As men, we armor in many arenas and body parts in the same way that women do. It usually has to do with fear, shock and pain that we don’t want to or cannot engage with. Therefore we create a barrier between ourselves and the experience – this barrier is the armor. However in one aspect we are also very different: As men, we are sexually focused beings.
Our first Chakra, right at the root of the penis, is actively outgoing, and sexuality is a major anchor of our male identity. In our sexuality, De-Armoring brings deep new levels into our circle of experience.
Inside the De-Armoring process, we experience and learn that sex has nothing to do with performing, but with being focused on feeling. Oftentimes, as men we have a tendency to be penis-focused, and we centre all our attention there, as well as in the head and in fantasy. Thus, sex becomes a considerable physical effort and output of energy.
Through De-Armoring, our whole body becomes more sensitive, and the former penis-focus can gradually spread through our whole being. This new sensitivity not only enriches our own experience and physical overall presence; in that process, we become more sensitive to our partners as well, as all our senses open to a deeper level of perception. Engaging with a partner therefore becomes a much more shared experience in a mutually created space.
De-Armoring also opens us to experiencing different kinds of orgasms. Socially and culturally, we are trained to have to have an erection, perform penetration and ejaculation, sometimes under a considerable physical and psychic effort, in order to have proven ourselves as true men. Therefore sexuality often is pre-loaded for us with the pressure of performance, especially when we get older.
Inside De-Armoring, we experience that orgasms have many faces, that there is not the one and only right way, and that we can reach high states of sexual presence and orgasm, without an erection or ejaculation. Therefore we can widen our circles of experience in our sexuality, with or without a partner, and our concepts of who we are as Manly Men. In this way, we liberate our sexuality as well as our identity from the pressure of performance and gain the freedom to feel and be who we truly are: beings with a wide range of experience and (sexual) self expression.
In the tradition of the Twisted Hairs, we highly honour that everything is born of the feminine energy, the womb. As men, we also have what we call a spirit womb, our inner space, and that is the place from where we can give birth to ideas or projects. It takes a lot of care and awareness for a man to be connected to his inner space when he is sparking and seeding the world with his male creativity. This care, inner knowledge and instinct, about being on or off in one’s actions, comes from the spirit womb, the gut. This takes even more effort as long as we are armored, as the armor prevents us from being in touch with our core.
The De-Armoring process, together with the teachings and ceremonies we provide in our Retreats, bring back the potential of being connected at all times to our own centre, the spirit womb, the Hara. On a deep level, this re-connection to our spirit womb brings us into close intimacy with the Feminine, inside of ourselves, and consequently outside as well, and enables us to fulfil our deep desire of wholeness as men, connected with the feminine.
Hand in hand with that connectedness, we gain a stronger access to our true will power. Often times, when armored, we stifle our will and our outgoing energy, out of fear to create harm and damage instead of beauty and life. Rightfully so, in many ways, because if we have no or little connection to our centre, we also can hardly evaluate properly the impact of our actions, and thus we stay insecure and hesitant. Being able to pull our knowledge for decision-making from this area in our Hara, which is called also the “strong heart”, grants us the potential for more maturity within our Actions, which we seed out into the world. Thus we become clear and potent in our energy and enhance the maturity of our masculinity.