Eco-Tantra and Mental Health

I mentioned in a previous blog that I’ve occasionally experienced periods of low mental health. It’s not something I generally discuss – not out of shame or embarrassment, but more because I don’t want to over-sensationalise something that, compared to many people’s experiences and battles, is relatively trivial.

But I’ve recently completed a Mental Health First Aid course, where I realised that discussing mental health is never trivial – if nothing else, it normalises the conversation and fosters a safe environment for others to share their own experiences. And as I thought more about what I had experienced in the past and how I learnt to manage it, I realised that the adoption of eco-tantric practices has provided me with a coping strategy that perhaps helps to explain what others would perceive as “weird” behaviour.

My own “demon” (which really is over-sensationalising it!) was cyclical moods. I remember the first time I was hit by them. I was going through puberty and I just woke up one morning and couldn’t get out of bed. It wasn’t physical fatigue; it was mental fatigue – I couldn’t face the world. I just couldn’t be bothered to move, get up, get dressed, brush my teeth. My perception changed too – I didn’t just feel small and withdrawn, I was small and withdrawn. My bed, my room; everything around me was huge and insurmountable. The doctor was called; he put it down to puberty and physical exhaustion, and that was that. A few weeks later, I’d managed to get up and was soon back to normal.

But after that, at intervals of approximately every three to four months, I would go through a period of about a week where I felt increasingly depressed until, eventually, I’d find myself curled up on the floor sobbing, paralysed with hopelessness and self-loathing. Everything about my life and my existence felt utterly pointless and, in those moments, I often wished I was dead. It was the paralysis that spared me – I was so enfeebled I couldn’t even move.

Only once did I really engage in what I now recognise as risk taking behaviour. It didn’t last long. Every day I would cycle to the train station, down a hill and across a busy carriageway. For about 3-4 weeks I dared myself to freewheel into the roundabout at the bottom of the hill without touching the brakes – without even looking. Deep down I probably realised that, at 6am, the road wasn’t actually busy and the chances of me cruising out into the path of an oncoming vehicle was slim. Eventually I mentally shamed myself into stopping – it seemed like a pretty pathetic attempt at self-harm and seeing as I had no intention of taking any greater risks I decided to stop.

On the only other occasion of slight risk-taking behaviour, I simply decided to volunteer for the riskiest deployments at work (I did a reasonably risky job); but there were so many safety measures and risk assessment considerations wrapped around these activities that there was never really any risk involved in this behaviour either.

I do know what prompted both of these rather tame attempts at risk taking though. It was two separate comments, both of which implied my worthlessness, that were made by a significant person in my life. What I now realise is that relationships were my trigger. Relationships were bad for me. How people felt about me, how they perceived me, and worrying over how I might have upset others, were the thoughts that haunted me most when I was shriveled on the floor.

But the whole philosophy of nondualist Tantra teaches you to re-evaluate relationships. Simplistically, you learn to detach yourself from external relationships and cultivate your own internal relationship; the relationship you have with yourself as a divine manifestation of God. In truth though, this internal relationship is also your external relationships, and vice versa. Because everything and everyone is you. You are God and God is everything. Everything that is external is a manifestation of something that is also internal. From this perspective relationships can be fun, playful things; an exercise in self-exploration.

The techniques that Tantra teaches to help practitioners experience nonduality are also very similar to the processes that I would work through in order to get up off the floor. Before I could move, I had to quieten my circling thoughts and ground myself in the present – in reality. I had to find something tangible and focus upon it, something in the present that needed me. And for that I needed to cultivate my senses – I needed to focus on something I could see, hear, smell or feel. Something that needed my attention. I developed a habit of tapping – tapping surfaces, tapping my own fingers together, drumming a beat on my body. These were the things that kept me present and focused. And these are the kind of techniques that now form part of my tantric meditation – along with breathing exercises.

It is perhaps unsurprising then that, since I began practicing Tantra my cyclical moods seem to have settled down.

But quietening my mind and using my body to bring my attention to the present isn’t always easy or straight forward. There’s constant noise; a bustle of people still struggling to build relationships. It’s easier to be alone, somewhere secluded, outdoors, in nature. And it’s easier when I can feel nature too – feel the wind, the rain, the squelch of mud under foot, the cushion of mulch beneath my butt. Put another way, it is easier for me to incorporate the external world into my inner being when I am alone, outdoors and naked.

Tantra, and Eco-Tantra in particular, may not be for everyone. But it has worked well for me. It grounds me, it binds me to the present, it reminds me that I am not defined by how I relate to others, but by how I relate to myself - a self that I can always find and explore when I'm out being eco-tantric.