#44 - Tina Köstler: Tantra as a Practice of Presence

In this episode, Sam Bell speaks with Tina Köstler about tantra as a practice of presence, coming back into the body, and restoring access to pleasure, intuition, connection and aliveness.

Tina shares her shift from high-performing startup life into embodiment, intimacy coaching and tantric practice. Together, Sam and Tina explore what happens when success becomes tunnel vision, how the body carries wisdom, and why tantra is far less about sexuality than many people assume.

This episode explores:
• Breath, movement and sound as routes back into the body
• Startup speed, tunnel vision and the cost of disconnection
• Tantra as presence, polarity and integration
• Masculine and feminine energy beyond gender
• Embodiment as capacity to hold discomfort, anger, joy and aliveness
• Womb wisdom, intuition and the body as an emotional archive
• Finding your own path through deeper listening

Important note:
This conversation includes brief personal reflection on psychedelic experience. Laws and clinical frameworks vary by location. This episode is for general information only and is not medical, mental health or legal advice, or a recommendation to use any substance or treatment. Please seek qualified professional advice and follow the laws where you live.

Guest bio:
Tina Köstler is an intimacy and embodiment coach, tantra facilitator and founder of TinaKoestler.com. After years in high-performance startup environments, including senior operations roles at Choco, Tina now works with women, men and couples to support embodiment, intimacy, emotional release, and deeper connection with the body.

Guest links:
• Tina Köstler: https://tinakoestler.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tina-k%C3%B6stler-8a025880/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tina.koestler

Conversation reference:
• David Stancel's Natural Genius: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yPy6_tYHYY
• Network School: https://ns.com/samanthaleebell/invite

Chapters:
00:00 Welcome to Tina Köstler
01:00 Breath, movement and sound
02:21 Startup speed, tunnel vision and listening to the body
07:27 Embodiment, intimacy coaching and what tantra means
12:20 Seeing potential and transmitting belief
22:34 Masculine, feminine and the balance of polarity
30:33 Embodiment, anger, discomfort and joy
45:23 Tantra as presence and weaving opposites
55:47 Endless ways of finding your path

Explore further:
Book a Lab: https://naturalgenius.com.au
Learn more about Sam: https://samanthabell.com.au
Subscribe to hear future episodes.

Credits:
Hosted by Samantha (Sam) Bell in Violet Town and Bratislava, Slovakia, 30 March, 2026
Produced at the Violet Town and Kiama offices, 30 March - 12 May, 2026

Natural Genius Podcast https://naturalgenius.com.au

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:02

Welcome to the Natural Genius Podcast. We're here to help you tap into your natural genius. Let's go. I love it when guests recommend others to be on the podcast. And this is one of those moments we're about to meet Tina, who David Stanzel recommended. And he says that she's an amazing intimacy coach and tantra practitioner who has an interesting life story of how she went from building a unicorn startup into more spiritual realms to help heal her own wounds and health issues, then started to help other people. Wow. I'm so excited to meet her, especially because she's one of David's friends. All right, enjoy hearing from Tina. Tina, welcome to the Natural Genius podcast, recommended by our great friend David.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Thank you so much. I'm really excited to be here.

SPEAKER_02 0:53

Tina, before we hit record, you were saying that you got yourself energized for today's conversation. Tell me more, what does that look like?

SPEAKER_00 1:00

So the way I work with my body is that I really want to integrate breath movement sound. This is the most enlivening thing we can do. So I was so tired this morning, and I really had to wake up. And even if I'm not tired, this is something I love to do, just to invite the day is to just uh invite a little dance, a little movement, just vibing through your own routines, you know, to spice things up a little bit, getting some fresh air, including some breath work. There is quite something about movement and dance, you know. I think it's the one of the most underrated therapies, together with touch, are quite um alivening and healing for the body.

SPEAKER_02 1:36

Well, even when you say therapies, you're probably talking about underrated in terms of just in life, being able to start the day and enjoy in life, yes, or in support of any like conventional therapy.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

I I don't want to call myself a therapist, I'm more I'm a facilitator, so I'm facilitating the movement and integration in the body. So that's what what I would say it is underrated in in combining the body together with the mind and maybe together with the soul as well.

SPEAKER_02 2:08

Oh how now I'm very excited. I was already excited about this conversation now, even more so. Tell me about the tenure of 10 years ago. I'm asking that partly to sort of help to explain to others what's possible.

SPEAKER_00 2:21

Yeah. So if you're asking 10 years ago, I would actually really need to think back a little bit. Um, it feels, you know, when you do a big life transition at some point uh in your life, then whatever was before, it seems so far away, like it was a completely different lifetime. But 10 years ago, I think I was just about to graduate, and I was actually in a very delicate spot because it was the first time in my life that I was starting to question a little bit of what I've been doing. Um, it started about like in my early 20s and it continued like for a couple of years, that I found myself living this life. Um, speaking of being a student, being in this high-performing environment, having a lot of expectations on myself, and I wasn't really sure how did I get there because I realized that I I mean I know rationally how did I, but I noticed that I never asked myself the question what I really wanted to do. And I think my parents would always deny that they haven't supported me asking me this question because they always said, like, you knew exactly what you wanted to do since you were young, and you always had this clear plan in front of your eyes. And that's true, but it it felt like it wasn't really my plan for for most of it. It was something that I have considered to be the plan. Like there was just no other option. I haven't particularly grown up in an environment where I had the option to become a painter if I wanted to, like going to the other extreme, right? Or or anything else. Like there was just one path for me. And I felt like this this has been a theme for my life until a couple of years ago, that I've been living my life with these um little caps, you know, what the horses have to not see to the sides. Like I've just had this little bit of a tunnel vision on a path, and this had to be the right path. So I have been, you know, I've been following that quite successfully. I've graduated with honors, I did everything right if you look at it from the paper. And uh actually after my university, I joined a startup that uh was quite unconventional at that time. I think it was maybe a first act of rebellion or so, uh, not to follow in any any corporate footsteps or consulting footsteps, which I had planned out before. And I I I mean it was an amazing time in this startup. It um it was a food tech startup in the very early days. So I was um joining the company when there were only about 60 people, and in the meantime, like uh until I exited, we went to 500 and then uh 200. So there was um quite uh you know high speed, as you can imagine, in growing a company like this as one of the earlier members, and it was a great pleasure and inspiration to learn from uh incredibly dedicated and driven people, and at the same time, it was of course picking up uh a speed, and and I was I jumped on a train where I felt like again it was this tunnel vision, and there was just this one right way, and there was not even time to look left or right, or or or inside especially, or even back. Like there was nothing, there was just the task at hand and dealing with them one after the other. And what happened was that I I spent just most of most of the time, like I don't want to paint this as in um it was a bad time, it was an amazing time, but what simply was the result of it is that I uh I haven't been like connected to my body or my pleasure or just being present or knowing, knowing what I really wanted. And it showed up in different um it manifested in different like things in my body, let's say that would show up, disease, symptoms, um sensations, and I went on a quest to finding out uh and going a little bit deeper of where that's coming from. And a very particular moment there was one of my first psychedelic journeys as well that opened the door to a different path. I think that was maybe the first time that this tunnel vision lifted, and I've seen that there is another reality that I can build for myself. And that's how eventually I end up in this era where I find myself now, being um out of the fast-paced startup environment and into entrepreneurship, into uh being a coach, working with people, being in a very uncertain environment, which is also quite new for me, not so much stability at times. Um, but I enjoy every second of it, and there's no no moment, no morning I wake up where I regret the choices I've made so far.

SPEAKER_02 7:14

So tell me tell me more, tell me about the work that you do now and particularly what you're enjoying about it, because it must be there must be so many ripple effects both for you and for your clients.

SPEAKER_00 7:27

Yeah. So right now I would uh call myself being um an embodiment coach or intimacy coach, something that's maybe less relatable to to call it out as a tantra teacher or tantra facilitator. Um, but I like to use different terminology just because it's um misunderstood. The term tantra is misunderstood in most parts of the world, but I'm happy to to elaborate on that a bit more. And what I do is that I work with um with mostly women, but also with men or with couples to help them getting out of the mind and back into the body, uh, which uh can mean like just connection to their their intuition, to their feminine, to their masculine, um releasing any sort of um patterns or conditioning that are holding us back from stepping into full potential or living the life that is fully aligned with what we're wishing for. Um and that works with the breath movement sound, like I mentioned in the beginning, but also with um many other practices from like um having conversations or reflections to meditations to hands-on bod. I also do tantric body work where like referring back to the touch, I believe it's also one of the most healing modalities that uh are underexplored, I would say, in modern science and medicine. Um so I really believe in the healing part of touch, which I include um in the somatic body work that I do. Yeah, it's essentially, I think, coming down to understanding your own system and uh your the layers of your body, and knowing that there's not just the mental body but then and and the physical, but you can go a bit deeper. You have an emotional and energetic body, maybe even a spiritual body, and understanding these layers, so you can start separating them in order to unite them in an integrated way. And uh and to explain like why tantra or or you know how that flows into my work is because a tantra, or when I found tantra, it was for me it felt like like a deeper knowing, like something that I didn't have to study, if that makes sense. It was something that felt familiar. For me, tantra is an it's an ancient tradition, it's a philosophical life philosophy that feels very human, that feels down to earth, that that is something that um that lives inside of us. So there is no um, unlike any other religion or philosophies, that there is no particular guideline, you shall do this or you shall do that. Tantra is is an integrative spirituality for me that allows you room to form and and form your own your own um rituals, but also that integrates the humanness of who we are. Like there is no um need to separate the humanness from the divine because the divine lives in the human and in all beings, and that's what's connecting. Um, and I really I really felt that I've always been able to see the light in people and see beyond their masks. We're carrying so many masks and so many roles, and I always felt that I could intuitively just look behind that and and maybe even with a certain frequency, like open something in the other person. Because you you you know, when you just talk to someone and you have this feeling of like, like because they did it, like you can do it. I think that's the whole foundation of coaching in general. Like you but but it works only if you're embodying what you're preaching, and that there is there's a certain power in the frequency of how you transmit things. So in Santra we call this a transmission. You transmit what you believe in, or you transmit you know a certain teaching on on a certain on a frequency where the energy work comes in that that kind of can penetrate the other person's system, that opens something up on a level deeper than the mind, where because it's not just about the understanding, that's why it's a transmission and not just something you you read and you learn it with on the level of the mind, but it's a transmission because you absorb it with the body and actually start feeling that this is truth for you. So this is how tantra works. Wow, just taking breath here, but I could talk for hours about it.

SPEAKER_02 11:54

I'm getting I'm gonna get you to continue. I want to go deeper on part of what you just said. So if you, as a little sidebar conversation, if you return back into the startup that you described before, do you think that you were resonating and you were passing on certain things energetically in before even studying tantra? Like to what you were just talking about. Tell me more.

SPEAKER_00 12:20

Yeah, yeah, I believe so. In in the role of being a people manager, definitely. And that was what was always the most fulfilling part of my job. And I was I was a good people manager, like I was a good manager on the people perspective. I was I was um someone who could build people up, who who could make them see potential, who would make them reach further and higher, who to enable things, to connect. I was not a good manager when it came to numbers, you know, to pushing, to being more rigid. Like that was just not my style. That always felt it it didn't feel true to me, and hence I wasn't good at it either. So I would definitely say that there have been a couple of individuals that I worked with that I I sensed I had an impact on in how they view themselves and their capabilities. So I I didn't understand it at that time, but you know, that's also what mentors do, and and yeah, if you have somebody in your your life who believes in you, that's sometimes all that that it takes. But it's not enough to just say I believe in you, that's something you have to transmit as well, this feeling. And then the other person can absorb it.

SPEAKER_02 13:27

Um just nodding, nodding a lot from what you're saying. So you tell keep going because I feel like there was more that you were going to say.

SPEAKER_00 13:35

Or what I would like to refer to in this is particularly related to women, because I mean, I'm a woman, I can relate to to the bond and the connection from woman to woman. And I think that's why this also has the the greatest ripple effect in that sense. Um what I work on with women is connected, I call this womb work or yoni work. So womb referring to not only um our organ of the uterus, because there's also two words for it, right? There's the organ itself, and then there's the womb space, which is for me a more energetic space. The womb and the womb space for women is an energetic and emotional archive that we receive information into. So in energy, we have positive and negative energetic poles, and the womb and the yoni, the female genitalia, just the way it's built, it's a receiving one, right? Not a giving one. So we are receiving in literally energy, not through not only through sexual relations, but we're also receiving energy like just through the field itself. So this is where we are absorbing all kinds of things that I have. That's why like often we're saying that women carry a lot and and we you know we we carry also most of our emotions in that place. Teaching the spiritual meaning and the mystical meaning of the womb space to women is an extremely profound work because I've never seen or talked to a woman who did not feel that this resonated to some level. And that's where where I want to come back to how I felt when I received the teachings of Tantra first. That this is that this is an embodied knowing, this is just something that feels true. Um, in whatever sensation you want to describe it, like this feels in the body, like this is true. It's like, yeah, like there is something more like my cycle, my my womb state, the ability to create and grow life, to nurture the female body is incredibly amazing, and and the male body as well. But speaking from my perspective, now there's so much to see that goes beyond the medical. We have been so conditioned to manage our bodies and to function with our bodies and to you know organize and and especially the cycle, like everything is inconvenient, or if we are sick, we use medication to treat it, and thanks God we have it. But usually there's more to the story, and we need to learn to look a little bit deeper when it comes to our body. And the womb space is an is a portal for women to come back to reconnecting with their inner feminine, which is the feminine energy of creation, of chaos, of emotionality, of aliveness, of movement, of intuition, creativity. This is all considered to be the feminine energy. So when we connect back to that, um there is a different um women show up from a different place to the outside world. There is it's uh it's not just more confidence and groundedness, but it's it's this sense of of being centered in a way. Like I know my worth, I know, like I'm here, like this is me, and I'm I'm allowed to to um transmit that to the outside world as well, like to show up, just um to not hide ourselves and our power and also reconnect to that power of who we are as women. And the ripple effect in that yeah, um, I would say like this is something that goes like working doing womb, um uh it it it uh it goes uh grasps quite deeply into the generational line as well. So when doing womb work, we will always talk about the feminine ancestral line and what has been you know alive in in the women of your family, how have they been treating their own bodies, their menstrual cycle, uh their the process of giving birth, etc. There's so much information there, and also we are so much so incredibly connected um through our body and genetically because you know the cell that we came from has already been a cell in the body of our grandma when she was carrying our mother's uh fetus, right? An embryon baby. So we are connected. Like I see this um energetically, if you just visualize this, like how women we are connected through our womb. There is a certain um radiance, like chords, things that connect us as women through the womb space. And I I believe in in um you know in understanding this uh and uh removing all the competition between women and coming back to this bond of sisterhood that just connects us from another place. And I also sensed like really great impact on the the relationship to our feminine line and to to the feminine in general, like that the feminine, like being a woman, what that what does that mean for you in this world? And and is this a healthy view? Like, do you do you think being feminine is weakness, for example, or is softness weakness for you? Like there's so much conditioning around what it means to be a woman, and and like by by healing this picture of what it means to be a woman within women, but also with men, because the men also have feminine energy, right? And for them it's exactly the same process, it's just maybe less embodied, like for women. But it's the same process of healing this relationship to the feminine and seeing her, you know, in her power and not as something lesser, and that's the ripple effect that will go out into every relationship that this woman or man would have.

SPEAKER_02 19:16

I just keep on thinking you have so much life work. I was thinking, how do you contain that into coaching? There's so many subjects so into that is extraordinary.

SPEAKER_00 19:34

Wow. Yeah, I mean, it's it's so so many, it's so layered. Like for me, the human experience and and especially looking at energy and sexual energy, and like and that's still what tantra is, like, sexual energy is life force energy. It's just not simple, and our psyche and our consciousness is not simple, and like nothing is simple, and that's the and that's fascinating, isn't it? Like, I mean, I'm excited that we don't just have black and white. Like, for me, this is the whole playground of the human consciousness of like so so many things that influence it and so many paths that you can go, and I think it's incredibly exciting just just to have this awareness.

SPEAKER_02 20:10

Oh, you've given me goosebumps. I I think that I wonder if you and I are similar in our coaching or in our time with people to help them to reach their potential. You it's like an explorer having confidence and also a bit like, oh, this is gonna work out, and at the same time, like completely trusting the process, the intuitive fencing, being able to work out in which direction to go next with people. I really do think that there's so much magic around that. More and more I'm getting into this feeling that it's not just Sam that's doing this. I can have confidence going into those experiences, and also I'm trusting a lot. I'm like opening to whatever is gonna come.

SPEAKER_00 20:56

Yeah, I think that's a big part of being a good coach in not just um you know running a program, but tuning into the person in front of you and what their needs are. And I think that I feel most in my power when I'm actually intuitively guiding somebody. And there's so many moments where a client would come back like weeks later, let's say, or next session, and they're like, Yeah, I remember this one thing you said, and it was so powerful. I've been thinking about it all the time, and I don't even remember it because sometimes I'm just channeling things that they're just flowing in the moment and they have an impact. And this is when I feel most in my power. It's not when I mean there's there's topics that I would be more in a teacher role, let's say, and that's okay as well. But then sometimes there's moments where you're just an intuitive guide and you're just doing giving a transmission of what you believe in and what you see in the other person. And and it's two different things, both of them work on different levels. But having both of having access to both, I think is extremely powerful.

SPEAKER_02 21:58

I think so too. Tell me about that process. Process of sensing into what people need. And I also wanted to delve into uh the divine masculine as well because I feel like we'll naturally talk about the divine feminine and the support for women that you provide. These days, more and more it's coming up to me that the divine masculine in each person, and especially for men, but it really just seems like it's coming up a lot more these days in terms of being able to support men to be able to get into new aspects of themselves that they may not have thought to go into.

SPEAKER_00 22:34

Yeah. Yeah, I would like to pick up this topic. I think it's also quite huge and important. And I think, you know, part of like, you know, masculine and feminine are yin and yang. And if you know the yin and yang symbol, there is a black dot in the white space, and there's a white dot in the black space. And what that essentially means is that you know, this black dot is like a door, like you go through the door from the feminine to the masculine, from the masculine to the feminine. So by balancing one side, then the other one will naturally balance itself out because that's that's how polarity works. Um, so when I say about healing the feminine, this for me is um well, it's it's a collective uh topic that that is huge and that I see as a big uh gateway to healing also the masculine. Because once we we manage to look at I mean at both of the feminine and the masculine from their healthy perspective like there there won't be room for the top the toxic, if that makes sense, like because they naturally balance out. I mean, so so you can start on either side, but for sure, I mean we need to learn to see the divine in both, and that neither one is stronger or or better or weaker than the other, but they're both divine and they both have in their essence they're incredibly important for us to live in harmony within ourselves and with the other. Um, and we all have, regardless of gender, we have masculine and feminine energies. Um so I would I would like to go a little bit into what that means. Um divine masculine is protective, it's providing safety, it's presence, being really there. Um being um I'm looking for the right word, like not assertive, but being you know in their power, being grounded. But presence is really the most important one. Uh whereas um a toxic side of the masculine, which often in the world is considered to be the masculine, like a proper man doesn't show emotions, obviously. Proper man has aggression, is like strict, has power, control. Like these are the things that are considered to be like manly and masculine strength, maybe even physical strength. And then there is the divine feminine that is nurturing, that is in a flow state, that is creative, soft, intuitive, empathic, you know, has this ability of unconditional love and acceptance coming from a different energetic center, from the heart center. And then there is the toxic expression of the feminine, which is also very much promoted by the world we live in, which is focusing on external validation, for example, being manipulative sometimes, being able to, you know, control the emotions in a way, even though emotions just want to flow. Like for I always say emotions are energy in motion. So being in a flow state is one of the healthiest expressions of the feminine. And another way to put these two is like the healthy masculine and the healthy feminine is doing versus being. That's just another polarity of it. And we need the active and the passive, and even the word passive has such a negative connotation, but it's not, it's just a polarity. It's active and it's passive, it's giving and receiving. So these are just the this this concept of non-duality that we speak about in tantra often. And um, it's just two sides, and they they they are together, like they are in balance, they are in polarity and they can coexist. And I I also like to look at the feminine and the masculine on a spectrum that we move through life where we sometimes need more of our masculine, sometimes we drop into the feminine. So we can, and in different life situations, we require to use more of our masculine, more of our feminine. And the way I grew up or how my body used to function was that I need to be in my masculine all the time. So I was in a in this overdrive of being of being in doing, of doing constantly, uh, being the active part, being always assertive, being always in this fighting mode. And that's not even speaking of the healthy uh masculine expression. Um and that's the biggest problem that I think we we observe in modern society, that we're stuck in the doing, and we forgot how it feels like and what it can feel like when you go into the being, and this is that you're equally worthy when you just be, or that you are worthy as you are already, that you don't need to do to earn yourself something in the first place. Healing both sides or seeing both sides in its divinity and how important they are in in their unique aspects will automatically also change the view on the other side because they're connected. Like the healthy masculine, and I agree with you, working with men is different. The men that I call into my field, they usually seek to connect with their feminine first because they are usually in overdrive, they they have anxiety, they they can't, they're disconnected from the body, they want to move through that, they want to heal their nervous system, uh, or or come back into the body to uh feel energy again, to feel aliveness, feel uh life for energy, sexual energy. Uh, but there is also the other side to it, and I and I often in the journey with men I would tell them at some point that I think like we have, like I've accompanied you to here, I think this is what you learned, but in order to move forward, you need to go work with men, because that's something I cannot provide. Uh, because I'm I'm the opposite polarity to him. And there's certain guidance that I can give, but I'm I'm very humble about it because there is a power that I feel when working with women in a in a circle of women, the same way he would feel in a circle of men. And in Tantra, there's also kind of a rule of thumb where we would say if you work with couples, you always need to have a male teacher and a female teacher, just in order to relate energetically. So yeah, there's always a point where I would suggest a man to go work with men in a circle, with a coach, like to work on the divine masculine, on bringing, connecting to the inner animal as well, like to the raw, fierceness, power, and and the essence of of the of the masculine, like which is in very healthy, way protective and yes, strong, um, but but not in the toxic view of like I have to prove myself constantly. But the strength comes from presence and from being grounded as well in who they are and being in having integrity.

SPEAKER_02 29:19

I love that. Two things spring to mind, Tina, and one of them is in the conversations in the last little while, I've been surprised that females have been talking a lot about power that comes behind anger, like expressed in a great way, and being able to be embodied through that. So that's the first thing that comes to mind. And the second was a little sidebar conversation. For my dear friends, it is enough for them to be that they are on this planet that is so wonderful to me. Whenever anyone's going through anxiety, for example, or having a hard time, I'm often these days saying to them, it's just enough for you to be. Like I know we have aspects of life that we need to take care of. And also sometimes I think it's nice to just remember the simplicity of that, that just being in this world with our uniqueness as each individual is so beautiful and perfect and attractive and important. I do want to talk a little bit about women being able to embody and being able to hold space of anger or even a bit more into embodiment. I'm I'm very much enjoying what you're saying.

SPEAKER_00 30:33

Yeah. Thank you for bringing that up because you know, for me, anxiety is a sensation mostly. Anxiety lives in the body or it manifests through the body. It's a sensation in the end that is created like from an overloaded nervous system from suppressing emotions for a very long time. And these emotions can be anger as well, for example. The embodiment, I guess I feel like it's such an overused term. Like I you you read it everywhere now. I mean, if you're in a certain bubble, perhaps, but it feels like the word embodiment comes out even like more often than a couple of years ago, and that's amazing. But what it really means, and what it means for me is to have capacity in the body to hold discomfort and to hold joy. And I particularly say both because for some people it's easier to hold discomfort than it is to hold joy. This is so much more common than you may think. Like this the scariest uh scariest emotion is joy. It's so much easier to stay in the negative, you know, like this relates maybe more to depression, but for most of the people, it's much scarier to go into full embodied joy and aliveness and happiness because that means also vulnerability, that it can be taken away from you. Um and and it makes you vulnerable because, of course, like even love means vulnerability. Like if you want to love deeply, you will be hurt deeply. That's that's life, that's the polarity, maybe. Um, so embodiment is to really to be in the body with whatever is and to allow emotions like anger, but also sadness and grief and joy to to move through and to express themselves. And I think it doesn't need to mean, or there may be some confusion sometimes. Like, does it mean I should like you know release my anger all the time when it comes up and just shout at people? I heard this before, but but that's not it. Like it's more like having the tools and the understanding that if you like knowing when and how to speak up, if there is something that makes you angry, someone who oversteps your boundaries to to set boundaries, you know, to speak up, to to set a certain line, but also understanding that an anger that may I may have unexpressed or that still lives in my body can be released. I don't need to shut it down, I don't don't need to fulfill any expectation to be particularly resilient and be that over it already, like a few hours later. Like, no, I'm not over it. Like it still lives in my body situation, it's still there, and I have the tools to to sit with that for a little bit more. Like I allow myself to feel, I don't think I need to be fine with something. I can feel my anger, and I don't need to be good just because whatever expectation there is on being the calm woman, or like there's so many reasons why we don't want to express anger, men and women. And I and it doesn't matter if this is anger, but I really believe that we need to build capacity in our body to sit with all the discomfort and with everything there is, and if we can do that, we can also hold the joy and we can hold extreme excitement. Like, for example, when I entered this call and you were so excited, like this is something that's that's quite special. Not many people can do that. This is something that's particularly common in the tantri community where we can like so authentically express joy, and then I notice that even if I spend too much time outside of that community, then uh and I see someone like being so excited in a room, it's so extraordinary, and I even catch myself thinking like he's exaggerating, he or she, whatever. Like it's like it's not that exciting, but but then I remind myself like what's going on? Like I already fell back again into this conditioning. Like, no, I'm fucking celebrating. Excuse my language, I am celebrating this person for authentically expressing their excitement, and there's no no reason in the world to hold it back because if you can express your excitement, you can also express uh the other emotions most of the time. And you will start getting a sense uh when you embody your own emotions, you will get start getting a sense of the authenticity of others and when they're acting um a situation or or an expression and when it comes really authentically.

SPEAKER_02 34:51

Oh, that sounds like superhero powers. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 34:55

In a way it is, in a way it is. I mean, these are things that we should be told when like in school, literally. I think this is some social, it's connected to social skills or or just getting to know yourself. It's so so important.

SPEAKER_02 35:10

I think in the meantime, put them on your website. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 35:15

Disclaimer, you will get superhero powers.

SPEAKER_00 35:19

Yes, it feels like that sometimes, you know, because you're you feel like you're connecting, like literally, like you're you're connecting to your own divinity. You start seeing your own divinity, and that can feel like you have superpowers. And and we do, I mean, you're amazing. We're so much more. I mean, even if we just look at us biologically, isn't it incredible like how our body works? So incredible, like all these, like whole everything, like how everything works together, like the the just the biological system of human body in itself is already fascinating. But then we go a little deeper into the nervous system and then the energetics and how you know our uh emotional state is connected to organs, going maybe a bit more into traditional Chinese medicine. I deeply believe in like how how all our emotions are living in the body, and that already is also incredibly complex. There's just so much you can go into, and that's what makes this human experience so yeah, amazing. And I think we yeah, we all ought to connect to that uh that divinity and yeah, just this amazing life and and connect to aliveness and not just function and be productive.

SPEAKER_02 36:28

There's so much fullness about what you do and what you can do in the future and what you can do for individuals. No wonder you have to trust your instinct around which direction you're going when you're with someone. And I must share with you because it felt quite relevant to what you were saying before. I still find it so endearing that when I was at network school, which you were saying earlier that you were there, um, our mutual friend David, as to why we end up by having a conversation today, um, that you were at network school earlier this year. And when I was there last year, it felt so natural to hug people in the morning. And I people have heard me say that before, and I think in this conversation it's relevant because there was such a naturalness around and an authenticity around that to just feel naturally loving towards relative strangers, and some people might say co-living places lend themselves to that, and to a degree they do, but this felt very magical in terms of how uh the combination of things, like how loving people were, or how open they were to receive, and sometimes truth begets truth. I love a lot about this conversation. I love also that you talk about the energy and the transparency and the transmission between humans. It's as you say, not just biologically, but in life right now, it's so very exciting. There's so much to get excited about in terms of us as a human species growing into more and more learning that maybe we've forgotten or maybe we're just uncovering.

SPEAKER_00 38:28

Yeah, for sure. For sure. I mean, I I'd like to reflect on this, what you're sharing about network school. Um, because I, for example, I had a little different experience. I I did not feel this openness to um physical touch or connection, and I'm a very touchy person. And as you can imagine, I think that it really depends. Like there's so much shared frequency, speaking of that, like what goes beyond the human. And it really, I think, depends also what particular energy you were in when you when you came there, versus I've I had a completely different one than you, of course, we're all different, but also the people that you met and what you shared. And why um it's not just about co-living places or or retreats or something, it's shared vulnerability. And you said that um you know you came there maybe with something heavy on your heart. So even just by by being a bit more vulnerable, you may have opened up in different ways, or you may have looked at the experience also with different eyes, and that creates connection and shared vulnerability, and this is how you grow closer. And of course, you need on the other end the receiving end. So whatever energy you were putting out, you were also received in that, and that's incredibly beautiful. That's that's what creates this cohesion then in your cohort and the experience that you had. But ultimately, it always starts with us and how open we are like to receiving the others, but also how open we like we are, and sometimes we are not so open, and that's okay, and there's also environments that support that for you. Um, but yeah, it's interesting how you shared this uh about your experience.

SPEAKER_02 40:07

Yeah, and unpacking what happened in March and April last year, many of us have talked about it, Tina, and I don't think I've quite explained it. You know, been really fortunate in life to be in different situations where there's been this massive open-heartedness at a really big through a crowd through crowd, and I often oh I I really do feel very, very fortunate to have had some of those experiences before, and each of them have been different, and each of them uh there is that essence of unexplainability to a degree. Like I can't 100% explain how that came to be.

SPEAKER_00 40:54

Yeah, that's the mysticism in life, isn't it? Like coming back to this and like seeing beyond like what we see in the physical world, that I think it's a big part of our collective to coming back to to a natural form of spirituality and that can have so many expressions. And I think that unfortunately, like by um religion or spirituality becoming an institution through religion in many um cultures, it it has gone away from an in from an intuitive connection to the divine, which I think is part of the human experience as well, to an organized connection to the divine or a forced connection to the divine in the worst cases. Um and that has taken maybe that has created a little collective wound in in some places towards religion. I noticed that within myself, especially, like how I my my father would have really wanted to raise me in in the Catholic Church, and I just never resonated with that. I didn't resonate particularly with the um with the rigidity of it and and all these like rules and so much focus on what's bad and not so much focus on what's good. Um and I had this conversation with him the other day where he I think we were talking deeper about what I do, and um I was telling him I would like him to understand me better because I feel like that he misunderstands sometimes. And he said that yeah, he feels like I don't believe in a God, and like what did he did he not like share this value with me or this this belief? And I was like, it's really not true, like just because I don't believe in in religion itself or the institution of the church in the way that he wanted me to. I do believe in God, I believe in the God that lives inside of us, that lives in every being, in like the connectedness between us. I absolutely believe in God, and I think it was quite surprising for him also to open his perspective and see see spirituality from another perspective than then well his conditioning is he he's also just you know living what he knows. But I think it's important conversations to have in how we can live our spirituality that is very natural. And Tantra is often referred to as being household spirituality, which I found very interesting because it's um it's uh it's a very intuitive way of doing things. Like anything can be a ritual, like we have routines and like humans like rituals, like rituals has always been part of the human experience. This is so important. We do our rituals for certain holidays or events or whatever it is, and you can create ritual in your daily life, uh creating a tantric moment, like I like to call, just coming back into the body, feeling certain sensations. If you put intention into what you're doing or what specifically you're doing, it becomes meaningful. And I feel like I want to empower all of us to feel like we can we can put intention into things and it can be meaningful for us. Like even like I don't need to read into crystals, you know, in order to feel like this stone gives me something and it grounds me and I just like it. Like it doesn't matter what's written, like what it means, even though this is also interesting uh science. But I can give it meaning because I want to give it meaning, and that's important. And that's the that's the that's part of the the human need, you know, this muscle of here of needs. There is the the need on the top, it's spirituality, it's just part of our human experience.

SPEAKER_02 44:37

Beautifully said, and I love hearing about the conversation with your dad. Of all of the many things that you could teach and coach, what would you love to see? And what do you think is maybe something that you could provide people to a question to leave them with or exercise they could do, and and also what would you love to see come to be in the world?

SPEAKER_00 44:58

Yeah, it's definitely hard to wrap this up. I will try to bring it to a point. Yeah, I believe that the frequency would be much more aligned than what I think a a pool comment pool hours, or we need uh a romantic conversation.

SPEAKER_01 45:23

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 45:23

Yeah, I mean there's endless things to talk about, but what I would like to leave people with, and what uh the essence of tantra is, is to weave together opposites. That's what tantra means in the in Sanskrit translation. It's to weave together opposites and to to come back to this concept of polarity, that we have these different sides in us, and all of them they can coexist and they can play together, and we can move from one to the other. Um, and that relates to to masculine and feminine, but also to our shadows and and the light that we feel, like shadows being feelings of fear or guilt or shame, like these are emotions that and energies that want to be felt and to move, and they they they need a place, they need to be brought to the light in order to allow ourselves to process and to live in harmony. There is also the it's not indirect the polarity, but also sometimes we refer to the masculine being the mind and the feminine being the body. So coming back to the body or understanding, like reflecting for yourself about what does it mean to feel home in my body? What does it mean to feel connected? Can I like how deeply can I tune into not only the physical but also into the emotional body, into the energetic body? Can can I feel that? Like, can I feel a buzzing sensation of energy in my pelvic bowl or or in my food, or you know, how deep can you go? And practice to be present. And I like to say also that you know, sometimes in meditation or these practices we get like mindfulness meditation. For me, there's this means that we move energy up into the mind, like this is mindfulness, is watching the thought, or this is going into the nothingness, you know, just dissolving in a way. In tantra, we want to move the energy down, we want to feel down in the body, we want to feel fully integrated. That's why we use so much the breath, movement, and sound, because these are the frequencies and the things that bring us back into the body, and and equally so they turn off our minds. So it's um the same effect, but it has a different energy and different uh taste and flavor to it. So if you you know can um find a place for yourself, like if you have someone near you who does maybe breath work, this can be extremely powerful, and it's a nice, it's a very accessible start nowadays to go wherever you are based and finding a breath work practice. It's an it's a portal into you know, maybe even altered states of consciousness if you don't uh want to go in the psychedelic route. Uh, tantra believes also to to work with the body into creating this natural states of ecstasy and altered state of consciousness, and we can only get there if we use breath movement sound. This is this is the only way because this is how you get out of the mind and you can access yourself energetically in the spirit and move energy. So I would invite anybody who is listening to find um to reflect about this like the connection to the body and these different layers, but also maybe find um a few tantric moments every day that you can just slow down and maybe just be or bring intention to what you're doing in lighting a candle, lighting an incense, or putting lotion on your body, you know, smelling the drink before drinking it, uh pausing on the street because you just want to feel the warm sunlights, even the cold air at the same time, you know, this is one of my favorite things. So these are small tantric moments, as I like to call them, that uh already bring back a little more presence into your life.

SPEAKER_02 49:09

And if we expand on those moments and those things happening, what could you see in the future? What could you say come to be?

SPEAKER_00 49:18

Yeah, yeah. Oh, the future. I really envision a future where we stop managing our bodies and we start loving and accepting you know who we are in the essence, um, underneath the masks and the roles we are playing every day. So just having the tools and the awareness to live the life in more awareness, let's put it this way, with the ability to feel, to reflect, to share vulnerability, to connect with others, like shared connection is I think an important point of the future. I envision like allowing connection to happen naturally. A connection that is deeper than uh you know a small talk conversation, but a heart-to-heart connection. I also envision a world where we do not shame ourselves for our sexuality because suppressed sexuality is if not the number one reason of a lot of problems in this world. So connecting sex and heart is a really, really important. Like it's a whole topic in itself, so I haven't touched it much, but connecting sex and heart is really, really important, like knowing how to make love to life and and yourself and not seeing it as something separate, but your sexual energy is life force energy, and there's so, so, so much shame attached to our sexual energy that that suppresses this life force within us and that suppresses the ability to let sexual energy move up to the heart so we can connect with other people from a different place. So maybe that's an idea for another time and to touch the topic of sexual energy. But uh yeah, it's an important part of my vision for the future. So essentially, like this is also what I'm working with a lot. Um, but but uh you know, I like even what I mentioned before with the womb, like if we want to access the the yoni, which is Sanskrit term for female genitality, if I want to access the yoni, if I want to access my feminine arrows, I need to go cleanse and like go through the womb first. I I can't just go and yeah, we can talk about pleasure, of course, but it we we want to look deeper, a layer deeper. Like, what's your belief system about being a woman in the first place? To your um to your menstrual blood, what's your connection to your to your yoni itself? Like, how much can you sense as well? What's your belief system of how you show up as a woman, you know, in your sensuality? What is sensuality? It's a thousand questions you can ask yourself first, um, in order to unlock the arrows, because uh female, not female, like human sexuality is also incredibly um complex. There is it's more than just um the evolutionary function of reproduction. It can be this, of course, but we humans we have been gifted, unlike any other being in the world, that can have pleasure, can have sexuality, can have both together. Like we we were given this gift uh of sexuality that that brings us into altered state of consciousness if we if we know how to, if we can allow that. I think it's worth looking into, right? Like I'm I always like to say your pleasure deserves attention. And like so many other things we tend to in our body and we optimize and you know we want to work on, even though I don't like the term to say you work on that, but just give it attention, give it space. Like your sexuality is something really, really important in life, and just give it space and room to be heard, to be felt, to expand, to understand, you know, to heal. There's a lot there.

SPEAKER_02 52:56

Oh Tana, you have said that all so well. Is there anything else that we should talk to towards the end of this chat?

SPEAKER_00 53:07

I I feel like complete like how we have rounded this. And there's a little teaser that I've been given now in the end around the sexual energy.

SPEAKER_01 53:17

Well, without even orchestrating it too now.

SPEAKER_00 53:20

Yes, yes, yes. I I'm manifesting it already with you. Um but uh but there's nothing else. I mean, I mean, yeah, there's still a lot of topics I think I can talk about in in relationships and absolutely yeah, relational psychology. But what I would just like to say in the end is that I think you know what's most important and what what always works, like we we touched upon with the transmission of something, is when you feel like something lands in your body, some truth lands in your body. So if um if you're listening and you and you feel like that something of what we talked about is landing in the body, then um you know, trusted intuition. There's nothing weird about it. Like this it is something like you know, and your body always knows, and feel free to you know to reach out or to to do your own research in finding out um uh more about any topic that interests you, whether that's sexual energy or polarity, um, embodiment, like do these reflections and find your path of connecting to these teachings and coming back home to the body. And of course, I'll be happy to guide uh whoever feels aligned and happy to hear from.

SPEAKER_02 54:39

I've got to send a big, big, big thank you to our friend David for introducing us. And there feels like there is such an obvious part B, maybe C, maybe D, maybe E, to this conversation. So I've looked forward to that already. I love that you said that you're manifesting it. There's been a number of times through this conversation where I've got goosebumps, and it has been a real pleasure to feel that connection and also to, as I said a little earlier, in the conversation to feel the breadth of what you can discuss and to come across somebody with their profession to actually feel like it's a real never-ending, there's just so many different directions you could go in with this. And you and I having been in startups and in different knowing of different businesses, like that's what you're after. You're after something that has a lot of potential and a lot of different ways that you can go in and explore, and also big ripple effects that you can help for others. Yeah, advice. Thank you for your time.

SPEAKER_00 55:47

Endless ways of finding your path. And I think once we make room a little bit to receive also information and guidance, um, there is no right or wrong path. That's also what I always say. There's no right or wrong decision because it's always the right decision in the moment. You have your reasons. Oh, yeah. All right, are you ready for this? It was so lovely to feel your energy from the very first second, even before I saw you. It was such a beautiful conversation. And thank you for inviting me and making the time. It was an absolute pleasure. And um, I will also extend my thanks to David, he's a very special person. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02 56:35

Pleasure, treasure. Thanks for listening to the Natural Genius Podcast. Please share this with anyone who came to mind and visit us at naturalgenus.com.au. Thanks so much.