that this is a precious gift.

Anna Marti: Right. [Laughter]

Francesca Gentille: But, you know that maybe there was something wrong with me, or you know, why couldn’t he just receive and why did he have to direct. So I imagine that I’m not the only person who’s had that kind of response when their partner has communicated something. What do you suggest for us?

Anna Marti: Well, what we’re talking about is we’re talking about what I believe is a life long learning curve. I don’t believe that like suddenly the skies open and we suddenly get this. I believe it’s something we practice and I don’t know anybody that came in being very good at it. In fact if we could go back to you, know when, we were young and experiencing our sexuality and eroticism——you know here’s what I got as a young woman: I’m responsible for how you feel. You know, whether you have an erection or not, whether you have an orgasm or not, whether it’s sexy enough, I’m responsible for that.

I’m responsible for your physiology, and you know male partners I like to make it very clear that this is not orientation day. It doesn’t matter what kind of relationship you’re in, but we have been conditioned to take responsibility for our partners’ physiology, which when I say that seems ludicrous, right. You know, nobody turns me on but me and if I’m not in the mood it doesn’t matter what you do. But we project it on other people. So what that means is, you know, if you’re not becoming aroused, or you’re not having a good time, somehow it is my fault and generally how we’ve learned to respond is withdrawal. So, I don’t know many people that have not had the experience when somebody has given them feedback, even if the feedback was really unskilled which it use to be like ouch, don’t do that. What does the partner usually do? They rollover. They go away, so basically, I’m telling my partner that it’s not safe for them to give me feedback. Right?

Francesca Gentille: Right. If——

Anna Marti: If I withdraw——
Francesca Gentille: If I’m touching you and you’ve given me feedback in the old model, the model that we don’t want to do… 

Anna Marti: Right.

Francesca Gentille: I would feel like I failed. Not only that I failed you, but that I am a failure. 
 
Anna Marti: I did something wrong. I’m wrong.

Francesca Gentille: And then therefore I’m going to detach from you because I feel so bad. I feel like such a failure but I can’t even continue to give to you, this beautiful being that I love. Now that’s the old model that we don’t want to want to do.      
Anna Marti: Right.

Francesca Gentille: And in the new model, you’re my beloved and you give me feedback. And in the new model, the one we’re creating right now, I know that I’m responsible for my own body and passion and you’re responsible for you, and that I’m collaborating with you in your pleasure. I don’t have to perform. I don’t have to dominate. I’m actually collaborating with you and so if you give me feedback, it’s actually important for me.

Anna Marti: The appropriate response is thank you!

[Laughter}

Anna Marti: Thank you. You know even if the way you tell it to me is unskilled. Even if you say, ouch, don’t do that. My response is thank you, of course I want to touch you in ways that are pleasurable. Thank you so much. The analogy I use is if you came home and said, Anna, let’s go out for Chinese food, and I said, I don’t feel like Chinese food. You wouldn’t think I didn’t want to eat. You would just think I don’t want Chinese food, right? You wouldn’t take it personally. Right? But when comes to are very deep erotic expression which is really an expression of am I lovable.

That’s the route. That’s the core wound: Am I lovable. And so when you say something that’s less than what I believe to be affirming, it goes right to that would. Even if you’re saying it right. Even if you’re saying all the right words like we talked about before.

You’re telling me in a really kind, loving way what you want, if it goes right to that wound that I’m not doing it right, I might withdraw, and so you can still, as the person that’s developing the skills about tuning into your body, you can stay connected. So you given the feedback. You’ve noticed that I’ve kind of withdrawn or gotten hurt, stay present. Maybe, it’s like physical contact, so maybe hold my hand. You look into my eyes. You stay with me. You might ask me, what’s happening in you right now? I noticed that you went kind of far away. I describe what’s happening in present time. I noticed that you went kind of far away. What’s happening? And so I want to cultivate this climate of open hearted connection. Even when it feels wanty, even when it feels uncomfortable. 

                     
Francesca Gentille: And so what you’re saying is that if I’m the one you explained to me something wasn’t working, and then I start to withdraw, that you could still be a gentle noticing, and invite me back. [Laughter]

Anna Marti: Yeah, I want to invite you back. So there’s two parts: first the ability to communicate how I feel and want I want and managing all my fear and all my discomfort around that, right, and then, how can I tolerate the discomfort of your anxiety, OK? You know when I work with people I describe it, you know if we’ve practiced some communication skills in a session and I said OK, so you go back and you know you’re feeling really good. You’re using “I” statements. You’re communicating to your partner, he or she freaks out. Generally we do one of two things: we’ll either change the subject like, Oh baby I’m sorry. We don’t need to talk about that right now.

I can’t stand that discomfort, or, I might do it internally. Well that didn’t work. Anna doesn’t know what she’s talking about. I’m never bringing that up again. In the presence of my partner’s discomfort, I am unable to sustain that relationship with myself. So the ability to speak, listen, and experience those challenging, and uncomfortable and awkward moments, while creating that climate of open hearted connection, is the door, is the road to experiencing that spaciousness that we spoke about in the beginning of our talk. Not only can I live in that spaciousness but I can cultivate that with one other person, two other people, with the whole planet so we can have that sense of peace and openness.

Francesca Gentille: And we want to give ourselves compassion and permission that we weren’t taught this. I love that you brought that up. We weren’t taught this. We weren’t trained in how to listen compassionately when someone is unhappy sometimes in a sense with us. We——we——the journey——what I hear the journey you’re telling us is that to really be erotically, deliciously, passionately connected, with life and with one another, to——it’s great amount——muscle, that muscle of staying compassionately connected in a way to what’s not working without judgment.

Anna Marti: Right.

Francesca Gentille: And when judgment comes up, having compassion for the judgment. So whatever is there continuing to deepen a well of compassion and there’s——it just——it sound like you’re designing such a beautiful doorway to truly, truly deep intimacy. 

Anna Marti: Thanks, Francesca, and it is a physical practice. I want to really emphasize that because we can get really heady about this stuff. And if I get real heady I’m not feeling my body and that’s really I think what Tantra gives us, certain aspects of Tantra that use the body is the body is always in present time. What a perfect vehicle, you know? If I want to check in whether I’m really here or not, am I in my body? And so it becomes that perfect vehicle to practice and notice. Am I in that quality of space? Or am I notice that my breath has gotten shorter? And I can check that out every single moment, every single moment it’s giving me information. I call it The Canary In The Coal Mine. Our bodies are The Canary In The Coal Mine. If I am in a conversation and it’s feeling like it’s off, what’s happening? You know, am I breathing? Because if it gets mental, I’m not even noticing that my shoulders may be up by my ears or I’m sitting away from the person I’m talking to.

Francesca Gentille: And I love this information and we’re almost out of time. I want to be sure that people can reach you, and reach other resources, so what are some resources you recommend in general for people to continue this journey and how would they be in contact with you in particular?

Anna Marti: OK, well to be in contact with me in particular, I have a personal website, it’s my name: www.annamarti.com and my phone number is there as well. I list some resources. I also encourage people to do what ever kind of personal self reflective work that speaks to them and their values.

There’s a type of work in Portland called Nocka-Ima, which is a Buddhist practice which is about learning how to be revealing and stand in that honesty and also letting go of attachments—— really valuable. I haven’t done it myself, I’ve heard good things about Landmark Forum doing a similar kind of thing but will appeal maybe to a different kind of audience. Personal therapy, Insight Meditation, any practice of self reflection. You know if you’re involved with a kind of a Christian church involves that, so a personal practice of self-reflection I think is really useful.

Francesca Gentille: Thank you so much, Anna. I love the beautiful journey that you’ve taken us on today, and for our listening audience, I want to thank you for being on this with us, and for being people that are committed to the sacred in life, Eros, in sexuality, in relationships, and if you want to connect with Anna, and the transcript from the show, or connect with me and my private practice as well, you can do that at www.personallifemedia.com, that’s  www.personallifemedia.com, Sex: Tantra, & Kama Sutra, brining you the soul of sex.

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