Because they are so intimately connected with our basic desires for love and security, relationships quickly bring up our innermost feelings and for that reason they are extremely valuable, no matter whether the relationship is classified as good or bad.
It is necessary to remind ourselves that feelings are programs; that is, they are learned reactions that have a purpose and that purpose is directly related to achieving some end in the form of some effect on another person’s feelings and, by doing so, to manipulate their behavior toward us and fulfill our own inner goals.
Let us look at the common emotional reactions and examine what their real purpose is. None of these to be described have anything to do with love, for love is a state of oneness with another. It is not an emotion that comes and goes. What passes for love in popular understanding is merely attachment, dependency and possessiveness.
As we shall see, all emotions toward others involve the basic belief that we are incomplete within ourselves and, therefore, others are exploited and viewed as means to an end. Although we may not be able to actually use the other person in the way we would like to, the utilization of the other person still occurs on the level of fantasy and expectation. We also discover that much of what we experience in a relationship is happening in our imagination only.
FACILITATE SATISFACTION
The way to facilitate satisfaction in relationships is to picture lovingly the best possible outcome. Make sure it is mutually beneficial – a win-win situation. Release all negative feelings and merely hold the picture in mind. You can tell if you are really released if it is okay with you if it happens and it is really okay with you if it doesn’t.
Therefore, to be released does not mean to be passive but active in a positive way. When we are released there is no longer the pressure of time. Frustration comes from wanting a thing now instead of letting it happen naturally in its own time. Patience is an automatic side effect of releasing and we know how easy it is to get along with patient people. Also notice that patient people usually get what they want in the end.
The mind has the idea that the way to get a thing is to want it. Actually, if you examine the issue you will see that events are due to decisions and choices based on our intentions. What we get is the result of these choices, even though they are unconscious, rather that what we think we want. When we release the pressure of wantingness, we are clear to make wiser choices and decisions.
We think that our happiness depends on controlling events and that it is facts that upset us. Actually, it is our feelings and thoughts about these facts that are really the cause of the upset. Facts in and of themselves are neutral things. The power we give them is due to our attitude of acceptance or non-acceptance and our overall feeling state. If we get stuck in a feeling, it is because we still secretly believe that it will accomplish something for us.
Releasing will eliminate the obstacles that are in your way, allowing relating to come to you naturally.
IMPROVING SEXUAL RELATIONS
Because of the wide availability of sexual material and opportunities for varied sexual experience, most people nowadays consider themselves rather sexually liberated. This liberation is primarily intellectual and behavioral and there still exists a great deal of emotional and experiential limitation, as well as sensory restriction. All experience takes place within consciousness itself so that sexual experience, like any other, is determined by one’s overall level of awareness and inner freedom.
The degree to which one’s sexual experience has been restricted becomes apparent the more one releases on feelings. When one is totally released on sexuality it is like adding a third dimension to what was before a two dimensional experience. As one woman put it, “It’s like I used to just hear violins, then a cello was added, and then a flute, and so on, so that now the experience is totally full and comprehensive.”
Besides the greater emotional pleasure of freedom of expression, there is a change in the sensory experience itself. To most people, men especially, sexual excitation and orgasmic pleasure are primarily a genital sensation. As one gets freer, the locale of the orgasm begins to expand and spread to the whole pelvis and abdomen, the legs and arms, the whole body.
There is often after this accomplishment a plateau that follows and then suddenly and unexpectedly the orgasmic location expands beyond the body as though the space around the body was having the orgasm instead of the person. Ultimately, there is no limitation of the orgasm. It seems to expand into infinity and be experienced from no particular center or locale. It is as if there is no individual person present. The orgasm is experiencing itself.
This expansion is facilitated by becoming aware that the facial grimacing and breathholding are restrictions due to fear of loss of control and attempts to limit the experience. If one uses the Release Technique, we show you how to rid yourself of the fear, and your experience will be greatly enhanced.
HIGHER INTIMACY, MORE PLEASURE
The freer one gets the more one is motivated by lovingness rather than by desire for gratification. This change of motivation from wanting this in hunger to the sharing of pleasure and happiness brings about major changes in the nature of sexual relationships. The intimacy with another is more encompassing and pleasurable.
There is greater attunement to the other person’s sexuality and intuitive fulfillment of each other’s styles of satisfaction. One couple expressed it as follows: “It is as though we just witness what our bodies are doing. It is as though we are the space in which it is all happening. As soon as one of us has a desire or fantasy, the other automatically and without even thinking moves in to the acting out of that fantasy.
It is as though we are psychically connected. We got that way by releasing on our inner feelings about our fantasies and how we thought the other might react. There is greater variation and frequency, also. It used to be mainly Friday and Saturday nights. Now we may make love for days at a time and go for weeks without it. It is always new. It is never the same. Amazingly, it just keeps getting better and better. Each orgasm is better than the last and yet often we are so satisfied with the love making that we don’t even bother to have an orgasm. If it happens it’s okay and it’s okay if it doesn’t. I guess that’s what being free really means.”
SEXUAL FREEDOM
At a relationship workshop of graduates, another man said:
“I never really realized before how much sex ran my relationships. It was really compulsive. I was always afraid I would miss out on a sexual opportunity if sex with a partner wasn’t available. It was the same way with masturbation. I didn’t want to miss out on the opportunity for pleasure. Now my pattern is more variable; in fact, now I have no pattern. When it happens, it happens and it’s great when it does. When it doesn’t I don’t even think about it. I used to have sex on my mind all the time. Girls would usually say no. But now that I really don’t care that much about it, they all either suggest it or say yes if I ask.
“I find now I am concerned about them instead of me. I see that before I was really just using them for my own selfish ends and intuitively I knew it. Now I feel a lot of love for women. I really care about their welfare and happiness even if it’s only a one night stand. What a relief not to have to lie anymore.”
FROM LACK TO OPENNESS
From the above example, it is clear that there is a change in consciousness from lack to abundance. A self-centered person is angry and frustrated and feels deprived. The more loving they become the more they receive what they are giving and find that we are all surrounded by love and opportunities for loving involvements.
One woman said, “I was always overweight and not good looking. All through my life I envied and hated sexually attractive women. I got to hate men, too, because they avoided me. I was full of self-pity. I even tried psychotherapy but I quit when it became apparent he was more interested in his attractive young women patients that he was in me. I did eat and at least got over my self-pity and depressions and got a better job but men still weren’t interested in me.
“Then I heard about the Releasing Technique and I went and took the basic course. Within a week I had a date. I was so excited I even lost my appetite. We had a great time and then all of a sudden I saw the secret. I was giving love instead of looking for it. My whole life has changed now. When I enter a room I see all the lonely love starved men. They just look the way I used to so I really know what it is they are feeling and what to say to them and how to express myself. I put myself in their place and I watch them and I watch their hearts melt.
“I used to scare them away I was so hungry. Got that? Hungry! Yeah, that was my problem. Now I feel full and I share that fullness and share what I have learned. I know so many men I haven’t time to eat anymore. I have lost 35 pounds in a year. I never even dieted. I just lost interest. I guess it is because I am getting gratified in a way now that really means something to me. Maybe I am a little wild yet with the newness of it but I’ll settle down before long. There is one guy I’m really interested in now.”
ALL YOUR NEEDS FULFILLED
Later, the same woman said, “I see why you can’t cure poverty with money. It’s a state of consciousness. I see why the poor get poorer and the rich get richer. It’s what you are holding. It’s the direction you are going. I surely am glad I changed direction. I could have ended up bitter and alone and died prematurely. Now I even have a new car. One of my boyfriends sold used cars and I got a real deal. Before I would have been suspicious and figured it was a crooked deal or something like that. Now I am more open and trusting.”
Sexuality, then, reflects our overall state of consciousness. As we let go of fear and limitations, that area of our life expands and becomes ever more gratifying and yet not necessary. Freedom and creativity replace compulsiveness and limitation. Sex becomes another avenue for greater expression and increasing awareness. The pleasure of communication and non-verbal understanding replaces the former self-centered drivenness for relief from tension and the limited goal of sexual pleasure and ego inflation. The secret, as the woman above stated, is in the awareness that when we seek to give instead of to get, all our own needs are automatically fulfilled.