My Journey into Spiritual Sex Ch. 02

Nobody argued. We all meekly complied and did what we were told! Everyone was well past caring about the fact that they were nude, and all dignity was lost. I am sure that no one cared about being naked by the end of all that. Everybody followed the instruction blindly to kick their legs in the air with gusto and gay abandon. It is amazing what you can persuade people to do that normally would be so alien. Legs were flailing around, spread far apart, and all modesty was abandoned. The treatment had worked on everybody. Not that I had ever needed any in the first place. They had all become exhibitionists just like me!

Soraya was pleased with us all and asked us at last to stop and just lie still on our mats and to relax and close our eyes. She said, "I want to finish this session with a few final truths for you to remember.

"I want to finish by emphasising again that naturism is not about being sexual. It is merely just relaxing and being in the way nature intended. But naturism helps with gaining confidence about your body, and body confidence can help with sexual confidence. But you should not associate naturism with sex. Casual nakedness is not sexual and is not presented in a sexual way and therefore does not feel sexual or necessarily lead to sexual activity. Nudity is only sexual when it is presented as such. There are some situations that are sexual and some that are not. But we have to accept that under current laws and conventions we can for now only be naked in our homes, a spa, or private places, clubs or designated zones e.g. beaches. We might not like it, but were we to walk naked down the street we could be arrested, or assaulted or taken away in an ambulance for being mentally ill. That is just how it is in our society at the moment. So, for the rest of this retreat, at least, embrace and love your body and boldly wear your nakedness with confidence. Enjoy and have fun."

Boy what a session! We all clapped Soraya with a passion. She had had given us all a boost and a lift and helped everybody see naturism in a much more realistic and healthy way.

My First Naked Yoga Session

After a coffee break, we regrouped for naked yoga! Now I do a fair bit of yoga but never before naked! Soraya presented this session again, and without any prompting we all laid down on our yoga mats au naturel. Soraya briefly told us that nude yoga has been practiced since ancient times especially in e.g. India and Greece. Yoga, for those who know little about it, combines mindfulness with stretching and posture. Nudity including during yoga has often been seen as part of spiritual practice. Nudity was considered a way of rejecting the material side of life. They practiced naked yoga to tame their desires, identify with their physical bodies and to break the attachment with everything physical, and material. Modern naked yoga is practiced in e.g. German, Switzerland, London, New York and Los Angeles. There are a surprising number of places that you can go now for nude yoga courses. Being naked during yoga creates a feeling of freedom and is a way of connecting more deeply with the body. The skin is the largest sensual organ in the body and letting it feel the cool or warm air around it is a nourishing, enlivening and liberating experience. Yoga teaches us that we are all one -- that we are all divine, love, and spiritual and without clothes, without labels, we are all equal.

However, this was not to be another session with a lot of teaching but was more about a serious and proper yoga session. So, without further ado we were into the familiar poses and stretches. We started with the gentle relaxing corpse and prayer poses but then had an hour of all the usual warrior, lunge, plank, cow, bridge positions etc. It was hard work as anyone who does yoga will know. But doing it naked did make it a lot of fun for me. It is just unbelievably liberating, exhilarating and emancipating somehow. You would not think it would make much difference, but it does. It very soon starts to feel very natural indeed. At first yes you see people staring at each other but that soon becomes boring and the fascination quickly wears off.

The end of the yoga session signalled the start of the first grounding session. Sylvia arrived to lead the session and those that that wanted left for a quick loo break.

The First Grounding Session

Sylvia introduced the session by saying, "OK we are now going to have our first grounding session. As I said at breakfast these groundings are a central element of the healing process at our retreats. I know they may sound a little daunting at first to the uninitiated. These are sessions where we ask you to present yourself to the group one at a time as a prelude to your workshops here. This is a very powerful tool that you should try to embrace with an open mind. Those of you who have not been before are strongly recommended to go through this process but any of you who have been before and would like to do it again are also very welcome. There are ten of you on this retreat for the first time and I am pleased to say that all but one of you have elected to go through it. So, we are going to try to fit five in today and the other four tomorrow. It is perfectly fine to choose not to. None of you who have been before have asked to do it again. I hope that does not mean you found it too terrible! Put your hands up those who have been before."

They did and Sylvia asked, "It was not too awful was it? I hope you found it helped you?"

Shakti, Amy and Mark were the most vocal in saying that they had found it positive and helpful. But no one said that they had not liked it. The others all nodded approvingly. I wondered who it was who had declined to have one on this retreat.

"The way these grounding sessions work is this. We will ask you to sit at the front on our grounding bench. You can then in your own words and in your own time layout how you feel about your life at the moment, and tell us about your sexual, emotional and love life situation, and about your worries, and problems. You can be totally frank and honest with us and the more open and truthful you are the more successful, powerful and therapeutic you will find the process. In reality you are not telling us; you are actually telling yourself and bringing to an end those personal emotional problems over which you are in denial. It is by doing this that we can throw off unwanted unhelpful beliefs, and behaviours that are holding us back. I do not have to tell you what you need to change. Through this cathartic process your sub conscious listens to your conscious account of your feelings about your life and the harmful beliefs and behaviours that need purging become obvious and readily apparent without anyone pointing them out. You have to go through this uncomfortable process where you face the issues that are holding you back in your personal, emotional, and maybe love life in order to come out the other side in a much better place free to move on.

Another way to imagine this is like running a virus check on your lap top. We are going to reboot you! Give your operating system a clean-up! Reinitialise you! Each person generally takes about thirty minutes as the process is quite intense. This time is divided into approximately fifteen minutes of you sharing your situation with the rest of us, followed by fifteen minutes of receiving the love and positive energy of the group."

We all sat around the edge of the temple on our yoga mats. Sylvia began by reminding us what an important part of the programme the grounding session was considered to be for those that had not been on one of the retreats before. She reiterated that by going through this you will get the most benefit out of this retreat in self-improvement and personal development. The grounding sessions were positioned as sacred ceremonies and it was made clear that we should treat them with a great deal of reverence. We were all agog and it was deathly quiet. I felt really alert and intensely curious at what was about to happen.

Sylvia said that during the retreat there were going to be nine grounding sessions for the people who had not been before. At that moment I wish that I had declined! Sylvia announced that the first 'victim' was to be Heather. Heather gave a little nervous wave to the group. It was obvious that she knew she had been picked to go first and must have agreed to it. I was sure as hell, glad it was not me. Sylvia then said that the grounding sessions can be a little tense for all concerned and that for them to work best it was a tradition for everyone to begin with a glass of Shiva's relaxing fruit cocktail. She invited us all to come forward to receive a glass. It was a starting to seem a bit like a Holy Communion. We all settled back down with our glasses and Heather was invited to come to sit on the grounding 'bench' at the front next to Sylvia. The grounding bench turned out to be more like a single mattress on a low wooden frame like a futon covered with a colourful Indian design blanket. Sylvia placed her hand on Heather's forehead and said that Heather was being very brave by agreeing to go first and invited the rest of us to give her a clap. We did and Heather smiled nervously and looked like she was going to break out in tears already. This all felt very intense and a bit voyeuristic and I remained to be convinced that such an awkward and uncomfortable experience could possibly be helpful. I contemplated removing my name from the list as I expect the others did as well at that point.

Sylvia rang the meditation bowel and asked Heather to begin talking about herself.

She started nervously but soon got into the swing of it. However, she became increasingly upset and distraught. Heather lived in Southampton, was 38, and had no children. She worked as a junior school teacher. She had been married for 15 years but now her husband was playing away and for the last five years the 'physical side of her marriage had dried up.' Another male teacher at her school was showing her interest. She was not sure how to respond. She was also depressed because she had put on so much weight.

By the end of her throwing it all out there which actually only took about five minutes she was sobbing her heart out. I thought not a bad haul of problems for the first victim!

Sylvia comforted her and then asked her to lie down and receive the love of the group. Heather did lie down and calm down a little. Sylvia invited us all to gather around Heather. What happened next was pretty amazing and dramatic. And indeed, this was the pattern for all the groundings that followed. Dear reader rather than tell you about what happened next to Heather I would prefer to tell you about what happened in my own grounding session a little later. All the grounding sessions followed a similar pattern anyway.

I would say that the emotional problems that the others shared with the group were shocking and prolific. If you ever wanted evidence that we are all screwed up in some way; that we are all screwballs, then this was it. Everyone is a mess in their own way. I was much less worried about putting myself out there now when the time came. There were some who had been abused as children by their father, some abused by their brothers and some by teachers. There were those who were unloved, those whose partner was unfaithful, and some who could not find a partner at all. One woman aged 42 who I will not name had never had a partner and was still a virgin! Many of the woman hated how they looked and felt fat. One woman was stick thin and anorexic. One woman even hated the appearance of her vagina for God's sake. It was sheer carnage

The First Evening Meditation

On Monday evening after supper at just after eight o'clock we all marched off to the temple as instructed. There was no time to return to our bedrooms beforehand. I could not believe this was only the second evening, that we had only been there just over 24 hours, so much had happened. When we arrived, we were greeted by Shiva again and the format was very similar to the morning session. I have to say though that it did turn out to be equally sublime. Everybody walked in, took a yoga mat, and then stripped off completely without being asked leaving their clothes in a heap by the side. By the start of the meditation Shiva had his eighteen disciples all lying naked on their yoga mats fully receptive to his relaxing messages. It was clever how they arranged the timings of these meditations to coincide with sunrise and sunset and equally inspired how they had designed this temple so that the sun would stream in from one side and later the other through the glass walls.

My Grounding Session

On Tuesday when I awoke all I could think about was that my grounding session was going to happen at some point that day. I was pretty nervous about it I can tell you. I could not believe that this was only my second full day here. I felt like I had already been here a week. Anyway, the day began as usual with the morning meditation. I dressed just in the thick fluffy white robe and nothing else with increasing confidence that I was starting to get to know the ropes.

When I sat down at breakfast, I noticed with satisfaction that as my knee separated the bottom of my robe, my leg was revealed right up to just below my hip. Similarly, as I leant forward the loose V exposed the sides of my breasts and cleavage. I was going to love having a licence to legitimately dress like this all week.

Over breakfast Sylvia came in again with her usual comments on the programme for the day. One thing she said though was that she was sorry that so far, she had forgotten to tell us that the centre was lucky enough to have its own resident spiritual masseur with us this week. When she introduced him, this turned out to be none other than Joshua. I was not sitting with Joshua this morning and he briefly stood up and smiled at the rest of the group although everyone knew him by now. We could apparently book an appointment with him should we wish to partake and then settle up with him directly. It seems that Joshua was a participant on the retreat, and an assistant, and was also offering a massage service! He is a busy man! But knowing Joshua I could see why they would have been delighted to have him involved and would be happy for him to make some extra income on the side. I knew first hand exactly what a massage from Joshua would be like and I have to be honest at that moment I know it is ridiculous but I actually felt jealous! I felt quite proprietorial and possessive about Joshua; he was my masseur, my secret. It was as if we had something going which we did not - at least not then anyway.

The Tuesday programme was filled with a mix of yoga, and stretching, and more grounding sessions. We also had a talk on meditation techniques and an actual meditation after lunch. My own grounding session was arranged to happen as the last session of the day after the evening meditation at about 9 o'clock in the evening. I would have preferred it to happen much earlier as I was consigned to worry about it all day. This retreat was very intense and tiring and by that time of night I was exhausted and worried that I would be falling asleep. But they had to fit in nine of them as early as they could in the programme so they had little choice but to cram them into the first three days. Mine was actually the last that day and the final one was arranged for the next morning.

So, when it finally arrived, we stayed in the temple after the evening meditation and Sylvia arrived and invited me to come forward for my grounding. She thanked everybody for agreeing to carry on so late in the evening. The grounding bench was hastily dragged out and positioned at the front. Everyone was invited to take a glass of the relaxing fruit juice but we had already had three grounding sessions that day so we had drunk several glasses of the stuff already. So, everyone was already feeling very relaxed and to be honest these grounding sessions were very entertaining and interesting and compelling (at least when it is someone else who is the victim). When did you ever get such a graphic window on another human being's innermost and most intimate problems and personal life? I was tired of waiting and just wanted to get started now and get it over with. When Sylvia gave me my drink it was actually in a special large goblet about three times the size of everyone else's. I had not noticed before that the victim being grounded was given an extra-large measure. I never did know what was in this stuff, but it did make you more relaxed and spaced out. I think I could taste some sort of spirit in it. I went meekly to my fate with no resistance and sat of the bench in my robe with my legs up in a V in front of me and drank the goblet.

It was dark now and the lights in the temple were dimmed right down so the glass walls were reflecting the little soft lighting that remained. It was without doubt a profound experience. I wondered what the next half hour held for me. Sylvia asked me to talk about myself and my spiritual and sexual life and 'share my world' with the group'. She invited me in my own words to lay out how I felt l about my life at the moment, and to describe my sex, emotional and love life, and to describe my worries, and problems. She reminded me that the more totally frank and honest and open and truthful I was the more successful, powerful and therapeutic I would find the process. But by now I knew all this from watching the others who had gone before me, and had obviously been rehearsing in my mind what I would say.

Sylvia hit the meditation bowl which was the signal to start. As the melodic note sang out Sylvia placed her hand on my forehead again and invited me to start. I felt incredibly nervous at that point. My extra-large goblet of juice had not had time to work yet. It all came out much more jumbled and unstructured than I had rehearsed. I told them about how now I had become so focussed on exploring and following a path of spiritual intelligence. I told them about my complicated love life and how I had two partners in a polyamorous relationship. I told them about how confused I was about what I really wanted for me and felt trapped in my current situation. I told them about how having two 'husbands' had driven my first and real husband, who I had loved and loved me, into the arms of my new lovers' wife.

I told them about how I had always been driven to exhibitionism and did not really understand why and what was wrong with me. I told them that my exhibitionism had got me into trouble and some undesirable situations, and that I had been taken advantage of on more than one occasion. In truth I was more culpable than that, but I did not want to admit that. In tears, I told them about the incident on the beach on a Greek island in the Ionian. I told them that I was drunk and taken advantage of- raped really, by three guys, although that was not entirely truthful about what had occurred. How that had changed my life and made me feel cheap and a whore ever since. It had also changed my relationship with my husband. I thought these were exactly the sort of demons that the process demanded me to air and expose.

I told them about my insecurities about my relationships with my grown-up children. Dear reader I hope you will understand that this was an extremely personal and intimate experience and what was said inside that retreat is supposed to stay in the retreat. You already know a huge amount about me and my personal life, if you have read some of my previous stories, and I do want to say much more here about what I told them. It is all too painful and personal. But be assured that I told them that I felt such a mess and my behaviour in the grounding session would have confirmed that! To be honest at all the previous groundings it had been de rigueur to become very distressed and upset as it all comes tumbling out to the group and I was to be no exception. Suffice to say that I fell apart sobbing my heart out. I put it all out there for them to see.