Finding resonance with another sensitive person after there has been a snag in the connection can be a particularly challenging instruction. To engage here goes against much of our conditioning toward withdrawal as a form of testing another to see if they “care” or will “come after” us. We get snagged on the other side of the equation as well if we believe we demonstrate care for another by going in after them, appeasing them by taking on responsibility for not just our part in the snag but theirs as well. This instruction offers an uncomfortable honoring of free will. Eros honors the fact that people are capable. If they are not finding joy in engagement, it means they are choosing not to. If they are not coming toward us, it means they are choosing to be distant. This is an acknowledgment of perfection and volition: things are as they should be, and true desire is demonstrated by attainment.
True desire allows others to be how they are and choose the path and circumstances they wish. Even if they look miserable in their choices and communicate that they are stuck in them and have no choice but to remain stuck, they are actually making the choice to have no choice. A fundamental respect for desire is needed along with an acknowledgment that desire is dynamic and needs space to work.
In an OM, when we are stroking, and the clitoris is withdrawn, a desire may arise in us to do the work for them. We may press in to reach the clitoris, which communicates we are willing to soothe the strokee and take care of them. But if we do, we reinforce the idea that our partner is incapable and that we are unwilling to sit in discomfort while they make the choice as to whether they wish to come out.
We have several choices if the clitoris is withdrawn. One choice is to match the action; our partner has withdrawn the clitoris, so we can pull back the finger a bit. This also works in the other direction where the clitoris can match the action. In either case, we are giving our partner a choice. The key is not to be retaliatory, stating: “You’ve withdrawn, so I will withdraw, too.” The idea is that by withdrawing, our partner demonstrates their desire against all of our preferences.
Their desire and our preferences are often at odds. The work of OM is to give priority to desire—the felt and seen direct experience—over how we would want it to be, and to use energy for desire instead of in an effort to impose our preferences upon another, or upon life. By withdrawing our finger, we are instead asking, “Okay, how is it?” Then we assess how it is, demonstrating through our stroking that we listened and are willing to match what is offered to us and reflect what we hear.
This communicates (in spite of any retractions, frustrations, or constrictions) that there is nowhere we need to get to but right here. The way out of discomfort of the spot isn’t to abandon the spot, but to be with the spot on its own terms. Our mind may want to turn this into a trick in which we hold our breath and stay with the spot, hoping it will change. This tendency is just the nature of the mind. (The good news is the spot likely won’t open, so we will get to practice even more.)
If we choose to pull back our stroke a little, one of three things will happen. The clitoris will retract even more, likely as a means of testing whether or not this is real and whether we are trying to trick it into coming out. The clitoris will remain exactly as it is. Or, the clitoris will come to meet our finger, which is a sign we have built trust. In OM, as in life, trust is built one stroke at a time. Using bread-and-butter strokes will help integrate new trust.
The mind may instead want to “make up for lost time,” speeding ahead and getting fancy, which will likely cause the clitoris to retract. Or the mind may want to retroactively punish and now increase pressure, almost grinding in the process. If we can lock in the moment that the clitoris meets the finger, using a bread-and-butter stroke until the clitoris offers a deeply lit-up spot to guide us to the next place, we are good to go. If we have experienced a retracted clitoris that comes out in an OM, and the rest is bread-and-butter, we have created an extraordinary rewiring of trust.
More OMs will follow; we can afford to take our time. The more time we spend, the more solid a foundation we build for the relationship. More importantly, we reprogram the hungry, goal-oriented part of the mind to be here right now, with this stroke, as it is.
Should the clitoris retract even more, we have two other options. The first is to again match the pulling back until there is the slightest contact, even if it feels as though we are just stroking the lube. This may seem like the OM is not happening, but in fact it is happening at a deep, trust-building level. From this we are communicating. We will remain in connection as long as it’s physically possible without violating the choice being made. This is the total reversal of having an agenda; in OM, through an agenda we either fail to notice the choice somebody has made or punish and withdraw. Instead, this option is a subtle and rare act of kindness to the self and to the partner. It undoes the reactive nature of what we may feel inclined to do when one person withdraws.
If we cannot maintain contact, it’s best to lift our finger for about two seconds, breaking contact with the clitoris but maintaining contact with the thin layer of lubricant, then place it down on the clitoris again. If the clitoris is still retracted, one way to proceed is to safeport our partner and end the OM. Again, this cannot be done as a form of punishment. We are replacing personalities with resonance, and the resonance is what we are responding to, not the individual. Our intention is to stay in resonance no matter what.
When we do this, we are free of the influence of tumescence, free of making and forcing, free from taking withdrawal personally, from needing to assert our will if withdrawal is seen as rejection, and from withdrawing in reaction. If we stay in the neutrality of resonance, we remain open to master those conditions and not become prey to the tumescence of another. This resonance buffer allows us to operate in true kindness. We now have enough space between activity and response to choose an Erotic response.
For example, withdrawal communicates a lack of trust, which, at the deepest level, communicates a lack of internal safety. To feel anything other than compassion for a person who feels unsafe isn’t Erotic. What each of us does with this understanding is entirely up to each person. We may determine this isn’t a good partner for us to OM with at this time, since we may feel we cannot let go, considering their unwillingness to trust.
Or we may determine this is a great opportunity to learn to slow down and be with someone who doesn’t feel safe. Or we may determine now is not the time to take action, and we will wait until we feel a natural pull back to that person. The resonance buffer gives us room to drop down into ourselves, feeling for the most on-the-spot response.
One thing to point out here is that, in OM, hovering or energetically not penetrating (when permission has been pre-negotiated) on either side constitutes deliberate withholding. The instruction is that if we are able to meet the stroke, we must. Many people only understand boundary transgression in the world of appearances, where it’s more tangible and palpable; OM gives us a lens to address transgressions in the invisible realm as well.
To deliberately withhold when we have the ability to meet a stroke is an aggressive act aimed to provoke further aggression. In the world of appearances, we may look perfectly innocent, even able to give the impression we’ve had our boundaries transgressed, while simultaneously transgressing other people’s boundaries under the radar.
OM gives us the capacity to tune in at this unseen level to see whether the withholding is due to a person’s genuine inability to meet a stroke, or an act indeed intended to hurt. On the other hand, sometimes we may sense from the clitoris, or from the finger, a pushing that communicates a demand, a right, an entitlement that extends beyond the point of resonance.
The challenge when there is an over-assertion of energy is our tendency to over-assert in response, or even to collapse our energy. But this takes us out of our buffer. Remember instead that we are not reacting for their benefit, but for our own. What then happens here is a very subtle trick: the way we avoid stepping into feeling put upon by an agenda that feels like pressure, or that is reactive and invites meeting it with aggression, is to increase our energy and attention in a value-neutral, balanced way.
We never leave our sphere of approval. The second we start concocting a story about how our rights have been violated, we are out of the power of our sphere of approval and communicate that we are powerless. We internally communicate that we cannot match this energy and are at our partner’s mercy. But this is never true. All sensations can be met. If sensations can be met, so can feelings. When feelings can be met, there is steadiness. When there is steadiness, whatever the world delivers can be met. More importantly, what can be met does not need to be fought, blocked, or punished. This differs from the cycle that exists in the world of appearances where instead of meeting whatever is delivered, a sense of powerlessness and punishment is thrown back and forth. Meeting is the antidote. Matching what our partner offers us in equal measure without anything extra is the way. Matching our partner communicates that we will not let their reactivity set the direction of our interaction, nor will we let our own do the same. Instead, we will find resonance and meet our partner there. Should a partner turn away from meeting us, we don’t chase them, and should they want to return, we don’t punish them.
For there to be resonance, we must relinquish the entitlements and rights of our own preferences. We don’t get to determine how our partner responds or force our partner to respond in any way. To do so would take us out of resonance. If they are being aggressive, we can still find resonance. We need neither to bow nor fight, but to meet with a firm attention, powered enough to remain approving—not of our partner per se, but of what is occurring in the timeframe. We get to remain here in resonance, regardless of what may be thrown at us and what may be removed. This freedom is brought by matching what our partner offers.
No one is obligated to do anything when we land upon the baseline of sufficiency. Anything offered is a gift, which is the language of the body and the language of desire. The body doesn’t respond well to obligation or expectation. The conscious mind may contort and demand we respond in a certain way, but the body does not abide with the sensation of joy. Instead, we let the body lead and make offerings—or not. We allow others to do this as well; no one owes us kindness, sympathy, or attention. And we do not owe these things to anyone.
Obligation kills the potential for coming from a genuine place. What do we do with our feelings when another person doesn’t show up, match us, or meet us? People coming from the world of obligation make demands or shut down. We have no need to do either. We are not at the mercy of another’s response, and if we interact with what’s happening in the moment instead of with our expectations, we are free.
Everything else is extra, including the hurt, the anger, and any other responses. Those experiences, the everything else, are outside of the spot. The spot is an ever-dynamic, shifting location, while those experiences are fixed. And while those feelings may occur inside of the spot, they occur as part of a much larger whole we don’t need to fixate on. This is where we get drawn into sentimentality or anger, into the idea it should be different from how it is.
The only thing that ever “hurts” is our inability to meet a moment. Every moment met is beautiful. Notes of pain may play inside the moment, or even sharp notes of rage, but these are experienced as part of a larger movement. To feel sentimental is not to feel at all; it is to rise up into the mind, disconnected from the body, and endlessly play out images in our head. We isolate one note, play it again, and again, and then act from that limited place.
Don’t do that. Instead, let it all be immersed in the larger pool of sensations and distinct, dynamic moments. This is how we can each feel while never denying reality. It’s how to avoid getting stuck in attempts to control reality from the disembodied tower of the mind. When someone moves away, it’s skillful to move away in response. This is our way of saying we acknowledge their desire and movement. To give more than is requested, even when the requests are invisible or energetic, is an act of arrogance.
Even if that act may look kind, generous, or benevolent, it’s actually an insult to the other—and will bring about a shame in them that we have assumed they have been unable to do what was required for themselves. The meeting in resonance of friendship holds space for others to do what they are capable of, as well as for us to offer what they are not capable of, when this has been requested or when we have received their permission. While it’s acceptable to oversee another person’s nervous system when they seem locked or frozen, this must be done with their agreement. True generosity is meeting another person’s desire on their terms. This is neither a self-aggrandizing act that helps us feel good about ourselves, nor a transgressive act to assert what we perceive they need. We must watch closely that we don’t do for others what they themselves are capable of doing. If we do, we render them incapable. While they may at first relish what we have done, the unused energy in their system will turn into a self-hatred that will then bleed onto us. We may sit with them while they learn, but we must not do it for them.
