Kali Rising (Be who you truly are)

Ballentine’s first principle that everything is an experiment, that we need to come at everything with a sense of curiosity and playfulness, is paramount, and perfectly reflects the coaching context. And can only happen when we are no longer in survival mode, ie, living out of our trauma responses (in our Root chakra of survival and fear).

If the true intent of tantra is to bring about creative and spontaneous self-expression then we need to open up the possibility for loving interactions between our adventurous, steadfast, nurturing and allowing sides for the birth of something new. This is how we cultivate our container (Tapas), ie the coaching session, that can lead to creative self-expression (Spanda), ie, principle two.

For this to happen we need to recognise our quadruple nature. We already recognise part of this in Western thinking, the left and right brain. But taking this a step further Ballentine clarifies that each aspect itself is split into two. So our left brain which we tend to think of as rational and linear (Shiva) can be seen as steadfast at its best, stuck at its worst, or adventurous at its best and irresponsible at its worst. And our right brain which we tend to think of as non-rational and creative (Shakti) can be seen as nurturing at its best, suffocating at its worst, or the birth of the new at its best and destructive if suppressed.

For practical steps, in the coaching context, to help with this journey of loving interactions we need to work with our energy centres to support kundalini rising. For clarity, we have the Root chakra which is survival (and fear) where we will stay stuck if we are driven by habitual trauma responses. In order to progress to the Sacral chakra we need to learn to play through cultivating our safe container (there are great activities to support this through the work coming out of Polyvagal Theory which I won’t go into here).

This will allow us to tap into a more sexual energy, thereby progressing towards the third chakra, our Solar Plexus. Here we are likely to become more assertive and confident, looking for mastery and so allowing our sexual expression – back in the Sacral chakra – to become less inhibited and more dynamic. This, likewise, will help us shift from seeing ‘power’ in the traditional Western sense, which Ballentine calls ‘violence’, to a more creative, heart-centred definition of power. It is in the Heart chakra we bring together the right and left dynamic.

It is the Ajna chakra (3rd Eye) though where this dynamic is activated and lived out from. This allows us to live life with pleasure at the heart of all we do. So the more we build pleasure the more we build our container to allow for the release of the new, and the more we do this the less we suppress our pleasure, that could lead to destructive energy release.

Brining it all together

This then is the tantra cycle. The true intent of tantra. To bring the aspects of adventurousness, steadfastness, nurturing and allowing the birthing of the new together to release our spontaneous life-energy, to bring our inner and outer dynamics to transformation. Or, to put more simply, the coaching context is where we build our container for creative self-expression.

To release our trauma and live the life we truly are.

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Email me direct if you are interested in mindful, trauma-informed, intimacy or spiritual coaching, or if you would like to join my new Pink Tantra Towards Awakening group for chat rooms, video channels and in-person workshops around tantra and intimacy practices robert.pinktantra@gmail.com

See my personal development / personality profiling book DISCover the Power of You published through John Hunt Publishing Ltd, 2017. ISBN: 978-1-78535-591-2

And for a bit of light reading, see my first historical fictional novel Fermented Spirits published through Austin Macauley Publishers, 2022. ISBN-13: ‎978-1398437159