After my first session with Michelle, I started to stop ejaculating.

This was not planned beforehand, nor was it even a fully conscious decision after. It just seemed that my energy shifted ever so slightly that to retain my semen felt better. I have now gone for 40 days, and have experienced quite a range of things along the way.  The first part (possibly 20 days or so, I’m sure it’s completely individual) I did experience a heightened sexual awareness, everything around me seemed more sexualised, and I was very easily aroused by anything and everything.

However, there was no sense of frustration with this. It was rather the beginning of a different focus. Now, after 40 days, everything has calmed down. The energy is clearly not genital anymore, it seems dispersed, distributed around the whole body. I do feel more sensual rather than sexual, and my desire towards women has more to do with intimate connection than sexual gratification. I am not in a relationship, so I don’t know how this would play out if I had regular intimate contact.

Retention has an effect on my mind: I feel sharper, more defined, clearer. The same goes for the body – the retention appears to define the body more clearly. There is also an experience of a core strength from which physical exercises or exertions are completed.  Something I am experiencing is lack of tension in the genital area. This seems to translate into my relationship with others and the world in general: there is less grasping, less wanting. I feel much more in tune with my surroundings, much more relaxed overall. I only had two sessions with Michelle so far, but I could feel a real deepening of the experience in the second session. This is a great education of the body, a process of changing life-long habits and with that thought patterns and emotional attachments.  The process is experimental and fun as well, and is an opportunity to form a different relationship with myself. I am seeing myself (in past and present) in a different light. I am only in the beginning, but I am starting to understand why people call tantra a way of life.

Anon. Brighton