Transformation Archives - Dr Graham Stevenson

February 8, 2018 By Graham Stevenson

PLEASURE AVERSION

It is a sad fact that we are hard-wired for pain. Our old brain is constantly looking out for danger. Survival is its primary concern. It is a risk to enjoy pleasure because we have to relax … let go … and be vulnerable.

You deserve it

We meet pain from birth onwards and learn how to deal with it. It is the first confirmation we get that we are alive. By contrast pleasure is strange and we are not sure if we can survive its intensity and so we often resist and play safe.

All this freely available pain has a subtle message – somehow or other you must deserve it. In the simple logic of the dualistic mind pain is conflated with being bad, possibly evil and destined for eternal pain, or hell. We end up hating ourselves for deserving it and not knowing why. We can’t accept pleasure because we don’t deserve it and to do so would be wrong, only confirming what we already knew – perfect catch 22.

Crowd control

This is probably why so many religions major on pain. Salvation through the cross, self denial and making up what is lacking in the suffering of the saviour … as if there was a lack. The cycle of reincarnation and suffering that purifies the person on the way to a higher state of consciousness. Very few religions major on pleasure or seem to endorse it as the true purpose of the body and its nervous system. No wonder the clitoris was such an enigma to the Victorians … a God-given organ … with no other purpose than pleasure, and that in multiple, seemingly endless, orgasmic spadesful.

Another deterrent to pleasure is the pain when the pleasure ends. In another twist of logic it becomes safer to not participate in pleasure to avoid being tortured by the memory of it. What you haven’t tasted you can’t miss and so ignorance becomes bliss.

The truth is that everybody understands pain. Suffering is the universal human condition in which we see another’s pain and feel a oneness with them, known as empathy. Pleasure is almost an affront. People who enjoy themselves openly display a separateness that only minorities such as the rich, famous and elites willingly foster.

A just reward

So, if we deserve pain, then we have to earn the right to pleasure. It comes in packages like heaven, nirvana and paradise… all at a very high price. Of course, if you control the market on pleasure you can exercise amazing power over people. How so? Because deep down we know it is all a lie and we know this because we have hope. This hope yearns for better things, a better life and a better world. We believe in justice, which is the ultimate balancing of pain and pleasure – the true and right perspective on life.

Having had authority endorse our unworthiness for pleasure we often need authority to allow us to enjoy ourselves. True authority would say be free, go ahead and enjoy life until you are replete … even if you vomit along the way. False authority says no, it is sinful, unholy, unlawful and can only be metered out in proscribed behaviours on set days in certain circumstances … ALL of which are controlled by US, the God-ordained authority! Of course, some authorities are self-appointed and thus they keep the divine authentification in-house.

Heaven on earth

Thankfully, these days pleasure is being seen for what it really is … the human raison d’être. It is vital for life and the source of both physical and psychological health. Justice is the glue that holds communities together and makes a better world. Heaven on earth is what a God of love would surely want … so go out and enjoy yourself. Maybe, with just one caveat … ‘do unto others what you would like them to do unto you’, consensually, of course.

June 8, 2017 By Graham Stevenson

THE SECRET TO A FULFILLED LIFE

Living in tune with your values is the key to a sense of personal fulfilment. Your values drive your desire for a meaningful life and they are an essential component of your sense of security.

What are Values?

Values are the qualities that we choose to express like kindness and being fun-loving. They may be the image of God that we reflect onto the world in being open-hearted and compassionate. They can be the ideals we aspire to live by and the character we desire to become such as trustworthy and courageous. They define how we behave when we prioritise our family or gaining wealth. Deep within each of us are unconscious drivers that predict our decisions – our personal values. Think of times when you were happiest and most proud of yourself. Try and identify the value you were connecting with at that time. Choose the top five values that shape your decisions. Simply reminding yourself of these will help you have a less compromised and more meaningful life.

Values Motivate us.

A recent study on helping people to exercise more compared two groups. Each was told the importance and the benefits of exercise. For a period of time they were all sent a text reminding them to increase exercise in their daily routine, such as walking around and up and down the stairs. One group had an extra separate text reminding them of their values. At the end of the study this group was found to have been twenty percent more active than the control group.

Values Keep You Safe

Considering the power of values to motivate and direct our decisions it isn’t surprising then that they keep us safe. It is difficult to trust a person whose values you don’t know and whose behaviour you can’t predict. What better way of being sure of your teenage children than by knowing the values that guide their lives? That’s why 71% of parents want the teaching of values priotritised at school.

The conflict between our core values and our behaviour is experienced as conscience. Our need to silence the accusing voice in our heads and have a clear conscience is what helps us find the way back to be reconciled to our values and have peace of mind.

The best way to teach children is to be a living example to them and affirm the values you see them beginning to express. Children are rightly sensitive to what is not true. They are busy choosing, in myriad ways, how they are going to live their own lives. In the end everyone despises a hypocrite.

‘Practice what you preach before you try to teach it to someone else.’

Anon

The Value of Life

I believe that each person has a set of values to express in their own unique way. When they do this they unknowingly help to raise others’ aspirations, challenging those around them to step up themselves. However, too often we avoid doing so by idolising others, taking on their values, imitating their lifestyles and denying our own uniqueness.

‘God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.’
William Shakespeare

If we follow the call we all have upon our lives to be true to ourselves it will lead us into the power to actually live. Living authentically enables us to genuinely enjoy life. It is a move from the externals of imitation and material things to the inner constancy of our own being. People will take note that ‘you’re comfy in your own skin.’ It is not just a man that’s ‘gotta do what a man’s gotta do,’ we all have to. If you would like help in this area then call me on 07933 709169 or email me here.

May 22, 2017 By Graham Stevenson

MORALS – DO THEY EXIST?

No, because morals are the snapshot of our defended egos on the vast landscape of who we really are.

I’ll use the example of water.

I like my tea hot and my tap water cold … but does cold exist? Isn’t water either hot, cold or anywhere in-between? Well that is how we decribe it all the time. And we can even measure it scientifically by taking the temperature. In a roadside coffee stop in the states, the man infront of me ordered his coffee with “Can I get a regular latte, extra expresso, with soy … at 122 degrees?”

I don’t know if I was more astonished by the order or the fact that the waitress didn’t miss a beat, as if it was normal. I suddenly panicked thinking that she was going to expect that much information with my order, “I’ll have a white coffee … please.”

Are the polarities real?

When does hot get hot and start to move towards warm and then cold? The truth is that these are all relative terms that are defined by individuals. So I position myself on the temperature scale and think, oh it’s going to be hot today. Someone from the tropics would say, this isn’t hot, and another from the polar regions might call it boiling and unbearable.

The Continuum.

Even from a scientific point of view temperature is actually molecular activity. It is on a continuum from absolute zero to the unimaginable activity of stars – red giants are said to have a core temperature of a billion degrees.

Moral Relativity.

Could it be similar? Good and bad is all relative, depending on where you stand. If you’re Christian, Moslem, Jewish, Hindu or animist you might think there is a clear line. However, you soon realise that it is still all defined individually when some Christians start killing others and one Moslem sect slaughters another. For many cultures it is the worst crime to premeditatively kill someone. However, it is acceptable for the whole group to kill ‘their neighbours’ in war.

So what is the continuum on which morals stand?

Just as hot and cold are relative positions on the continuum of molecular activity called heat. Similarly, good and bad are relative positions on the continuum called love. If we realise this we can start putting our opinion into context. The most important context is my opinion about myself – am I a good or bad person? The way I answer this question will greatly affect my opinion of others.

“Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy.”

Thomas Merton

The great revelation we need to come to, if we dare, is that we are not ON the continuum (an ego view); we ARE the continuum (the nature of our essence).

February 19, 2017 By Graham Stevenson

BIOCENTRISM by Robert Lanza MD with Bob Berman

The word Biocentrism has been coined by Robert Lanza, the author, to encapsulate a new perspective on the creation of the universe. It is a very readable science book for those who long to try to tie up the loose ends in the story of life, the universe and everything in between. There are only a certain number of people who want to have a big picture framework in which to set things. The danger of not doing so is to go off down a side street and think that it is the main road, and that the corner shop is the main shopping centre of the town.

Biocentrism is the story of Robert Lanza’s own quest to tie up the loose end in scientific thinking. He does this through sharing his own, quite remarkable, and the opportunities he had to work with some particularly brilliant minds.

I found the personal side of the story helped to water down what could have been a very heavy read. It certainly took some concentration to keep up with some of the scientific theories. The description of the experiments also helped to make clear what the whole book was building up to – a new view of how everything came into being that consciousness is the precursor of matter, and therefore that all matter is the expression of what consciousness could conceive.

By turning conventional thinking on its head he makes simple sense out of the unanswered riddles of science … of course all the parameters for life on this planet, which are statistically inexplicable are thus considering it was living consciousness that conceived them. This is based on the logic of if a tree falls in the forest and no-one is there to hear it …it does not make a sound.

I enjoyed the book for opening up the inexplicable experiments of science and for presenting an idea that could finally reconcile science and religion, in the form of consciousness. It seems that so many who have rejected the religion of their parents still talk about Life, Nature, the Universe, etc as an external consciousness. The irony for me is that it may be taking all of humanity, with all our diverse beliefs, coming together like a giant jigsaw to bring this consciousness into better focus. It also requires all sentient beings to be respected as having contributed their part in the formation of this planet as it currently is and that sustainable stability requires the acknowledgement of their right to exist.

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October 11, 2016 By Graham Stevenson

Reclaiming Goddess Sexuality by Linda Savage

Reclaiming Goddess Sexuality is a book that challenges the norm on the Divine as well as sexuality. Linda Savage promotes a new way of looking at sexuality to include a spiritual and more broadly sensual dimension ie women’s contribution to sexuality.

She looks back into the past when female sexuality was revered with the vagina (yoni) as the portal into life on earth for humans. Women were more elevated in society due to this and were respected as having a unique connection to the Life Force in the Universe. They were equal and complimentary players in the spirituality of early societies. She uses fiction to compare the life of a girl in one of these early societies in Crete, to that of a typical girl of today in the west. Although I can see what she was trying to put across and completely empathise with her view of a new society, I found the stories too simplistic.

However I did like the division of life into the three blood ceremonies of First Blood, Birth and Menopause that correspond with the Maiden, Mother and Crone phase of a woman’s life. I was challenged by the idea of life culminating in a healing role to all those who have yet to tread the road thus far. Could eldership possibly include dispensing a lifetime’s wisdom and sexual healing and instruction to those trying to find their way?

I found that her exercises and explanations for women wanting to reclaim lost desire in patriarchal defined relationships to be very useful. At the outset I doubted that she could dedicate a whole book to the topic but was delighted to find that she held my attention. She explains in detail the road back for a woman to discover her sexuality and fully enjoy her capacity for pleasure. She convincingly presents the idea of mankind finding healing through women fulfilling their potential for pleasure, which would necessitate them being more accepted and assertive. The healing of mankind would also effect a healing of the planet.

I think that this book makes a major contribution to the underlying need for women to give themselves permission to discover themselves and their sexual potential and from that point of view is a worthwhile read.

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