Why I Shifted from Traditional Tantra Toward Trauma-Informed Intimacy Healing
Updated: Oct 2
Why I Shifted from Traditional Tantra Toward Trauma-Informed Intimacy Healing
I began working as a Tantra practitioner in 2005.
At the time, I was excited, passionate and deeply inspired by what I was discovering about the human body, breath, energy, sexuality, spirituality and our capacity to experience pleasure and connection.
I studied voraciously. Tantra became much more than something I practiced—it became part of the foundation of my spiritual life and eventually my work as a teacher, healer and facilitator.
More than twenty years later, I still love Tantra.
But my relationship with it has changed.
Today, my work is centered on safety, emotional regulation and connection with the heart. Tantra remains part of that foundation, but I approach it very differently than I did in my earlier years. Rather than centering erotic experience, I am interested in how breath, embodiment, meditation, nervous system awareness and conscious intimacy can help us feel safe enough to open, feel and connect more deeply—with ourselves and with one another.
For me, this is where Tantra becomes profoundly healing. It is not about pushing someone toward greater intensity. It is about developing the capacity to remain present with what is already here: sensation, emotion, vulnerability, grief, love, fear, desire and the truth of our own experience.
The heart is now the center of the work.
That evolution eventually became part of what I now call Love as Medicine.
Tantra Was Never Only About Sexuality
Tantra is frequently presented in Western culture through sexuality.
Sexual energy can certainly be part of Tantric practice. Sexuality, sensuality, pleasure and Kundalini have all been meaningful parts of my own exploration.
But Tantra gave me something much larger.
It taught me about breath.
Presence.
Energy.
Meditation.
Devotion.
The body.
Relationship.
Surrender.
Consciousness.
And eventually, it taught me a great deal about boundaries.
As my own life changed, I began asking different questions.
Instead of simply asking, How much bliss can the body experience?, I became increasingly interested in:
What allows the heart to feel safe enough to open?
What happens when intimacy activates an old wound?
How do we remain present when grief, fear, abandonment or anger arises?
How do partners learn to meet one another without losing themselves?
What is sacred intimacy when sexuality isn't the goal?
Those questions changed my work.
From Erotic Tantra Toward Heart-Centered Intimacy
Over the years, I worked with many wonderful people through Tantra and holistic healing.
I also encountered situations that taught me the importance of discernment, clear agreements and stronger professional boundaries.
Some people came genuinely seeking healing, spiritual growth and deeper connection. Others were primarily seeking erotic experiences or approached Tantra with expectations that did not align with the kind of work I increasingly felt called to offer.
I had to look at my own role in that, too.
There were times earlier in my career when my boundaries could have been clearer. There were times when I was still discovering what belonged in my work and what did not.
Those experiences became teachers.
I did not need to abandon Tantra.
I needed to become clearer about what Tantra meant to me.
Today, the Tantra I am most interested in teaching is rooted in presence, embodiment, breath, emotional awareness, sacred relationship and the heart.
Trauma Awareness Changed the Way I Understand Intimacy
As my work expanded into somatic healing, Breathwork, grief, attachment and nervous-system awareness, I began seeing intimacy differently.
What sometimes appears to be a “relationship problem” may also involve grief, fear, attachment wounds, shame, emotional protection or a nervous system that has learned that vulnerability is dangerous.
Someone may desperately desire closeness and become terrified when it arrives.
Someone else may love deeply and withdraw when emotions become intense.
A couple may repeatedly trigger one another without understanding what is happening beneath the conflict.
This is one reason my work has evolved toward trauma-informed intimacy healing.
The question is no longer simply:
How can we create more intimacy?
It becomes:
What needs to happen for intimacy to become safer, more conscious, more honest and more sustainable?
That is a very different conversation.
Then Psychedelic Healing Entered My Path
Another major evolution in my work came through psychedelic and plant-medicine communities.
Over the years, I encountered people working with psilocybin, Ayahuasca, Bufo/5-MeO-DMT, San Pedro, Kambo, Cacao and other ceremonial and spiritual traditions.
I became particularly fascinated by the relationship between these experiences and the practices I had already spent years exploring through Tantra, Meditation, Breathwork and energy awareness.
People would have profound experiences—and then need somewhere to put them.
A ceremony could open grief.
A psychedelic experience could illuminate a relationship pattern.
An altered state could bring someone into contact with love, fear, childhood memories, spiritual questions or parts of themselves they had avoided for years.
The experience might be extraordinary.
But afterward came the question:
Now what?
That question became increasingly important to me.
Tantra and Psychedelic Integration
This is one of the places where my worlds began coming together.
Tantra had already taught me practices for working with breath, sensation, awareness, emotion and energy.
Meditation taught me to observe.
Breathwork taught me to stay with what was moving through the body.
Somatic work deepened my understanding of regulation, pacing and the importance of not forcing an experience.
And psychedelic integration brought another dimension:
How do we take something profound and bring it back into ordinary human life?
Not simply into another ceremony.
Into our relationships.
Our boundaries.
Our grief.
Our choices.
Our bodies.
Our spiritual practice.
Our ability to love.
This intersection—between Tantra, psychedelic preparation and integration, embodiment and heart-centered healing—has become an important part of Love as Medicine.
Love as Medicine Today
Love as Medicine represents an evolution rather than a rejection of my earlier work.
Tantra is still here.
Breathwork is here.
Meditation is here.
Sacred sexuality can be part of the larger conversation.
So can grief, attachment, relationship healing, psychedelic integration, spiritual practice and the wisdom of the body.
But the center has changed.
The center is love.
Not romantic fantasy.
Not erotic intensity.
Not chasing altered states.
Love as an embodied practice.
Love with boundaries.
Love that allows truth.
Love that asks us to become more conscious.
Love that can exist between partners, within community, within spiritual practice and within our relationship with ourselves.
That is the Tantra I am most interested in now.
And that is much of what Love as Medicine is becoming.
Exploring This Work
Through Love as Medicine, I continue to develop teachings and experiences around:
Tantra, Meditation and embodiment
Breathwork and emotional healing
Attachment and intimacy
Couples and relationship healing
Psychedelic preparation and integration
Grief and life transitions
Workshops, retreats and group experiences
Courses, writing and spiritual education
If you are exploring psychedelics or plant medicine, you can learn more about Psychedelic Preparation & Integration Coaching through Love as Medicine.
If you are interested in deeper relationship work:
And for people seeking individual private holistic healing sessions, including hands-on and one-to-one modalities, that work now has its own home through Asttarte Deva Healing Wellness Center.
My work has changed considerably since I first entered the world of Tantra more than twenty years ago.
I expect it will continue changing.
But the thread running through all of it remains the same:
How do we become present enough to heal, open enough to love, and grounded enough to live what we discover?
With love,
Asttarte
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