This is a question many people like Tatayana ask themselves at one time or another. How do you balance sex with your other needs and life priorities? What to do when you’re married and having an affair? Clearly there is no one clear or easy answer for everyone or even for ourselves that works all the time. Circumstances change. We change. As you read Tatayana’s interview with the Serpent that personifies her sexuality, think about your own. How can you use the perspective of this serpent to bring your own sexuality into better balance?
What is a fundamental life issue that you are dealing with now in your life?
Am I a sex addict?? I took a test in a magazine and it asked me questions like, “Do you think about sex all the time?” I answered “yes!” To most of them!
Which issue brings up the strongest feelings for you?
My sex drive. It’s a very domineering aspect of myself!
First let’s ask a high scoring aspect of yourself that you’ve interviewed before, Glow. Glow, what do you think about Tatayana’s concern?
She’s not a sex addict!
If those feelings about your sex drive had a color (or colors), what would it be?
Bright red!
Imagine that color filling the space in front of you so that it has depth, height, width, and aliveness.
Now watch that color swirl, congeal, and condense into a shape. Don’t make it take a shape, just watch it and say the first thing that you see or that comes to your mind: An animal? Object? Plant? What?
I’m a serpent!
Now remember how as a child you liked to pretend you were a teacher or a doctor? It’s easy and fun for you to imagine that you are the shape that took form from your color and answer some questions I ask, saying the first thing that comes to your mind. If you wait too long to answer, that’s not the character answering – that’s YOU trying to figure out the right thing to say!
Serpent, would you please tell me about yourself and what you are doing?
I am within her. I’m throughout her. I’m pulsating….I don’t have a lot of form. I’m more like an energy serpent. I’m in reds and oranges that change color. I hang out more from the base of the spine to the crown of the head.
Are you kundalini?
I think I’m related. I don’t know if I’m that. I’m related in that I provide a physiological sensation in the same way that kundalini can and also provide an altered state of consciousness.
How do you pulsate?
It’s my breathing. It’s fluidity and movement for me. Like fire moves. It can move like water.
What do you like most about yourself? What are your strengths?
I like that I feel good. I provide pleasure. I like that I’m fluid and there’s no stagnation. There’s so much freedom in my movement. My strengths are that I’m very present. I’m not afraid to experience whatever comes. I’m happy, content, and satisfied!
Tatayana’s married, Serpent. How does her husband deal with her sex drive?
He’s always had a problem keeping up with her.
What do you dislike most about yourself, Serpent? Do you have weaknesses? What are they?
I’m not necessarily accepted by others. My way of expression is not viewed as appropriate. I think people should focus more on themselves than on me and other people. I dislike that I care about what they think about me!
You wish that you could care less about what they think about you, Serpent?
Yes!
Any other weaknesses?
I think it’s a weakness that I’m not completely committed to any one thing, but rather always looking for something new. I could harm others in discovering new things. It’s not a weakness for me but I can see how it could cause problems for others. I would like to care less but I also do not want to hurt people.
Serpent, you are in Tatayana’s life experience, correct? She created you, right? What aspect of Tatayana do you represent or most closely personify?
I most closely represent her sense that her marriage isn’t working out. Because I understand that she’s afraid that she’s going to hurt her husband. I don’t want to hurt people but I also want freedom!
Serpent, if you could be anywhere you wanted to be and take any form you desired, would you change? If so, how?
I wouldn’t have the capacity to harm others….
But aren’t you into freedom and new experiences by your nature??
Yes!
(Continue, answering as the transformed object, if it chose to change.)
Serpent, how would you score yourself 0-10, in each of the following six qualities: confidence, compassion, wisdom, acceptance, inner peace, and witnessing? Why?
Confidence: 9
Compassion: 3 Because I want to have more
Wisdom: 6
Acceptance: 6
Inner Peace: 1
Witnessing: 8
Serpent, if you scored tens in all six of these qualities, would you be different? If so, how?
There would be a difference in behavior. If I scored a ten in compassion for others then I wouldn’t doing things that would hurt other people. If I scored a ten in inner peace I would be living a much different life! I would be inside her still. I would be more exposed. Tatayana would be able to share me with other people instead of keeping me inside for just a few people to know about. I would be celebrated instead of kept a secret.
Why don’t you have that now, Serpent?
She does! She is going to a workshop this weekend in Tantra. But her sexuality is in a box. She has the support of her husband to go.
How would Tatayana’s life be different if she naturally scored like you do in all six of these qualities all the time?
It would not be as good! She would not like a life in having a three in compassion! She already scores high in confidence and witnessing. If she keeps building those qualities, that will create more peace of mind and compassion.
How would you recommend that she go about having more confidence and witnessing?
Stop judging herself so much. Accepting her feelings and her curiosity. Be as honest and open as she can be with the people she cares about. She doesn’t have to have secrets!
What if she didn’t feel she had to have secrets about her sexuality?
It could go either way…It could be blissful and give her a sense of freedom or it could create more judgment and conflict in her life.
If you could live Tatayana’s life for him, how would you live it differently?
I would recommend that she work toward being able to have relationships with people that can be honest relationships. I don’t know if it’s possible or not. Tatayana can get territorial and firey when she’s not the priority! I think she’s an idealist! She wants things that sound great in theory. Then there’s the reality of egos…
If you could live Tatayana’s waking life for her today, would you handle Tatayana’s three life issues differently? If so, how?
1.Her dishonesty. I don’t know what to tell her! I’m just the crazy horny maniac! I don’t know that she should listen to me! I would tell her to keep having a good time! She enjoys it! I can see things wrong with it but that doesn’t mean that she should stop!
Finances. As soon as the energies can really flow, they will dissipate. As long as she has issues with me, finances are going to have blocks as well…
So what would be the best way for her to resolve her issues with you, Serpent?
If she acknowledges that I am a natural part of her being and that she doesn’t have to judge me…that I can be both beneficial and harmful, she could make more objective decisions about how to use me. She wouldn’t be putting so much energy into me all the time!
3.Where to ground…she has a fantastic new working space! If she wasn’t in this marriage, where would she be? Her son’s father wants her to move…It sounds ideal but not very realistic.
Are you grounded, serpent?
No!
What would you have to do to be grounded?
I don’t think that’s possible because my nature is movement…I don’t want to be grounded because my creativity would be blocked.
If Tatayana needs to be grounded and you don’t, isn’t that going to block her success?
She could be more grounded if I wasn’t such a focus. She’s been grounded before in her life.
What recommendations do you have for Tatayana?
Not to identify herself as a sex addict! It’s a part of herself that needs attention right now. Give it the attention that it needs. Realize she can’t put all her energy in one area. She needs to put energy into a number of different areas.
Tatayana, what have you heard yourself say?
I heard Serpent say that it’s real and it doesn’t want to have creativity and expression taken away. Freedom is real important. That’s OK in some areas of her life. She is needing that freedom to feel whole and balanced so she can live the life she wants to live. Also, not to judge or label so much. Just be mindful of how she is utilizing her energy. It feels good to help others feel good sexually and for her to feel good sexually.
If this experience were a wake-up call from the most central part of yourself, what do you think it would be saying to you?
I need to give less energy to the Serpent right now! The serpent is craving attention!
Serpent, is that what you think or what Tatayana thinks?
It’s what Tatayana thinks!!
Glow, what do you think about Tatayana’s strategy?
I think it’s a possibility. It’s good to find balance. Be careful to act from a place of higher consciousness and not so much a place where she’s trying to get her ego needs met.
Notice that Tatayana is much more critical and judgmental toward her sexuality and her having sex outside of her marriage than she is. This does not mean that everyone should feel the same or even that Tatayana should. After all, we have only addressed the Serpent and Glow, two out of innumerable of her self-aspects. However, it is clear that repression of this Serpent is not going to be the answer for Tatayana, because it represents her sense of freedom and pleasure. It also said that there is a relationship between it and her financial success, that it can either be a barrier or a support to achieving her life goals in that area.
We discussed how secrets of this sort are hard to keep for long, particularly since our inner self doesn’t do secrets. As a result, there are generally pressures from within that undercut or sabotage secrecy, and with it at time relationships and marriages. Consequently, moving toward both freedom and openness with her husband is something we discussed, including sharing interviews (but not this one!) and sharing Tantra workshops to deepen their shared sexuality within a sacred context, since both have had positive experiences with Tantra in the past.
