Suppression and Repression of Sexuality

[Seth Ananda]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts Seth Ananda.

 

Taking into account all that has been discussed here, i believe that

- there are stages in the meditation practice where the cultivator needs to be celibate.

 

 

- i believe in being able to be open or close, in conformity to your will

 

-i believe that some degree of tension is still needed, just the way we need polarity for the exchange to occur.

Hmm, In a society that is inherently sexually repressed you may be right. All the systems that develop within such a culture would be based on the underlying condition of the practitioners.

 

And their is no good point to being closed in the way that I mean closed.

[Friend]

Edited November 17, 2011 by Friend

[Spectrum]

Face the tree, hug the tree, climb the tree, dance in out up and down the tree... You are free to do this. Grow. Bloom. Fruit. Observing breaths and movements of trees are for me.

 

Alignment is not rigid, relaxed mobility shapes inself to the wave at hand.

[Jetsun]

I think Feldenkrais can be good to help move consciousness back into a limited range of movement. Tantric therapy's are my personal favourite, and use pleasure rather that pain for greater effect, and anything that increases the pleasure conductivity of your body.

Pleasure is the ultimate melter of body armour, which is why militaristic society's are a bit suspicious of it in general, and usually have a series of pleasure taboo's.

 

I tend to think that you should have a good therapist available also, as their can be some nasty psychological surprises waiting behind body armour.

 

Pleasurable Blessings!

 

Kum Nye is probably the best method I have found for addressing this, with armoured areas of your body the natural pulsation of expansion and contraction of the nervous system has been arrested so the postures of Kum Nye give a physical and subtle massage to those areas reintroducing the natural pulsation of expansion and contraction, but it is done slowly without force which allows the release of feelings underneath the tension. With the massage and release comes great pleasure, to your nervous system it's like a release from a long prison sentence.

[Mandrake]

I am uncertain if Rolfing is permanent or not. Several years after I was Rolfed, a friend of mine was giving me a massage. When she pushed on my rib cage, she looked at me and asked me if I had been Rolfed. She said my rib cage felt like a babies rib cage.

 

I believe that process has helped me dispense with many belief systems that were weighing me down. This type of therapy really does validate the body mind connection and how psychological issues can be dealt with by working on the body.

 

I would also like to add that I started doing yoga around 1965 and was able to do full lotus fairly well. That helped keep my pelvis open. An ex girlfriend commented how she liked the way my hips freely move when I am walking, and in other ways.

 

Will definitely try it out. Permanent or not, a momentary release will give one a glimpse of how the body-mind should be when undisturbed. Amazing that when one sees these armors in one self, you can easily spot them in others.

 

I find it incredible that the body-mind connection has been ignored so long, and especially in therapeutics. There's one study that found out a correlation between stiff face muscles and decreased empathy, though I don't remember the name of the authors.

So many things that should be obvious; we are definitely not very advanced a civilization yet.

 

Since you mentioned doing yoga (asanas?), how would you compare the effects to those of Rolfing? Or is this a complement that could help keep the body open after treatment?

 

 

Mandrake

[Mandrake]

Skimming through "The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness" by Erich Fromm (I have it, but have not read it yet), I want to remember that he extensively compares an assortment of tribes - many quite isolated - ranging from peaceful to highly aggressive. If my memory is correct, the violent tribes had far from a relaxed attitude toward sex: lots of control, forms of sex limited, possessiveness, and they couldn't enjoy it especially much.

 

This is far from all what the book is about, but thought it worth mentioning; this piece of litterature may be interesting for other forum lurkers as well.

 

I sometimes wonder if the stronger the body armor, the more the fixation with forceful sources of hedonistic pleasure, and the lower the ability to enjoy the subtle pleasure that permeates so much of life.

 

Mandrake

[Seth Ananda]

 

I sometimes wonder if the stronger the body armor, the more the fixation with forceful sources of hedonistic pleasure, and the lower the ability to enjoy the subtle pleasure that permeates so much of life.

 

Mandrake

Absolutely.