Sitting across from Magda Kay, one can’t help but feel like they’re about to dive into the juiciest conversation they’ve ever had with a girlfriend. It almost makes me wish I had had a super sexy encounter the night before just to have something to offer up to Kay in order to garner her insights, playful questions, and expertise when it comes to all things intimate. Kay’s bubbly and down-to-earth attitude gives off a kind of Marilyn Monroe vibe, that is if Marilyn Monroe taught tantra and also had a business degree.
Magda Kay is not your typical intimacy coach. She’s a keynote speaker, an author of the book, “No More Faking It: A Woman’s Guide to getting the love, pleasure, and fulfillment she deeply desires,” presents in corporate settings, has a highly sought-after YouTube channel for sexuality and dating advice, and works 1:1 with men, women and couples.
But what makes her so unique is her ability to bring tantra, an ancient Yogic set of practices rooted in sexuality and the body, into the Western and modern world. She’s not interested in just offering her expertise in intimacy for the bedroom only, she wants to create a pathway for those in their busy city lives to view intimacy as the very foundation of life, a way that they can show up more connected, more playful, and more open to the people and experiences around them.
From Bartender to Bali
Magda Kay: My twenties were a time of really struggling to figure myself out. I had no good examples of what intimacy looked like as a young girl - I only have one memory of my parents ever kissing and there was a lot of arguing and disconnection. I thought love was honestly this lame thing and I really looked down on anyone in a relationship while also deeply wanting one of my own. I only kissed men or slept with them when I was drunk and had my first real relationship at age 27, so I was a bit of a late bloomer!
I was a bartender for the year after high school and partied a lot and had a good deal of blackout nights. I didn’t have any focus or goals I was going after. It was a really hard time, looking back on it now. I finally went to college and afterward got a job at Mindvalley in Southeast Asia. Moving there saved my life. After that job, I started traveling and went to India on a whim to study tantra, which led me to live in Koh Phangan, Thailand go deeper into Tantra and Sacred Sexuality and spend years doing healing work, and start my coaching business in Bali.
Tantra - A path for the modern world
Magda Kay: Tantra is something I’m so passionate about because it is a deeply needed path for the modern person and addresses what we’re sorely missing in our busy lives. Tantra isn’t just a spiritual path, it’s a path toward health, wellbeing, and better connections that can easily fit into the Western lifestyle.
Tantra is a beautiful spiritual path because it doesn’t divide the world into spiritual and non-spiritual, but everything is sacred including making money and also sex. This is why it’s so important because instead of shaming sex it helps us make room for it, heal from it, and expand ourselves through it.
Our sexuality is really the essence of who we are, our life force energy. And intimacy, which is how we express that life force, is the foundation. It’s not a category but rather it’s our wellbeing and our sense of aliveness - the foundation of how we can show up in the world. I bring this conversation of intimacy into all spaces of life because I believe it has a place there and we should be talking about how it can fit in all of those spaces. Tantra invites us to go deeper into life itself.
Tantra in the City
Magda Kay: I’d love to offer a few super simple, easy ways to start incorporating Tantric principles into your daily life. For starters, start by playing with the notion that there is more than just the physical world. I know that can sound kind of out there, but what if you just allowed yourself to believe that? That there is some magic in the world, something beyond what you can see and touch. Creating a sense of possibility for the element of magic is very much present in Tantra.
Next, try slowing down your experience of feeling, interacting, and receiving from others. Life is kind of like one long train ride. You can be speeding through quickly, which is efficient, sure. But if you try to look through the window you aren’t going to see anything because it’s all blurring past you. Tantra invites us every now and then to stop the train and look through the window or, even better, to get off the train and explore what is right outside, waiting for us to experience it.
Finally, Tantra is a beautiful tool for learning how to live a more deeply connected life. As humans, we live mostly walled off and trying to protect ourselves from being hurt by others. But without opening our hearts, we cannot experience love or so many beautiful emotions. I no longer live in Bali, but am back in a big, bustling city in Europe, walking the walk that these principles can be applied anywhere and that Tantra offers the tools for a connected and love-filled life no matter your lifestyle or environment. That’s the true beauty of this path, that it’s available to anyone.
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