Ben Ralston

How to let go or release buried emotions and suppressed feelings?

A talk about healing and personal development. What causes our emotional problems, and how can we solve them?
Answer – trauma is what causes almost all our problems, and healing trauma solves them. And healing trauma can be fast, easy, and fun!

Hope you didn’t get too seasick watching it! I’ll try to keep future videos a little more ‘stable 🙂

Mark Ruffalo Occupies Wall Street with passion, compassion, intelligence, charisma

I was an actor once. A terrible actor. I made audiences cringe. I myself cringed inwardly on stage. I had no confidence. I was in a play at the National Theatre once (just the once) and my parents got in the elevator with Neil Kinnock (head of the opposition party at the time). That’s my claim to acting fame. That’s how bad I was. Thank God I don’t have to act anymore; I found my real purpose in life.
Then there’s Mark Ruffalo. He’s a great actor. I could watch him all day. There’s an openness and an integrity about him that is very attractive. I’ve seen a few of his movies and I always felt like he’s the kind of guy I’d like to get to know. A good guy.
Then there’s Occupy (Wall Street). I love that movement. I put the brackets around the Wall Street part because I don’t feel it’s really about Wall Street any more. It’s about… no, wait.
Occupy has become a global movement and it’s only going to get bigger. It’s going to get bigger and bigger because more and more people are awakening to the simple truth of who they really are. More and more people are becoming conscious of their own innate power. We are not sheep. We are not here to be herded around like cattle, victims of a system that is based on greed and fear, so that 1% can prosper and be free while 99% live without dignity…
We are human beings: perfect, beautiful, powerful expressions of pure consciouness. We are free already, and as more and more people awaken to that simple truth by letting go of survival based fears, the system in which we live is changing. Occupy is a sign of that change – and I for one am overjoyed to see it happening.
So what’s Occupy about? I’ll let Mark Ruffalo explain it much better than I can:
And an equally intelligent, even more eloquent ‘call to arms’:

Why I left Bangkok… part 3: “Tread softly, and with joy.”

After my unwitting incursion into the world of child prostitution – part 1 – and my adventures with amphetamine crazed truck drivers and Thai gangsters  – part 2 – I was feeling pretty lost.

I’d been traveling alone for about a month and I was lonely.
One day I was driving through town on my motorbike and I started to feel ill again. The fever wasn’t quite gone yet. I pulled over to the side of the road and found myself sitting at a table outside a small bar. I ordered a drink and before it arrived I realized I was outside some kind of brothel.
There were about 5 or 6 girls in the bar, lounging around and leaning over a couple of Dutch sailors.
The sailors were about 50 years old, heavily tattooed. I really wish I could remember my conversation with them because it was both hilarious and very interesting.


The expression on their faces (and the faces of all the men I saw in that bar) stay with me though. They were like young men ‘on the pull’ – that strange kind of desperate intensity in their eyes (sexual desire) and a kind of assumed (false) arrogance. They were trying to look confident and self-assured. In short: they wanted to be found attractive. I recall finding this very amusing: they were in a brothel. They knew they only had to pay for what they wanted, and yet they still went through the suffering of the ‘chase’.
The girls were an interesting bunch…
There was Jo-Jo: a very young, extremely sexually precocious girl who was clearly interested in making as much money as fast as possible.
There was a tall, beautiful but strange-looking girl. Later, I found out that she was a transsexual. I don’t know if it’s politically correct to say ‘a transexual’, but that’s what she was: a boy, pretending to be a girl. I also don’t know if it’s p.c. to say ‘pretending’, but that’s what s/he was doing, to be honest. ‘Her’ name was Sumalee. She was very sweet. I liked her a lot. When I came to the bar a few weeks later to say goodbye to them all, she went upstairs and came back with a beautiful silver necklace which she gave to me, tearfully.

A silver necklace exactly like this one.
The Thais have an incredibly generous heart…
There was also ‘Miaow’. She was quiet, and sad looking, and beautiful in a mysterious, sulky kind of a way. I remember thinking that she probably didn’t make much money like that…
I visited the bar again the next day – it was far more interesting than any of the temples I’d seen.
The girls all ‘flirted’ with me of course, and I played along. I had no intention of hiring their services, but I was enjoying the fun and games too much to spoil things. I was sat there, the only guy there at the time (unless you count Sumalee!), surrounded by laughing and joking girls. At one point Sumalee asked me if I was going to make one of the girls ‘happy’. So I had to explain that I had no interest in paying for sex. I’ve never understood how someone can pay for sex. To me sex is about intimacy, and you can’t buy intimacy, can you? They all looked disappointed, apart from Miaow, who looked at me somehow differently after that…
They invited me out with them to a nightclub that evening, and I happily accepted.
I only remember that the music in the club was awful, and that we all got pretty drunk. Sumalee tried to seduce me, and I ended up going home with Miaow.
She came up to very nervously and asked me if I’d like to spend the night with her. I told her that I’d love to more than anything else in the world, but that I just couldn’t bring myself to pay for sex. She looked a bit pissed off, and just said:
“No money, just night together.”
That’s how my time with Miaow began.
We spent the night together in her tiny room, and she was incredibly shy for a prostitute. We didn’t sleep much. We had sex, and talked a lot. She was very gentle, shy, and kind.
After we slept a little she told me she had to go to work. I didn’t like it, but what could I do? When I asked her not to go she impatiently snapped:
“No worry. I no go with man”.
Then she left, and I was alone again.
Later that day, when I saw her, she asked me if I would like to spend some time together. I said yes. So she told her boss that she was taking time off work, and we spent the next two weeks together.
Miaow had a small, brand-new, beautiful motorbike. A guy she had met from New Zealand had bought it for her.
She was very smart. She didn’t sleep with anyone who came to the bar unless she liked them. The other girls sold themselves to anyone, and made some money. But Miaow would choose clients very, very carefully, she told me. She told me that she was lucky to have a boss who allowed her to work like that. Not only did she have a beautiful motorbike, but she also received money every month from various former ‘clients’ around the world. When I asked her why she worked like that, she told me she had a son, and asked me if I’d like to meet him. I said yes.
It wasn’t easy. We were both young (I was 21 but oh so immature for my age). Miaow was a little older but didn’t speak very good English. There were jealous arguments and misunderstandings.
She took me to the Chiang Mai night market, where we ate the best food I’ve ever tasted in my life for the equivalent of a few pennies. She chatted animatedly to the locals, and I felt like the luckiest person in the universe. I was sitting there experiencing life on another planet as if I belonged…
After a few days, we drove on her motorbike to her hometown, in the rural Northern midlands of Thailand. She let me drive, and I remember her suddenly making me pull over, and then screaming at me for a while by the side of the highway. I had no idea what was wrong. Finally she told me in English:
“You too fast”.
When we set off again, she whispered in my ear:
“Every girl want feel safe”.
When we drove into her hometown, everyone stopped and stared. Groups of children ran alongside the motorbike. They’d never seen a Falang (foreigner) before.
The houses were small, wooden, raised above the earth on stilts.
We stayed there with her Grandmother and son. Grandma had no teeth, and just smiled at me all the time, non-stop. She raised Miaow’s boy. His Father had been an abusive alcoholic, and Miaow had left him years ago. The little boy had a few teeth more than his Grandmother and that’s all I remember about him.
While we were there it was my birthday. There was a huge celebration and people came with gifts – bottles of whiskey, a watch, and various dishes that they’d prepared. It was a feast. We all sat on the ground around a sheet spread out underneath countless delicious Thai treats. They laughed and sang. I remember feeling incredibly humble. I was wealthy compared to these people, and yet they gave me these relatively expensive gifts… I was confused by my feelings. Why was I made so uncomfortable by their generosity? Looking back, I know why:
It wasn’t just their gifts that made me uncomfortable. It was their generosity of spirit. They gave me some things, yes. But they gave me all of their attention. They were totally present. I’d never met anyone in my life that wasn’t in two places at once. I certainly didn’t know how to be so present – even at my own birthday party.

I didn’t know it at the time, but that meal under a perfectly dark, star-filled night, was the first of my two great lessons in what wealth really is. (Read the last paragraph of this post for the second lesson).
I also remember the local policeman. He sat all day outside his shack, whiskey bottle in hand. Miaow told me that’s all he did: drink, and accept bribes.
It was 17 years ago. I was young; arrogant; naĂŻve; foolish; immature; irresponsible; selfish. I stepped into worlds that were completely alien to me. I trampled through them carelessly. Thum once told me that he could hear me coming a mile away. My footsteps were heavy. He said that the Thais have a saying:
“Tread softly, and with joy”
I’ve thought about that saying many times over the years.
When the time came for me to leave Thailand, Miaow drove me to the bus stop. I would be getting a bus and then a flight home halfway around the world. She would be going straight back to work.
It was a strange moment, saying goodbye. We’d perhaps both used each other, and there was a total lack of sentimentality on her part. We kissed briefly and awkwardly, and I told her I’d write. She didn’t look impressed. I felt guilty.
I did write, once. She wrote back. Her written English was so bad that I could barely understand anything. I felt very, very sad getting that letter.

She told me that her real name wasn’t Miaow. It was Surya.
I hadn’t even suspected.
I’ve thought many times over the years of trying to track her down, but what would I do? I like to think that she probably achieved what she hoped to achieve: met a kind older man who whisked her and her boy away and gave them a life of material security. She was smart enough to achieve that. She deserves at least as much.
Wherever she is, I hope she’s happy and feels safe.




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WHAT IS HEALTH?



Many people (including many doctors!) view HEALTH like this: “we are healthy when there is nothing wrong“.
You know what? When you look at health like that, you are really just waiting to get sick!

I’m going to share with you some information that not many people know, and fewer understand.

I want to tell you WHAT HEALTH REALLY IS.
I’m also going to give you 5 practical tips which, if applied intelligently, will transform your life!
Health is not a lack of disease. It is not the absence of sickness. It is not a negative anything. But many people (including many doctors!) view it like this: “we are healthy when there is nothing wrong“.
You know what? When you look at health like that, you are really just waiting to get sick!




True health is a radiant state of physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual vitality. It is much, much more than a lack of symptoms. It is a state of consciousness in which abundant energy and vibrant wisdom merge with physical well-being and peace of mind, bestowing an all-consuming sense of JOY…


This is actually our natural state of being – it is our birth right! It is the way we are supposed to be.

When we experience this state of natural health, it is because all the different aspects of us are unified. Our head, our heart, and our body, are all speaking the same language. We are coherent. All of our different aspects are co-operating.


As I said in the article SUCCESS, coherence and intention, this term coherence comes from the language of Reference Point Therapy. It is also a scientific term: a coherent light pattern is one which is focused. When you focus the beam of a torch, the light becomes more intense; brighter… similarly, when we focus our light, (our awareness, our energy)… we become more powerful. Specifically what this means to us as human beings, is allowing our head (thoughts), our heart (emotions), and our gut (instincts) to be in harmony. When we operate like that, we are coherent, and that means healthy.

So, poor health, sickness, disease, depression, and addiction are symptoms of incoherence. It really is that simple.
If there is something wrong, it is because some part of you is not communicating with the other parts. You are, on some level, incoherent.
What this new understanding means – and let’s be really clear: this is modern, cutting edge information that I am giving you here. Only very recently has this new approach to healing been discovered. What I am talking about here is a NEW PARADIGM, a completely new approach to health and healing.
What this new understanding means, is that we can HEAL ourselves very quickly, very easily, and permanently – now. This is the Holy Grail of healing.


We don’t have to keep on repeating the same patterns of illness, poverty, unhealthy relationship. We don’t have to visit the doctor anymore, or spend thousands of euros on psychotherapy, or keep on going to bio-energy healing again and again. We are able now, if we so choose, to become more coherent!

If health and joy are our birthright, why do so many people suffer from poor health and depression?

The reason why so many people are unhealthy is that our society is unhealthy.
You don’t need me to tell you why and how our society is unhealthy – it’s obvious. Essentially, health is our natural state, but we have become very far removed from what is natural. It’s not natural to spend so many hours inside. It’s not natural to spend so many hours sitting down. It’s not natural to sit in chairs, or to stare for hours at the pixels of a computer screen. It’s not natural to… I could go on, but I won’t because you know all this.


What to do about it?
Well, if you want to be healthy, I offer you here some practical advice:

  1. The body needs exercise every day. It needs to stretch, and the muscles need to be used regularly. You don’t have to over-do it, but do DO it! (I’ll write an article on proper exercise later).

  2. Breathe deeply and slowly.
  3. Diet: You need to eat fresh, healthy food, and drink lots of water. If you eat meat, eat only a little (once or twice a week is about right). The human body is not designed to eat large quantities of meat, and doing so causes toxins. (I will write an article on nutrition and vegetarian diet later).
  4. Practice deep relaxation daily.
  5. Meditate. Meditation is relaxation taken to a whole other level. When you meditate, you combine deep relaxation with focused awareness (concentration), and the result is a profound, powerful meeting between YOU and YOURSELF. It’s hard to describe – if you have experienced it, you don’t need me to tell you. If you haven’t… I’ll write an article on meditation later!

If you put these 5 points – exercise, breathing, relaxation, diet, and meditation – into practice daily, you will be well on the way to perfect, radiant health. Remember, that means:

“abundant energy and vibrant wisdom merged with physical well-being and peace of mind, bestowing an all-consuming sense of JOY!”

Practicing these 5 points will help to re-align the different aspects of yourself (for example body, emotions, and thoughts). This means coherence, and therefore greater health.


If you get stuck, it may be that there is a blockage. I highly recommend Reference Point Therapy as a unique, highly efficient alternative healing method – quickly and permanently releasing blockages. One such blockage could be a lack of discipline – lack of discipline is really low self-esteem: when we love ourselves deeply, we don’t need ‘discipline’ because we automatically do for ourselves what is best.


An example of the way in which RPT works:
Perhaps your parents didn’t express their love for you openly when you were a child. Perhaps they worked a lot, or maybe they just didn’t know how to love their children fully. This caused you, as a child, to feel a sense of emptiness; like something is wrong with you; as if something in you is missing. This sense of emptiness is a blockage that causes many problems for many people. It prevents people from living life fully; from loving themselves deeply; and from doing the things that they know they should.
It’s easy to release this kind of blockage with RPT.


I practiced the above 5 points for many years, and I made very good progress. Whereas I used to be ill a lot, and suffer from emotional ups and downs, after years of practicing yoga (which is where these 5 points come from – I’ll write more articles on yoga later!), I felt much better. But something was missing. When I discovered Reference Point Therapy all that changed. I let go of several blockages that were holding me back, and my health, abundance, and self-esteem all shifted: I became much more successful.


The purpose of this blog is to share the secret of that success with you. I hope it is helping…
With love,
Ben


Do you agree with this article – anything you disagree with?
Do you feel that something is blocking you from the life you WANT to live?
Have you experienced RPT yourself? – If so, share your experience by leaving a comment.

TRUST

Dear friends, the other day I wrote this post on my Prem Center facebook page: “When we TRUST the world around us, we align ourselves with the natural order. We experience abundance! But when we WORRY, we hold on, and become tense, blocking that natural flow of abundance. Let go. Don’t worry. You have always had everything you needed, and always will. Trust, and be truly joyful”

And an old friend of mine from L.A. asked a great question.  I always love questions(especially such good ones as this!) because it opens up a channel of communication from which not only the two of us learn, but also anyone else who is listening. This is how we can grow and evolve: IN RELATIONSHIP. To me that is what questions and answers are – communication; relationship.
So, here is my friend Joyce’s question: ” what do you mean by “natural order”? i’m asking because i (think) i understand what you mean but then, upon reflection- i’m not quite sure what ‘natural order’ means beyond being born (been there done, that) and dying (eventually, hopefully a ways off)… i’m being simplistic but i really am curious about understanding what you mean by this… moreover, can a ‘natural order’ be pursued in an environment immersed in industry, consumerism, and avarice? a place, like say… los angeles? i think it’s possible, but it feels like a struggle at times…”

The theme of my original post (the one quoted above) was about  Trust versus Worry. For me, the natural order is what every animal, vegetable and mineral experiences… faith. It is a silent knowing, a deep trusting – that everything in life is just as it is meant to be. Even when things go ‘wrong’, there is always a reason. We may not immediately know what that reason is, but we can always look back later and say, “aha, that experience had a positive effect”.
In English, we have the saying: “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”
And one of my favourite singers, Beth Orton, has the wonderful lyric: “regrets are just lessons you haven’t learnt yet”…







Whatever we think, however we judge a situation, there is always a bigger picture – much bigger than our thoughts and judgements. In fact, if we look at it scientifically, where do thoughts and judgements come from? They come from the frontal cortex part of our brain – the part of our brain that is unique to adult humans. It is very useful, helping us to use language, and analyse the world around us. Without it we wouldn’t have flown to the moon or even invented the wheel. But it is also the part of us that WORRIES. Worry is fear in disguise. Not a very good disguise either. If you worry a lot, it’s because you are afraid. Thoughts, judgemtents, worries, fear – it’s all in the head.

So if fear and worry is in the head, where is trust? It’s in the body. Trust is in the natural movements of the body: walking, dancing, jumping. It’s in the breath, and the rhythmical expansion and contraction of the lungs. It’s in the flow of blood and energy throughout the body, and the involuntary processes of the internal organs and the digestion.
When you eat a meal, you put the food into your mouth, and then what? Do you have to worry about the food after that? No! The stomach does it’s job, the intestines do theirs, and finally…! It all happens naturally, spontaneously, and  without the need for our attention.
In the same way, the universe and the earth do what they need to do: the planets stay in their orbits, the sun keeps on shining, and the earth keeps up just enough gravity for us to stay here where we belong. Trees give us all the oxygen we need; rains give us all the water we need; there is an abundance of food – more than enough to feed every person on the planet. So why then do we worry so much?

I’ll tell you why:
Because our society has lost touch with: guess what?
Yes, THE NATURAL ORDER. We have entered into a battle with nature, trying to manipulate and control, instead of simply trusting. We are afraid that if we let go, something terrible will happen – a new disease, or an earthquake, or a volcano.
And guess what? These things DO happen – it’s just part of life. But honestly, when did any of these things last affect you, and how often does that happen? And more importantly, did worrying about anything ever affect a more positive outcome!

So trust! Trust that you will have everything you need. Trust that no matter what happens, there is always a reason. Trust that  “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”.
Let your awareness come down, out of your head, and into your body.
The natural order for human beings is this: our energy enters our body in and below the solar plexus. (There is a wisdom there that is ancient, from long before we were human: it is something instinctive and faithful.) That energy flows into our solar plexus, and up, through the heart (our emotional center) and from there into the brain. Our brain is a computer that sorts out the message from the solar plexus and then organizes the necessary action: the brain is like a secretary. It organizes and it gets things done. But the boss, the manager, the chairman, is deeper down – in the solar plexus. Most people let the secretary make all the decisions – and guess what: the secretary isn’t good at that, it’s not his job, and so he gets stressed. That stress accumulates, and if you’re not careful, it leads to all kinds of problems, like depression and disease. On the other hand, if you bring your awareness down into the body; focus on feeling more. On being more real, more here, more present. Being aware of the ground beneath your feet, the air in your nostrils, the sounds around you, the life in your body. If you do that, life becomes more joyful – because it’s the way we are meant to be: it’s in alignment with the natural order.

It’s not easy – because we’ve been conditioned by our society to do the opposite (at school, by our parents, by television, media, advertising, etc). But with practice you gradually eliminate worry, and cultivate a feeling of trust.  That trust leads to respect, and that respect leads to love. For oneself, for others, and for the world around us.

What could be more natural than that?

To answer the second part of the question: yes it is possible to live in trust and love surrounded by industry and consumerism and avarice (greed). But it’s REALLY HARD. I think it’s essential to get out of town regularly, back to nature. Like, preferably every day. That’s why I moved to the countryside – and I have to say I could never go back…