David Rotter interviews the creator of The Making Love Retreat, Diana Richardson, for SEIN Magazine in Germany on 24 April 2012.

David Rotter: Diana, you teach people how to make love in a fulfilling way. It is crazy: We learn how to solve differential calculus in school – but no-one teaches how to make love. We learn all sorts of things from religion or philosophy – but we don’t learn how to make love. Mostly our parents seem to avoid any deep talk about that too. Everybody seems to be interested in a fulfilling sex-life but nobody seems to be willing to teach it! Well, you took the job. How did that happen? Can you share a bit of your journey?

Diana: Yes, it really is food for thought that we are not taught anything about how to make love. And if you look directly at the situation you will realize that sex itself is the most common denominator amongst people. We may speak different languages, belong to different religious groups, emerge from different races and cultures, eat different foods, sing different songs, but sex is basic and unites humanity. So the fact that sex is not talked about openly and is not central to our education and upbringing seems very strange.

My own exploration into sex started with the clear intention to ‘change the way I made love’. I was in my early thirties and I was living in India. I was curious about what other possibilities existed. I had enjoyed sex in the conventional way and I felt motivated to explore alternatives. At that time I had been with a partner for over seven years, and he was not interested in change, so we went our separate ways. Soon after I met a man who was very interested in exploring, so through frequent lovemaking for a concentrated period of time, a totally new experience and perception of sex emerged. Really it was a process of one thing leading to another in an organic way. Friends started to notice that I wasn’t showing up in social circles, some could sense something was happening for me, and a few asked what I was up to in my spare time. The word spread around slowly, with the result that friends started asking questions or advice about their sex lives, and couples started coming to me for relationship consultations.

In this way I came to know that it was easy for me to explain or go into details in a way that supported others. I then designed the week long Making Love Retreat for Couples, and at the beginning of 1993 I taught my approach to the teachers of the Osho School of Tantra in India. Six months later I started doing retreats in Europe, together with my partner Michael, who is a tremendous force and inspiration in the unfolding and flowering of the work. At a certain point I had the urge to see if the essence could be conveyed through the written word, so as an experiment in 1996 I wrote my first book (The Love Keys/The Heart of Tantric Sex). I really enjoyed writing so I have written five other books since then, two of them with Michael as co-author.

However what is certain is that at the outset of my journey I had absolutely no goal, it was a day to day affair, with only my own life in mind. Not the lives of others. And it certainly would have been impossible to imagine, when I made that choice so many years ago, that my life would end up revolving around sex and love – on a personal level, as well as teaching and writing about it.

David Rotter: Some say, we do not need anyone to teach us about lovemaking. We just have to connect to our hearts and the innate wisdom of the body again. But we are all so hooked up to the mental plane and to ideas and concepts that we do not listen anymore. Interestingly a good bit of your work seems to be just that: To get out of the head and really make love from the heart, soul and body again – something you call “slow sex”. What are the ingredients of such lovemaking? What is the most crucial shift to make? Can you give a brief overview?

Diana: I would agree with the statement that all we really need is to connect to our hearts and the innate wisdom of the body again. And the real issue here lies with the mind, not the heart and the body. It is our basic psychology that stands in the way of us naturally accessing the wisdom of our bodies. A level of innocence and presence is required for sexual energy and love to flow spontaneously. The sexual imprints that influence us on an unconscious level as we grow up become a form of ‘sexual conditioning’, and it is this layer of the psychology that prevents us accessing our inner wisdom. So any shift needs to be accompanied by a fundamental change in the psyche and the way we view sex, and the reasons why we enter into sex.

In order for us to tap into the intelligence of the body we need to relax back into ourselves; be interested in the present moment without goals or expectations; give value to the inner fine subtle layers of sensitivity in the body rather than depend on outer stimulation and sensation. This requires that we become more conscious and aware during each moment of the sexual communion. When we are more conscious we naturally tend to slow down. When we are slow we become more sensitive and therefore are able to feel more. We relax and contain the sexual energy, instead building up to a peak through tension, and then discharging the vitality. Being more conscious also means challenging our inherited patterns and habits in sex, unlearning acquired behavior patterns and slowly unwinding to a state of innocence from where we can tune into the heart and the intelligence of the body.

David Rotter: I can see elements of Taoism, Sexual Tantra and other mystic love-making practices (like the teachings of Barry Long) in what you share. However the way you share seems to be very accessible to people from all walks of life as it isn’t too spiritual or esoteric in the way it comes across. Was that your aim? What were your influences and what inspired you to give “slow sex” the form it now has?

Diana: It was over thirty years ago that I first read about Tantra and higher dimensions to sex in a book of Osho. I remember feeling touched and inspired, but at the same time I really had zero clue what he was talking about. I could not see any bridge or connection between my experience of sex up until that time, and the kind of elevated experience he was pointing towards. Some time later I listened to the Barry Long Making Love audio-tapes, and gradually incorporated his suggestions into my lovemaking, and doing so granted me a completely new way of perceiving the genitals. During this phase I made love frequently and listened to his tapes hundreds of times, until I got to the point that I knew almost every word by heart. So I stopped listening and continued practicing.

A few years later I started to read Osho again, and this time around I was so surprised to realize that now I knew exactly what he was describing, and how to manage it. From that point onwards I began to incorporate Osho’s ancient tantric teachings into my love-making. I filtered certain information through my body that led to an evolution in understanding – one that has come to represent a synthesis of these two quite different, yet compatible, sources. And while such practices may ultimately have esoteric explanations or spiritual implications, I did not have anything particularly spiritual or esoteric in mind. I simply started out wanting to change the way in which I made love. So perhaps the reason why people find my approach accessible is because I put theory into practice and found simple body oriented ways that worked for me.

David Rotter: Making love without aiming for orgasm, in total relaxation and sometimes without even moving seems like quite an outlandish idea for many. But if we do, it is as if new dimensions open. In your newest film couples share their experiences with slow sex. In your long career what are the most common and most striking things people report from this practice?

Diana: Changing the way you make love transforms and empowers you as an individual so it will have an impact on many levels – not just your sex life. Couples report that they experience more peace and harmony in their relationship, They feel more ‘in love’ with each other, more present to each other, there is more co-operation and understanding. On an individual level there is an increase in self-love, self-respect, self-confidence and happiness. Some notice an improvement in overall health and an increase in creativity.

Couples find that problems and misunderstandings between them are more quickly resolved. There will be a significant reduction in the level of emotionality and the arguing and fighting patterns that so often dominate and destroy love relationships. With an understanding of the significant difference between emotions and feelings, as explained during the Making Love Retreat, partners have simple tools to deal with the negativity of emotion. They become capable of protecting and sustaining their love, instead of falling into unconscious emotional patterns that can so easily interfere with love.

As an example of what people say, just the other day Michael and I received a n email from a couple who wrote: “The last few months, we live with a peace between us that we have never known before. Deep changes are happening on many levels, and we are uncovering many diamonds, that are more and more able to shine.”

To me these words convey so beautifully the value of making a change.

David Rotte: In my personal experience the deeper we go with this kind of practice, the more it becomes inevitable that we touch another reality, the energetic universe, the divine. Suddenly Sex becomes purely sacred, the lover a gateway to the source, the genitals turn into something mystical, magical beyond grasp or words. To you, what is the deeper meaning of lovemaking and how is it mirrored in our bodies?

Diana: For me essentially it’s about love. Love is the fabric of the universe and we embody that love. Through the body we can become infused with universal love and wisdom.

David Rotter: Sexuality is at the very core of us as humans. It is both one of our most basic physical needs and a path to the divine. Slow Sex doesn’t only affect our sex life and relationship, but it also changes us as beings. Did you ever imagine a world where everybody knows about slow sex? What do you see? Is this a vision that keeps you doing what you do? When will it be a school subject?

Diana: I see slow conscious sex as the next step in human evolution. We have evolved in so many unimaginable and remarkable ways but the truth is our sexual repertoire remains very limited and un-evolved. There is an urgent need to live our sexual potential by taking sex a step beyond its reproductive and biological aspect. It is not that biology is denied. Instead a door is opened that expands the vision, creates options and gives choices. And because how we have sex changes us as beings – the essential by-product or outcome of such a sexual shift would be people who are integrated, happy and fulfilled; able to live in peace and loving harmony with each other. As individuals we would be more loving, have more insight, clarity, awareness, and sensitivity. We would be centered in the heart, instead of developing the ego; we would invest our time in being, instead of getting so involved in doing; we would be interested in sensitivity, instead of constantly seeking sensation; we would be more serene, relaxed and content in the present, not so restless, tense and anxious/fearful of the future.

Today we live in very stressful and tense times, and sex is often filled with all kind of tensions and stresses. For example – performance pressures, erection issues, premature ejaculation problems amongst men; and amongst women there are issues around lack of orgasm, reports of a gradual loss of interest in sex, insecurity that something is personally wrong with them. In slow sex all these issues and themes dissolve or resolve because sex is experienced from a completely different perspective. And the sooner slow sex can become a subject at school the better. It will create a foundation of individuals who know themselves on a basic sexual level, and thus be in a position to create happy inspiring lives and have loving, fulfilling and sustainable relationships. The Slow Sex film, aimed at young people as well as adults, gives an intelligent perspective on sex that is in direct contrast to what is seen in the media, films and magazines. In my experience of teaching I have observed that the younger the couple are, the more open and ready they are to trying out something else. They are not yet caught in any fixed pattern/routine or identified with having sex in a specific way. There is an innocence that enables them to easily access the innate wisdom of the body and discover sex as a natural spontaneous expression of love. The young are closer to their original nature than they will be as adults 20-30 years down the sexual track so in my view educating the young people is the wise and obvious place to begin.

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The Making Love Retreat is now here in Australia!  Janet McGeever and Gene Thompson will be presenting this life-changing retreat in Byron Bay July 7th – 13th. Click here to read what participants said about the March event in Byron Bay

To find out more about Diana Richardson’s work, visit her website Living Love

Diana Richardson and husband Michael

Nothing seems to stir the human heart more than children – our own children, other’s children. There is something that implores even the hardest of hearts to soften. Seeing the children in India on my recent trip was truly a gift, particularly at the orphanage we visited.

With them, our hearts melted. It was as if all our grownup shielding, ‘gameplaying’, and strategies to get our own needs met just fell away.

Why is that? How come children seem to open us up like no-one else?

Whatever the reason, it’s easy to have children melt our hearts, and as parents to keep them as the focus in our lives.

Yet with this focus, many couples lose sight of the fact that they are also a couple in relationship and just as the health and welfare of their children is important, it is also vital to keep the relationship in good health to maintain a coupledom that is balanced and will hold up for the long term.

It’s quite amazing that I hear myself saying these things because when my children were young, the last thing I really wanted to do was to connect sexually. I’d do much to avoid it to be quite honest, even though I knew I ‘should’.

However, years on, I have come to understand that the way we connected was not fulfilling for me as a woman and certainly not sustainable for a truly authentic loving relationship long term.

If I’d had the tools to realize that a more relaxed approach to making love, one that was more still, more natural, more tender, as well as more healthy, loving respectful communication, I feel sure that I would have been more open.

The thing is that a healthy, loving, respectful relationship, will have an even greater impact on children than making sure that they are involved in five sports a week. If parents are relaxed, the kids will be relaxed. It’s a given. Very simple.

If connection between a couple is open and harmonious, then the children will balance out their behavior easily and quickly.

At The Making Love Retreats in Europe that we have attended with our mentors, Diana and Michael Richardson, couples attend every year just to replenish their relationship. And the children notice.

When they feel their parents getting niggly again, the children tell them they need go into the bedroom and love each other! Or to ‘go back to that place you went for a week’.

So children respond. They know. They feel energetically what is happening between you as a couple.

After knowing what I know now, without sacrificing the needs of my children, I can see how nurturing myself more and nurturing an authentically loving connection as a couple is paramount.

So what to do? Here are my tips …

1. Make love your priority – not kids, finances, work or sex. Love is the umbrella that all these things can fall under.
2. On a weekly basis, schedule time, like scheduling an appointment, for 'loving'. This doesn't have to mean to end up 'making love', it's just time for loving.
3. Depending on the age of your children, if you feel comfortable with it, tell your children that mummy and daddy are going to the bedroom to 'love each other'.
4. Be free and open in your communication with your children about sexuality and be willing to face your own discomfort as it arises regarding any sexual issues.
5. Children learn by example – they are feeling, sensing beings – respect that and honour their development by nurturing your own self and your own relationship through healthy positive communication and acknowledging feelings – they will benefit by your example.
6. For men, be willing to put your sexual needs aside at times, to put the children first. For women, be willing to balance your nurturing needs to make the relationship a priority at times.

As you grow more love, come to truly know yourself as love, live in, and take action from love, so too your children will respond in miraculous ways. The approach to lovemaking that we teach at our Making Love Retreat and Being Love retreat, offers a space where the barriers, layers and shielding can just fall away, to effortlessly reveal the Love that is the source of your being.

Wouldn’t that just be the best gift you could give your children, no matter what age they are, in 2012?

For more information or to register for our 6 days of immersion in a revolutionary teaching go to http://theconsciousheart.com/the-making-love-retreat

 It’s fascinating where the mind goes when you mention the word ‘sex’, or even ‘making love’.

And of course there’s the imagery … a Making Love Retreat? What? Does that mean they’re all naked and having an orgy in the seminar room?’ (That’s what my own brother thought until I put him straight! My own brother!)

Have a think about it – be honest, where does your mind go when you say or hear the word ‘sex’? Stop for a moment and check it out!

If you were really honest, it’s possible that very few of us go to a place of love or dare I say it, innocence.

There’s something a bit hard and sharp about the word ‘sex’ to me.

With that one word, and it’s natural, all the conditioning from parents, religions, culture, society, come tumbling down upon us and truthfully, besides a few lucky ones, who really has a chance of being in a healthy wholesome place when there are so many overlays of the mind?

I have to say I never thought I would ever be talking about sex, intimacy and lovemaking on the internet! Or in my business. It feels confronting sometimes! I am not a flamboyant, ‘out there’ woman. I like my privacy. In many ways, I wish that I did something a little less controversial! However, it’s always a fun conversation starter!

The thing is you really can’t talk about relationships without including the one thing that most likely causes more disharmony or dissatisfaction than anything else.

I’m saddened when a couple come to me for counselling and after a few sessions, when things have improved, they are unwilling or not interested in going that bit further in talking about intimacy. It’s now my understanding that generally, the way we make love as humans is not fundamentally sustainable for a loving relationship and there is another very simple, natural and innocent approach that can revive one’s lost faith in love.

When I first read the book The Heart of Tantric Sex by Diana Richardson about 6 years ago, I was stunned. Never before had I heard such a clear, intelligent and natural understanding of sexuality, without all the hype.

It gave me hope that there is another way and hope for what we who are parents, could teach our children and what could be taught in schools. She says that sex becomes something in the mind rather than in the body. And the idea of it being about love gets completely missed.

It’s the benefits of what Gene and I teach at The Making Love Retreat and the Being Love Retreat that I find so inspiring – the potential for men to learn to let go of performing and how to create a safer place for women to relax and open up and for women to begin to get out of their head, to feel and trust their own bodies, in a way that intuitively they actually know how to do naturally.

I’ve been on a huge journey in this myself – you can read it in Why Women Close down and how to open up again.

So I’m here to reassure you that The Making Love Retreat is not like the movie ‘Couple’s Retreat’!

And loud and clear, all couples are fully clothed and there are no live demonstrations in the seminar room!

It is a sincere journey of the heart and if you are a couple who want to take the time out to nurture your love-life and discover a whole new world of love, tenderness and intimacy that you may never have encountered before, then it’s my humble invitation to check out The Making Love Retreat.

Is finding balance a challenge for you?

Lately I have found hardly a moment to myself, let alone spend time doing the things that I know bring me back to balance. – like exercising, meditating, being still, yoga, dancing or, making love – these are the things that call me back. And interesting – all these have in common are the body and the breath.

If you are fortunate enough to have a mate, the one thing that has the potential to bring balance back to the nervous system, balance back to your emotional life, balance back to your relationship is actually, making love. Or if you are single, meeting in love with your very own self.  Yes, it can be done!

A dear teacher of mine says “Where there is relaxation, there is balance.” And approaching lovemaking from this perspective brings a whole new world to the experience of being and in fact a whole new opening into love between you.

So who wants sex on the run when you can have gourmet?

Sex on the run can often be simply a relief of pent up emotions or to relieve tension. It can work, but it is very difficult to meet in love when the whole thing is over and done with in no time. And when sex is just a release of tension, over time, it is very common for women to find it more and more difficult to open up to lovemaking. You can read more about this in my free excerpt Why Women Close Down and how to open up again. 

Studies have shown that couples who engage in slower, longer lovemaking are more relaxed, more loving and more fulfilled.

So, how do we move from this fast, frantic pace of life to actually being in the space where you do want to connect in this way? Here are some of my tips

1. Stop, feel, breathe!

You can bet that while you are running around, your heart gets armoured by the ‘doing’ – it’s natural. It’s nature’s way of us opening into the ‘warrior aspect’.  So become more aware if you are doing this and be willing to let those walls down by stopping, feeling your woman’s or man’s body and breathing. You can do this, whether you are in a relationship or not.

2. Make time

We all make time to go out to dinner or make an appointment for work. It’s important to make time for your emotional and physical body, to help it slow down and relax – if you are single – a bath, a massage, time with friends, a yoga or dance class. If you are in relationship, light a candle, offer your partner slow, conscious loving touch without lovemaking as a goal and see where it goes – it doesn’t have to go anywhere but for sure if you are the giver or receiver, you will BOTH slow down – try it, it’s beautiful.  It will automatically bring you back into your hearts. And, just notice any emotions of resistance and be willing to just be with them, be gentle with them. Tears, laughing – let it all come out! It will bring more balance between you as well.

3. Relax and be more conscious 

If you find you do move to making love, after some conscious touch, create an intention of being more conscious, more aware with every move, every breath, every touch – you will automatically be able to access a far greater symphony of sensation. (Even if your partner doesn’t know you are doing it, they will love you for it!) Being more conscious often results in going slower, making more time for connection.

As a result, it becomes less about ‘doing’ and more about ‘being’, less about getting and more about giving and receiving, less about release and more about regeneration. And it becomes less about just having sex, and more about love and connecting on a deeper level of intimacy.

You can learn more about this approach at The Making Love Retreat, a beautiful six day residential retreat for couples from 1^st – 7^th March 2012.

So let’s slow down the pace, in all of life  …. For it is only from this place do we really serve ourselves, serve others and serve this amazing world we live in.

Have you ever had someone say something to you and it just hit you right in the gut? Ouch!

We’ve all done this, felt this. I know I have.

Words can cut like knives through the heart and soul of any man, woman or child, no matter what age.

And yet research says that only 7 percent of our communication is verbal! Wow, so if that’s the case, it’s a small but punchy 7 percent.

Why is that?

Well, our brain has a very important function of sifting information, even while we are not aware of it.

The brain has an ability to delete, distort or generalise information according to our emotions at the time, and our past experiences.  It is both highly sophisticated and yet simple at the same time.

For example, when a statement is heard, the brain goes into making pictures. The best example of this is saying to a child “Don’t spill the milk”. The child, or adult, makes the picture of “spilling the milk”. Or, “Don’t think of an elephant” … well we all think of an elephant or make a picture of one, don’t we?

So if you say to your partner “Don’t talk to me in that angry voice!” and you add a little bit of heat to it (well, why not, you are on a roll!), all they will hear is ‘angry voice’, along with the energy behind it, and the most likely response will be defence… “I’m NOT talking to you in an angry voice!” and so on and so on… you know how it is…and down that rabbit hole you go.

Instead if you were able to take a breath and say something like,  “I can’t hear you when you speak to me in that way”. This is a far more diffusive response than the previous one.

Or if you were used to accessing feelings easily, you might even say “I’m scared when you speak to me in that way”.

What this second response is saying is, “I want to hear you and I cannot hear you properly if you speak in this way”.

Both these two alternative responses bring you back into you, back to your own experience, back to being present, rather than escalating the situation into yet another possible drama… and the possibility of a more loving relationship.

And this is only 7 percent of the story! I will share more about the other 93 percent soon here in this newsletter.

And, if you are LOCAL TO THE SUNNY COAST or Brisbane and would like to hear directly from me about how to transform your communication and get the whole 100 percent – please come along to my one hour presentation of ‘Communicate or Disintegrate’ at Annie Clarks’ Art of Wellness event in Cooroy Library on October 1^st. from 9.30 to 4.30 pm. You’ll get to hear four other speakers speaking on wellness as well.

Tickets are $295 and only $195 if you mention my name and pay before Wednesday 29^th Sept. How great is that!

Reserve your seat ONLINE at www.bewell.com.au or phone Anne Clark on 0402 166 187.

I like to think of relationships as a growing system – like a living thing, a plant or a tree. It’s important to plant it in healthy soil, tend to it, water it, fertilize it. Left unattended, it will wither and die. It’s like walking past a pot plant every day, saying “I know I need to water that plant soon” but failing to do so. Is that how your relationship is at the moment?

Simply by taking some time out or…. time in to actually BE with your partner is an important and really, such a simple step in growing that living, breathing tree of relationship. We all want the fruits – well, let’s be good gardeners and tend to that garden so that the fruits just naturally and abundantly grow of their own accord.

Your relationship will benefit, your children will benefit and your own heart, body and soul will benefit with good and radiant health. Aren’t they good enough reasons?