Beyond Tantra: Healing Through Taoist Sacred Sex by Mieke Wik, Stephan Wik Read Free Book Online Page B

mental and sexual safety. If you don’t feel safe, it’s just not possible to open up to areas of yourself that are very vulnerable. We discovered that it was impossible to start on the path of Sacred Sex until we had found a way to create a safe, trusting space where we could be open and honest with each other. The exercise in this chapter helps to build that trust on an intellectual and emotional level.
    The exercises in the next chapter help build trust on the physical level.
    Stephan’s Story
    When Mieke became ill and I started to research Sacred Sex, I took out the three books on Sacred Sex that I had bought some years earlier. I started by reading through them fairly quickly until I came to the interesting bits where the actual sex exercises were. I figured we were liberal and progressive enough not to need to do all of those communication and trust-building exercises. Well, after a few months not much was happening. It felt like we were going through the motions but none of the things that were supposed to happen according to the books were happening. No female orgasms, no increased sense of well-being, nothing at all. Mieke was frustrated and I was frustrated.
    So I went back to the books and read again, a bit more slowly this time.
    While I was reading, I tried to observe myself as if from a distance. I watched myself to see what sections of the book I was skimming over and, when I caught myself doing this, I stopped. I then went back and re-read the section in question, word for word. After doing this a few times I discovered that the parts I was avoiding were all the things that had to do with looking at myself and my own

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    Building Trust – Stephan’s Story
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    patterns, my beliefs around sexuality and, most importantly, learning how to communicate with my partner. I was so concerned with learning how to do something new that I was completely missing the bits that had to do with sorting out the old.
    And so, very hesitantly, I broached the subject with Mieke during a long car ride back from Dublin to the west coast of Ireland. The roads are pretty bad in some parts of Ireland so that a journey that would take two hours anywhere else in Europe can take four or more hours. Plenty of time for a long chat!
    I said: ‘You know, one of the exercises I was reading in the book has nothing to do with physical sex. Instead it encourages you to tell each other about past sexual experiences that you really enjoyed as a way of getting to know more about what each of you really like.’
    Mieke went very quiet. After a few minutes she said, ‘I don’t think that’s such a good idea.’
    ‘Why not?’ I asked.
    ‘If I do, I’m afraid you’ll get very angry,’ she said.
    My heart sank. In an instant I realized that we had a huge problem that we would have to deal with if we were going to get working on our sexual relationship. Ten years previously, Mieke had started, without my knowledge, a sexual relationship with another man that had lasted for five years. When I finally found out about it, I was very upset and angry and we had separated for six months as a result. After some counselling, we decided to try and start again which we had done reasonably successfully. But at that instant I realized that the wounds were not all healed and were in fact still very much present. I had a strong sense as well that this unresolved issue was at the very heart of why we were still struggling on many levels of our relationship. To put it simply, I still didn’t trust her and she was still afraid of my verbal and emotional anger. I understood that this was not a good place from which to start working with Sacred Sex and, if we wanted to proceed, something had to be done about it.
    ‘What could I do to make it safe for you to tell me?’ I asked.
    She responded, ‘Well, you would need to promise me that, if I tell you about my experience, you will never, ever bring it up again or talk about