Exploring intimacy – through touch from the heart

When I left the monastery 12 years ago I did feel that I was selling out a bit. I left the monastery after feeling a deep attraction to a man I had met there but who lived and worked in London. I wanted to explore if there was any possibility here for a relationship, and if not knew that I needed to explore my intimate and sensual experience, having been celibate for most of my adult life. I was 34 when I left the monastery and had been celibate from the age of 22. 

On arriving in London the relationship with the man I knew from the monastery grew into a beautiful friendship, but never developed into being boyfriends or lovers. But I did start to explore Eros. I started by going on GMFA workshops about sex and HIV. They were a great mix of information about safer sex in the context of a workshop on different areas of sexual activity. As the years went by I explored this more though Tantra for Gay men workshops, erotic massage training weekends and other events and workshops exploring intimacy, massage and touch. More recently I’ve started to explore issues of intimacy, trust and vulnerability through my therapy sessions. All of this work keeps coming back to boundaries, and how to hold my own and negotiate how I connect with others and meet them at their edge rather than crash through!

Whilst doing this I always felt that this was all somehow separate form my life as a spiritual practitioner. Again feeling the shame of somehow selling out: that as a real spiritual warrior I would not be tempted by the flesh! As such I always treated the sensual workshops that I did as something secret or not to be included in my teaching work as a meditation teacher. In this way I helped to maintain the tendency to create a dichotomy between ‘good’ and ‘bad’, spirit and the flesh. 

Last year at the Summer Queer Spirit festival I led a workshop on Exploring Intimacy. The festival was a place of experimenting and allowing oneself to be a little more free and spontaneous. I led the workshop on exploring intimate touch as well as teaching the morning and evening meditation. And for the first time the two areas of my interest over the last 12 years of living in London met. 

The workshop was something that had been forming in my mind for a while, drawing on work I had done with Andy Saich, Kai Helmich, Gill and others. When I first came to London I trained in a Psycotheraputic form of massage called Biodynamic massage. Some years latter I attended the weekend training where Andy taught the body flow erotic massage, which introduced me to a form of massage that was more erotic than my formal training, and allowed for the Eros energy to be a part of the massage rather than excluded or denied. Gill led evening workshops around touch and holding, which introduced me to working in a naked space with other men.

Most recently Kai has been my somatic body therapist over the last year and has helped me enormously with starting to make friends with my body and feel more at ease in myself as a sexual and erotic being so that this aspect of my energy no longer has to be in conflict with the sense of being a ‘spiritual’ seeker. With Kai I explored recieving massage and sensual touch, holding boundaries, exploring asking and saying no, combined with time to talk and explore though conversation what was happening in my emotional life, my patterns of relationship and fear of intimacy.

Drawing these experiences together I created the frame work for the workshop and led my first session at last years Queer Spirit Festival. The session was clothing optional and involved people exploring holding their boundaries and expressing how they wanted to be touched as they went into working in pairs. We started with a group discussion about intimacy and people’s experience of touch and opening to connection. We then went into pair work through a process of exploring boundaries and inviting people into our space or asking them to move away. The intention of this was to have a sense of how a strong yes can only come when we feel comfortable saying no.

We then walked the space and slowly came to a point where people were in pairs through a process of stopping and turning to someone who was near. Once in pairs people talked about what they would feel comfortable with, what they would like from the other or what they did not want. Some pairs undressed, other stayed clothed. Each pair agreeing what felt right for them. People then explored giving and receiving touch. It was beautiful to be present to, and out of the event some strong friendships and connections emerged that ppeole then explored over the rest of the festival.

Coming back to London I intended to run more of these events, but my doubt came in and I questioned if I could do this and run a meditation group and teach mindfulness. Then at New Year I led the event again at Loving Men and got good feedback from participants. 

Now I feel keen to explore this here in London. I have found it so hard to get over my shame about the body, sensuality and sexual desire. It makes relationships so complicated carrying this toxic guilt. And I am sure I am not alone in this! I’m so excited now to have a chance to explore this consciously with other men who would like to  meet in a non sexual but intimate space of touch and holding. The first workshop will be on Thursday 20th July and thereafter on the third Thursday of every month. Full details of price and location to follow soon.

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