Ben Ralston

Somebody can be. And it’s my pleasure.

I just did a presentation in Zagreb. I presented Reference Point Therapy (my healing work), and I did a very public demonstration of it.
The 3rdlevel course of RPT is called Mastering the Miraculous.
Since I took that course in November 2009 I’ve been able to master miracles.
And tonight was a beautiful example of that.
First of all – who has ever heard of a ‘healer’ claiming to have the “fastest, most efficient healing technique in the world”.
Secondly, who ever had the balls to prove that claim with a public demonstration?
Well actually, there are a bunch of us RPT teachers doing just that – I’m not the only one…
So tonight, I asked for a show of hands in the audience: who wants to heal something, right now?..
5/6 people put their hands up.
I asked each of them what the problem that they wanted to heal was.
Then I intuitively chose the one I thought most suited a public demo. (Not too complex, easy to ‘measure’ a change).
The woman I chose had a ‘calcified’ shoulder. Medical diagnosis, long-term (2 year) problem. Chronic pain.
Before the session – pain was fairly low: 2 /10 whilst standing; 3/10 moving the arm.
Mobility in the shoulder was clearly impaired.
The woman said that sometimes the pain was so bad it made her cry.
I asked her a few questions:
When did the pain start?
What else was happening in her life around that time?
We ‘felt into’ the pain. A childhood memory came up to do with being abandoned.
I healed the feelings, the subconscious associations, and the ancestral trauma that caused it all. I also healed it for all of us that were present, and humanity as a whole, because it was an issue that I know is very real for many people today.
Afterwards, when I asked her to move her arm, there was no pain. Full mobility. She cried with gratitude and gave me one of the sweetest hugs.
There was a medical doctor in the audience who was utterly gobsmacked. She signed up for both RPT courses Level 1 and 2 on the spot.
And when I came home I had an email that read (I’ll paraphrase, because the sender’s English was hard to understand):
“Dear Ben
I was on presentation of Reference point therapy in (Zagreb).
Not sure if somebody can (be healed) just by being
there at the demonstration healing
but I feel relief (like somebody understand me)
It feels like silence and you can’t describe it with words.
Thank you very much”
Somebody can be. And it’s my pleasure.




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Live life like…

Many thanks to the wonderful artist JellyVampire for this beautiful, inspiring, and uplifting artwork:


Get off the page, out of your box.

Be creative and bold and dance the dance of your life with wild abandon…
Like you’ve got nothing to lose.

Paint the canvas of your life liberally, generously,
With a flourish or whilst poring over every detail, but do it:

Like you’ve got nothing to lose.

Sing the song of your life with all the emotional color you can muster,
Every shade and nuance at your disposal.
Spare nothing and no-one, like
You’ve got nothing to lose.

Because really,

You have nothing to lose.

3 impossible true stories (and 1 way to feel more like God).

Thinks he’s an otter…

There have been times when I’ve felt so bad I’ve wanted the Earth to swallow me up. Times when, if I’d had one wish, I would not have wished for more money or time or power; I’d have wished to disappear in a puff of smoke.
And there was a time when I very, very nearly killed myself.
We’re all human, which is to say, we all have the capacity to experience tremendous pain. I’m talking about emotional pain here, but the same goes for physical…
I think it was Primo Levi who said something like:
“A human is an animal that can adapt to any circumstances”.
I once watched a documentary called “The Boy Whose Skin Fell Off”. It was about a boy with a rare disease – his skin fell off his body every few days. His skin kept falling off all the time. His parents had to bandage him up, and he lived with that pain day in, day out, his whole life. In the end, he died of skin cancer.
I don’t think I’ve ever cried so much, or been so moved, as I did and was by that movie. That boy’s courage and dignity will remain with me, always. You can watch it here. You will be moved and shaken and inspired.
I wrote recently about feeling like an Ant. And about feeling like God.
To me, the difference between the two is just all about where we place our attention (and where we place our attention is the greatest sign of our intelligence)…

So I want to share with you a great way to shift your attention from the mundane, painful, ant-like aspects of life, towards God:
It’s called synchronicity.
Some people call it co-incidence, but I like to say that there is no such thing as co-incidence. Others call it luck, and I like to say that we make our own luck, and one of the ways in which I’ve made mine (and I’m one of the luckiest people in the history of luck) is by doing what I’m about to tell you about.
Actually, a better word than synchronicity is perhaps ‘miracle’. Because although mathematicians would be able to work out the odds of some of the things I’m about to tell you about happening; and although they might say that there is a billion to one chance; I’d say that it’s simply impossible. So it’s a miracle.
For example:
In 1999 I was reading a book about synchronicity.
I was living in a shabby little room in a big shabby house in Stoke Newington, London. For those of you that don’t know London, that’s very close to where the recent riots all kicked off.
The room I was in had one thing going for it – it overlooked a small park (I think it was called Stoke Newington Green).
And one morning, as I was making myself breakfast, I was thinking about the head-on car crash I’d had when I was 18 yrs old, when I’d only seconds earlier put on my seat belt (in itself, a kind of synchronicity). I never used to wear my seat belt, but that day, and I don’t know why, I did. It might have saved my life. It certainly prevented any injury, and the other guy wasn’t so lucky…
Anyway, I’m standing there making my breakfast and remembering that car crash, when suddenly I hear an almighty KRUNSCH. I look out the window, and across the other side of the park, two cars have just collided. This blew my mind. But it’s not the punchline.
The very next day, standing there making myself breakfast again, thinking about the previous days synchronicity… KRUNSCH. I look out the window, and in exactly the same spot, two cars have collided.
Impossible.
When I was working as an actor I had no work. I was a terrible actor. So one day I had to go out and get myself a job, and after walking around London literally all day without success, I told myself: “One more”.
I walked into one more bar and asked if they needed a barman. The girl behind the bar (full of piercings and tats, with a shaved head, and a ton of attitude) said ‘no’, at the same time as a guy appeared from the stockroom. As I turned to leave, thoroughly dejected, he called out:
“Wait a minute, we might be looking for someone”.
So I sat down for a coffee with him and had an interview.
While we were talking I noticed a photo of two naked men walking down the beach away from camera, hand in hand. Then I noticed that my interviewer had a handlebar moustache and a leather waistcoat. Then I noticed the girl behind the bar again, and all the other very obvious signs that I was in a gay bar.
The owner – the guy interviewing me – was called Robin. He owned the place with two other guys, Gordon (his boyfriend) and Guy (his best friend).
On the wall, above the photo, was a metal sign:
The Back Bar.
As I clocked the photo on the wall, Robin asked me:
“Is it a problem for you, working in a gay bar?”
I thought about it for a moment. I couldn’t find any reason why it should be a problem.
“No”, I said.
And so I worked there for a year. It was a great year. I loved almost every minute of it. And a tip for any single young straight men out there: working in a gay bar is a great way to meet girls. Trust me.
A few years later, and a few weeks after the double car crash synchronicity, I was in a rehearsal studio with my band (I was the drummer). As we left the studio, we were all talking about what a terrible drummer I was. I was worse at drumming than I was at acting. I’d been thinking for a while about drum lessons, and just as I was thinking about it again, we walked past the door of one of the other studios… and heard the most amazing drum solo. There was someone in there playing the drums like I’d never heard the drums played before. We all stopped. I had to go in there. It couldn’t be a co-incidence.
So I went in there. I slowly opened the door and saw this young guy playing the kit as if it was a part of him. He was amazing. But the most amazing part of it all, and the reason I stood there with my mouth wide open for a while even after he stopped playing – on the wall, above his head, was a metal sign:
The Back Bar.
Impossible.
When I moved to Slovenia, my (now) wife and I talked a lot about getting a dog. We had both always had dogs around us, but right then we were a little afraid of the doggy responsibility. Now we have a dog, two cats, and a baby, and I’m still afraid of responsibility …
So we were thinking of getting a dog for 2 years, and it went like this:
“Let’s get a dog?”
“Yay!”
“Hang on, what about the responsibility…”
“You’re right, forget it.”
One day we were out walking in the hills and the same conversation came up. And this time my wife said:
“Let’s ask the universe what we should do”.
I’d never heard of this ‘ask the universe’ concept (sounded a little too ‘New Age’ for me to be honest), but we did it. We put this question out there to the universe, and simply waited for the answer.
We didn’t have to wait long…
After the walk, we were heading into town. We got into the car, and my wife was fiddling with the radio. Our usual radio station wasn’t available, and she was trying to find another channel.
Suddenly (on Slovene radio) an English voice said:
“And now, from 1966, ‘I Love My Dog’ by Cat Stevens”.
It’s a cool song (“all the pay I need comes shining through his eyes”).
“That’s it, that’s the sign, we’re getting a dog!”
In town we saw a poster. A woman’s dog had had puppies. When we got there, only one puppy was left. His name:
Ben.
Impossible.
We renamed that puppy Jai.
Jai on dry land
I could go on and on giving examples of synchronicities, or miracles, that have happened to me. On and on and on. Because the more open you are to them, the more you see them. They happen all the time. Life is a long succession of miracles. You are a miracle.
So here’s what to do: be open to miracles. Keep an eye out for synchronicities. Because when things like this happen, you stop feeling like a helpless little ant, and you realize that you are part of a much bigger picture. You stop and say ‘wow’.
Just WOW.
That’s impossible.


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Why we are all nothing more than ants (and no less than Gods)

I don’t know how old I was exactly (somewhere between 8 and 11) when my Father took me for a walk one evening. The magic of being up late in the balmy summer twilight, and that oh-so-precious time with my Dad meant that something special had to happen.
And it did.
As we walked along the street we chatted, and it was just another day. Just another moment sliding by.
Then we stopped and my Father looked up at the sky, my hand in his. I looked up too and he began to tell me, with a ‘time is not sliding by now’ tone of voice, just how big the universe is.
He explained how many planets there are in our Solar system, and how many Galaxies there are, and the distance from here to the moon, and so on. I don’t remember the details, but I do remember that as he outlined the vastness of the universe, I began to realize just how tiny and insignificant I am. By the time he finished, I felt like an ant.
But I also felt like God…

Time had stopped sliding. In fact, it had just stopped. It had expanded in every direction, and stopped. It was infinite. The Universe (space) and that moment (time) had become one. Time and space stretched away from me in every direction, and I just stood there, feeling like God.
I can’t describe that moment any better. It was a revelation. That’s all. It might have been the best thing my Father ever did for me.
*** 

20 years later I was an addict. Yeah, some of you don’t know this, but I spent 2 years of my life in a room in Swiss Cottage, London, eating nothing but baked beans and take-away Balti.   
Those 2 years almost killed me…
I’m not kidding. I’m not exaggerating. I nearly destroyed myself there. I did lose friends, money, time, and health. But I’m still here. I didn’t lose my life.
You’re probably wondering what I was addicted to…
It’s embarrassing. If you’re a recovering heroin addict, or a recovering alcoholic, or a recovering pretty-much-anything-else-you-can-think-of, at least there’s a certain enigma to it.
I’m a recovering video game addict. Not so ‘cool’ huh?
Oh well, at least I’m alive.
Anyway, I lived on beans and balti for a while, and spent 20 hours a day trying to save the world from Nazi aggression.
The game I played was a WW2 strategy game called Sudden Strike 2. An amazing game, very complex, requiring a lot of skill and team-play. I got so good at it that the team of players I got together won the European championships… which were really the world championships, because they were the only championships that existed. So players from all over the world took part.
When I first started playing, I met a German guy called Warhead (he wasn’t really called Warhead, that was just his nickname). He destroyed me in a 1v1 game, and taught me a good lesson. He also told me that all the German players were the best, but really arrogant, and how he’d like to get a great team together to beat the arrogant Germans at the championships the next year. I told him to teach me all he knew, and that together we’d do it.
And that’s what happened. We won the next year. But it almost cost me my life.
I’ve got lots more to write about this: about addiction, and healing, and how being an addict is like living inside a prison inside yourself, and how healing is just all about breaking free of that prison.
I want to say that every one of you reading this is an addict too, but most of you don’t even know it. The ones you hear about – like me, yes – who are addict addicts, are just the ones who are most sensitive and open. They don’t know how to adapt to a world that seems too big for them, and they don’t know how to handle the pain of it all, and they need something to ease that pain; to make them feel safe. So they become addicted, in a way that is very obvious and painful to those around them.
When I was 24 I had a beautiful girlfriend called Adele. She was a dancer. She found me one evening in the Back Bar – a gay bar I was working in by mistake (long story for another time) – and insisted that we go home together. It was a beautiful, bitter-sweet relationship that taught me a lot.
Adele’s Father was an alcoholic. He was really seriously in trouble when I met him. He kept trying to kill himself. Once I spent Christmas with Adele and her family and her Dad threw himself off a bridge. (Into a river. In Scotland. In December). He simply couldn’t handle any more moments sliding by. He survived, and we spent a lot of time that Christmas in the hospital. I talked to him a lot. He was a sweet, funny guy, who just didn’t understand the hypocrisy and corruption and deceit of this world. He didn’t know how to play the game of life, so he gave up and played the game of alcoholism instead.
It was a very sad Christmas.
The biggest lesson I learnt from meeting Adele’s Dad was: you can’t make people change. And it’s one of the greatest lessons I’ve ever learnt.
Sometimes people contact me to ask if I can help their loved ones. And I often have to say:
“No”.
I don’t help people who aren’t ready to help themselves. It’s a waste of my time and theirs. You can’t make people change.
It’s a bit of a cliché, but very true about addiction: you usually have to hit rock bottom before you’re ready to start climbing back up.
When I became an addict, it was because I’d completely forgotten about the part of me that wasn’t ant. I felt I was 100% ant. Feeling so small and insignificant; powerless to change anything about each moment that simply slides on by, regardless. Lost in time and space, with no purpose other than pain.
Now, after healing all the hurt that caused me to forget my God-ness, my Beingness, I am whole again. Now I feel half-ant, half-god again. And it’s so good to be alive. It’s good to be a vital part of a vast universe, and to know that the sheer magic and wonder of life is the means and end of itself.
It’s Good.


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The reason why most alternative healing doesn’t work: Secondary Gain


 Secondary Gain is a medical term. If you ask a doctor what it means, they’ll know. If you ask a Reiki practitioner, they probably won’t. That’s because it’s a concept that the world of alternative healing has generally not woken up to yet. I believe it’s also one of the main reasons why: most alternative healing doesn’t work; and most personal development methods are inefficient. *
What is secondary gain exactly?
Secondary gain** may be defined as ‘a hidden benefit that is derived from the problem’.
The best example I can give is the one Simon Rose (founder of Reference Point Therapy) gave me when he taught me RPT. It is a true story.
There was an old lady who had cancer. Despite the fact that she had expert care her condition did not improve – against all expectation. When asked the simple (and seemingly ridiculous) question:
“What would you lose if the cancer was healed” she finally replied:
“I would be lonely again”.
Before the diagnosis of cancer, she had been very lonely. When they found out that she was ill, her grandchildren began to visit her daily. Faced with the simple choice between cancer and loneliness, she (subconsciously) chose cancer.



The hidden benefit to her problem – the secondary gain – was quite simply that the quality of her life was improved by her cancer. She was no longer lonely.
Other examples include:
“If my bad back was fixed, I’d have to go to work”…
and:
“If my headaches stopped, I’d have to start having sex with my husband again” (another real-life example!)
Why is this an important issue?
Let’s face it – we all have problems from time to time. Whether physical, emotional, or psychological, challenges are (a big) part of life.
It is many people’s experience that the initial hope and euphoria – so often experienced immediately after a healing session (or therapy, or personal development) – fades, and the symptoms return.
The most common reason for this is secondary gain.
You may well find the root cause of your problem. You may well effectively heal it. But if the secondary gain is not released you will probably not see any long term change in the symptoms – because subconsciously you are choosing to hold onto them.
Honestly, I have lost count of the number of clients (and even personal problems) whose healing has ultimately come down to secondary gain. Very often you need only heal the secondary gain of a problem in order to watch it just fall away – secondary gain is all that’s holding it in place.
I’ll leave you with another example. I’m working with a client at the moment who has advanced liver cancer. She’s 31 years old, has a 3 year old child, and the doctors have told her that there’s nothing they can do. Personally, I believe that there is almost always something we can do; if we know the cause of something, we can undo it.
When I began to explore the concept of secondary gain with her, she knew exactly what I meant: she had a list of things that were benefits of the cancer:
She makes friends more easily now that she’s sick; has a great excuse as to why her career is at a standstill; and she gets her husband’s undivided attention without having to ask for it.
In this case I worked on the trauma of these secondary gains: making friends (she’s an introvert), having a career at standstill (she wants to work), and being assertive / getting attention when needed (she had an issue with looking like an ‘attention seeker’ when expressing her needs and desires).
Of course, I’ve done much more than just work on secondary gain with her, but already there have been some dramatic changes. An chronic shoulder pain (interestingly, directly behind the breast that was the original source of the cancer) has disappeared; and an old breathing difficulty has cleared up.
Edit: since originally writing this, she had a blood test. Whereas before her blood was always weak, the doctors told her now that it is ‘perfect’. (This is after some very strong chemotherapy, which would normally weaken the blood further).
I’m confident that this is going to be another case of ‘miraculous’ healing. I’ll let you know.
However, the point of this article is this: every cloud has a silver lining. Even our greatest fears and worst nightmares can bring us some kind of benefit, especially when they are old problems that we become accustomed to.
Sometimes, we choose subconsciously to hold on to the benefit, even though consciously we don’t want to.
Do you have an old problem – physical or emotional – that you can’t seem to solve? Can you think of any benefit to it? If you solved the problem, what would you loose? Please feel free to leave a comment (even anonymously) and I’ll see if I can help.
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* – I realize this is a controversial, and somewhat incontrovertible point: however, I believe that most alternative healing modalities and practitioners are less effective than a placebo! A great deal of scientific research has shown that placebos are around 30-40% effective! I think that if we’re really honest about our experiences with alternative healing we can say that very few healers or therapists are able to guarantee successful results (by which I simply mean permanent healing) in over 40% of their clients.

** – For the purpose of simplicity I am rolling Primary gain, Secondary gain and Tertiary gain into one.