The most challenging time to apply the teachings of Joy Rebel Tantra is also when they’re needed the most.
This is when conditions are challenging.
When we feel like shit.
When there is fear, guilt, shame or grief flooding the system.
When we don’t like what’s happening, or what we feel, and we want to change it because we’re feeling difficult emotions.
Often we’ve been on the spiritual path for a long time, or on the path of healing, and so when we don’t like what’s going on inside us… we immediately wonder ‘what’s wrong’ and ‘how can I fix this’.
We reach for our practices, our techniques, whatever it takes to CHANGE what’s happening right now.
This becomes a different kind of self-soothing, a different kind of violence, that is rejecting what’s here now.
The challenge in these moments is to first slow down.
To let the breath be long and deep – not to change or fix or heal anything, but rather to allow us to more deeply drop into being with whatever is happening, including the difficult emotions.
Once we’ve slowed down, then it’s about becoming intimate with whatever is arising as it is.
Be intimate with the fear, or the guilt, or the shame, or the grief.
Depending on where we are in our journey, this can feel almost impossible.
The system might activate all kinds of mechanisms to do everything it can to NOT feel what’s there, because in the past is wasn’t safe, and we didn’t have the capacity.
Our role here is to notice those mechanisms, and meet them fully, in a way that then allows us to disarm them, or ‘turn them off’.
For example, disassociation was one of the safety mechanisms that kept me safe at various times in my life.
If that turns on now, I need to do embodiment practices – Dancing the Dragon, shaking, Ancestral Karma Prostrations Practice – to bring me back into my body first.
Part of our journey is mapping these internal mechanisms, becoming intimate with them, and being able to skilfully work with them, as necessary.
Sometimes, we need support to do this. When I work with people 1:1, or in small group coaching (like the Joy Rebel Tantra Training)I guide people down to fully meet whatever is arising, and this includes mapping the way the psyche functions.
Sometimes we need that external support to guide, and point out what is happening so we can move through it, without getting identified or stuck.
In time, with training, we learn how to do this ourselves.
And every time we’re able to meet what’s arising, including the difficult emotions, just as it is, magic happens.
This is me, now.
I’m in a challenging passageway, and it doesn’t feel good at all.
I can feel the part of me that wants to fix, heal, change, resolve what’s happening.
And I don’t let it run the show.
Instead, I allow myself to slow down and meet what’s there, with curiosity and love.
This changes the experience almost immediately from ‘I don’t want this’ to ‘I’m meeting this with curiosity’.
The paradox is that this makes it feel more bearable… and less ‘bad’.
The system softens and relaxes.
Ah… we’re just here.
Nothing to guard against.
Everything to experience.
This is the door opener… the breakthrough moment… the realisation.
It happens because we’ve dropped all agenda and opened into aliveness itself.
That’s Joy Rebel Tantra right there. Opening into the inherent joy of awareness in every moment.
Even when we feel like shit.
Even when we feel bad.
Even when every part of us is screaming FIX THIS HEAL THIS SOMETHING IS WRONG.
Especially then.
Because what’s ‘wrong’ is not what we’re feeling.
It’s that we’re rejecting what we’re feeling. That we’re rejecting reality itself. We’re separating ourselves out from it.
THAT’S what’s wrong.
And by slowing down, softening, opening up, and embracing what is… we’re back, intimate with reality again.
That’s what changes everything.
Not making the fear go away.
Not fixing the grief.
Not healing shame fast enough to feel safe again.
But softening out of resistance.
Dropping the argument with reality.
Becoming intimate with what is here.
And in that intimacy, something opens.
The system relaxes.
The heart opens.
What felt unbearable becomes holdable.
What felt wrong becomes part of the aliveness of being here.
This is Joy Rebel Tantra.
Not the rejection of human experience, but the willingness to meet it fully.
To open into awareness, sensation, tenderness, truth.
Even here.
Especially here.
And sometimes, this is hard to do alone.
Sometimes we need support to slow down enough, feel safely enough, and see clearly enough to stay present with what’s arising without collapsing, bypassing, or trying to fix it.
That’s the work I guide people through in 1:1 sessions and inside the Joy Rebel Tantra Training.
If you’re in a challenging passage and you’re ready to learn how to meet yourself with more intimacy, skill, and love, you’re welcome to reach out.
