Sometimes the things you feel ashamed

about, somebody's reminding you of it,

and you're resenting them for doing

the thing you're feeling ashamed about.

And the shame is basically an injected

value of some moral tradition that you

may have subordinated to

without ever questioning.

And then you get trapped in that,

and then you're judging other people

because you're judging yourself.

Well, today's topic is going to

be quite interesting. <Laugh>,

today's going to be about

breaking free of sexual shame.

You'd be surprised how many people walk

around with shame about being a human

being.

Primarily because of indoctrination

from some sort of a usually religious

organization,

but could be from just

parental instruction.

But usually that comes from

religious organizations.

It's biological and normal to have

desires for sexual expression, <laugh>.

In fact, if we don't have

that, we don't have a species.

So it's basically necessary for

us to procreate the species.

But we've associated all kinds

of interesting associations with

sexuality and put all kind of

moral structures around it.

As I've traveled around the world,

I've seen different moral

structures around it.

And that can make it where people

actually can build prides or

shames around a biological

system that may not require that.

I've seen people,

I had a lady that was in my seminar

many years ago who was attending

with a group of about 25

people. It was a workshop.

And she basically was ashamed about

participating in sexuality with herself.

<Laugh>, we call it masturbation,

I guess. And she was feeling

all kinds of, you know,

turmoil about the idea and was

afraid to even talk about it.

And I just asked the group, I said,

how many of you have had your hands

locate your genital somewhere along your

journey and have experienced

sexual interaction with yourself?

And all the hands went up except hers.

And she was feeling shame and

guilt about it. And I said,

did somehow you indoctrinate the idea

that somehow thou shalt not do that?

And she says, yeah, I was raised with

the idea that thou shalt not do that.

And I say, okay.

Well either all of the rest

of the group here is bad

<laugh>, and you're the one good,

but you're feeling shamed about it

because if you're feeling shamed about it,

you're assuming that you did something

that went against that, you know,

transgressed this idea. And yet everybody,

and I don't think everybody

here is feeling shame about it.

So somehow you've indoctrinated yourself

into an idealism that's not obtainable.

You know,

the Buddha said the desire for that

which is unobtainable and the desire to

avoid that which is unavoidable

is the source of human suffering.

So this individual was

sitting there suffering,

feeling guilty and shame over doing an

act that was pretty standard across the

world, at least in my experience

asking groups of people.

And I do that sometime, I just ask,

how many of you have done that?

And pretty well all the hands go

up. And so I find that you know,

most people don't have

a major issue about it,

they don't have any charge about it,

they may not necessarily

do it publicly <laugh>,

but they certainly participate in

some sort of a sexual interaction with

themselves and not feeling shamed

about it. But some people are,

and they've been indoctrinated by

somehow a moral construct that thou shalt

not do that and that's evil and wrong

and depraved and all kind of things when

it's a biological behavior.

There's a TED talk out there that

actually shows somebody

masturbating in the womb

before they're born. And it's an

interesting Ted talk. Now the question is,

is biological reflex, is it

some sort of an intention?

This is obviously a baby that's

pre-born before it's born,

but it's biological at least, and it's

either a reflex or a need <laugh>.

But when I ask people when did they

first interact sex with themselves,

and I ask groups,

it can range anywhere from 4, 3, 4, 5, 6.

I've seen it go up a

little older than that,

but usually young kids are

involved in this. And so, you know,

and they don't even know sometimes

it's right or wrong or good or bad,

there's no moral construct there,

they're just experiencing curiosity

and they sometimes they're bathing with

their brothers and sisters and

they're curious and part of life.

So my observation is that if

you sit there and slam somebody

and somehow punish somebody for

doing something that's biological,

that's probably going to have more of

a repercussion and a challenge in their

life than if you just let them know

that that's life, that's behavior.

I don't sit there and judge that. I don't,

you know, find that to be productive.

In fact I've had the opportunity to

work with individuals who have been

involved in the pedophilia industry.

And I've found it quite interesting

that many of them had a history of being

shamed and beaten for actually

masturbating when they

were young. And it's quite interesting,

there's a trauma associated

with a certain age,

and I find that many of the times

they have the actual slamming and

punishing, is,

at the age that it happened to them is

usually the targeted age that they have

in the pedophilia, which is interesting.

So I'm not promoting pedophilia in anyway,

but I'm just looking at what's

underneath it, what's going on,

why is it $158 billion business out there?

And I'm finding that there's

sometimes shame associated with

the normal behavior of

sexuality in a child,

and an adult for that matter.

And I found out that when people are

actually older and they have have sexual

interactions with themselves and they

know what is fulfilling to themselves

they're able to experience and express

that with their mate and found that

actually has advantages. To sit

there and hide it and shame.

I had a couple that came to one

of my programs in, many years ago,

and they'd been married 19 years

and I had them write down, what

are the sexual desires, fantasies,

objectives or whatever,

and write down everything they've ever

done sexually that they've associated

with sexuality, it's a

curious system. And then they,

we all had a discussion

about it and shared it.

And anything that felt taboo and

anything that felt shamed and guilty or

whatever around it, when they got to

hear everybody else's, they go, oh,

<laugh>, I'm a normal person.

Because everybody else was doing these

same things and some people were taking

notes and, oh, I'd like

to try that and do this.

So it was an educational experience,

but there was a couple there

that had been married 19 years.

Both of them had the same fantasy.

Both of them felt that they couldn't

share that with their mate because they

felt, oh, what would people think about

me if I was to tell them I do this?

And then they finally opened up right

there, and they both had the same fantasy,

both desired the same thing, were both

were experiencing that on their own,

but never wanted to do it with

each other until, of course,

that night and that very night they

experienced something that they had been

repressing for years. And there

was no shame or guilt after that.

And they realized it was

liberating for them. And the room,

when they found out everybody in

the room had participated in that,

and they were like going,

I can't believe that I bought into

some sort of indoctrination from

somebody who had an idea about what

sexuality should or shouldn't be.

And I'm not sure that that's

a healthy dynamic or not.

I know there's an education process

in New York at one time that was,

it had almost every imaginable

type of sexuality on the show,

and it interviewed people that did all

these different things about sexuality.

And my wife and I would

sometimes watch it.

And we found some of it was hilarious

and some of it was off the wall and some

of it we never thought of, but

it was an educational experience.

And I realized, and I was

trying to as a human behavior,

is trying to figure out what would drive

somebody to have that need and what

would that come from? Is that a wound?

Is that a need? Is that a psychology?

Is it a normal behavior? I was, I

was very educated by this process,

and help me work with clients,

because many people sit around

and feel shame about it.

I'll share,

I had an interesting case

recently where a gentleman

contacted me and asked for

a consult. And he says,

I really have difficulty

talking to certain people,

even my own therapist

that I've been going to,

I didn't want them to know what it was,

but I want to talk to a guy, not a girl.

And he was basically feeling really

shamed about something he had done.

And he basically, I said, what exactly

is it? If you want me to help you,

tell me what it is. He says, well,

I've actually looked at porn and

I masturbated to porn <laugh>.

And I said, well, from what I can see,

that's a pretty common thing. It's again,

there's millions and millions of

people that are involved in doing that.

So I didn't think that that

was anything outrageous.

It didn't seem way off

the mark. And I said, so,

but if you're feeling some sort of guilt

about it that means you're assuming

that, because in order to have guilt,

you have to assume that you've caused

some pain without pleasure to somebody.

I said, so who are you

feeling guilty about?

You feeling guilt relative to your wife?

You feeling guilt relative to

your parents? Guilt, I mean,

relative to what? The person you're

watching on the porn site or whatever,

where's the guilt associated with it?

And he was religious and he said, well,

the guilt is in, because God's

watching over <laugh>. And I said,

so what you're saying is that you're

feeling guilty because you feel that God's

watched you do this? He

says, yeah. And I said, well,

if God's watching you do this is

that saying that God's watching porn

<laugh>? It's kind of, and he

just looked at that, he goes,

never thought about it

that way. And I said, well,

sounds like if you are sitting there

watching this and doing this and then

somebody's watching it and you think

that this is God's watching it,

you've created in your mind some

anthropomorphic deity that's doing

the very thing that you're saying that

you're doing, which I thought was funny.

And he started to chuckle and he goes,

I never thought about it in that term.

He says, it is. I said, well,

you know, from my observation,

it's pretty standard procedure.

People have done that.

I think there's advantages

and disadvantages.

I know some people that are in

their marriage and relationship,

they have different levels of libido.

And so sometimes that libido

is low in maybe a spouse,

and they need more activity

than the spouse does.

Or maybe there's been miscommunications

and they have not communicated each

other's values and there's

been a shutdown of sexuality.

And sometimes a person isn't

looking for an outlet. Well,

they've got a number of options, they

can go to, you know, and have an affair,

they can go out and have a prostitute,

they can go out and have a, you know,

maybe somebody that masturbate,

or maybe they can put sublimate it and

put it into creativity or maybe they can

learn how to communicate more

effectively and turn on their spouse.

There's a number of ways of

expressing that sexual energy.

And sometimes masturbation is a more

efficient way because it's efficient in

time and you know what to do and it's,

and you get back to your work and go

on about your life. And so these are,

that distracts you from

having to have affairs,

which can undermine family

dynamics. And it can also be less,

you know, challenging than having

prostitution or something. So you know,

this is a process of life. I think

that it has benefits and has drawbacks.

It can be a distraction from a

marriage. It can also be enhancing.

I've seen some people that are

having sexuality working with them,

and they both are involved in their own

masturbation while with each other and

they add to the experience.

So I don't find it productive to

label it good or bad or you know,

right or wrong. I try to put the context,

see what's involved in the context,

and then try to assist people in showing

both sides of it so they can make an

informed decision on it.

But a lot of people sit around and they've

been indoctrinated by some idea that

there's some sort of a moral devaluation

or whatever and I find that that can

actually mislead people and

take a biological system.

There's a great little video online that

you can get. It says, priest says no,

hell,

and it's a Catholic I guess

scholar or Catholic priest that's

basically asking about

the control business.

And he was talking about his own religion,

he was talking about that religion

is in the control business and the

guilt producing control business.

And basically says as long

as it's promoting something

that everybody does and

makes a moral idea out of it, makes

a moral hypocrisy out of it and says,

this is good and this is bad,

it kind of has control over the people

because then they feel ashamed and then

they're going to look for

salvation or whatever.

And so it's a guilt

producing control tactic.

And many times we get trapped in that

instead of understanding the normal

behavior and biological

needs of human beings.

So I'm not going to label it good or bad.

I'm not going to make it something

you, you know, to promote or demote.

I'm just saying that it's biological

and it's there and part of life.

And I certainly am not going to,

I find that if you slam some child

for it, there's a repercussion.

I had a woman that, there

was an interesting lady.

We had a lady in Perth,

Australia with her daughter

in the Breakthrough Experience

program that I teach

where I help people break

through all this emotional stuff,

all the shame and guilt that

they're carrying around,

sometimes around sexuality.

And what was happening is the

mother did not have the libido

that the father did.

The father was masturbating to

porn and things and magazine porns

at the time. This is back before

internet, I guess. And the son,

the mother caught the son doing the same.

Well, when she saw the son doing it,

she was basically you know,

very aggressive and mean to the son and

basically punished him and literally

beat him. She just went after this kid.

And I found that that was exactly what,

when he started getting beaten by that,

the age he got beaten, when

his sister reached that age,

he ended up interacting with her.

And there was an ancestral dynamic because

of the repression of sexuality in the

family, it got expressed in the children.

And so the son started having sex

with the daughter, well his sister,

the mother's daughter, at

the age that he got beaten.

I find this pattern very commonly.

So I find it's not a wise thing to be

sitting there and punishing somebody

over a biological act that you

probably have done yourself. You know,

wise to look at yourself. And when

you're pointing your finger at somebody,

point them back. I think it was in

Romans 2-1 in the New Testament, it says,

beware of judging other people

for you do the same thing.

And it's wise to reflect.

Because sometimes the things

you feel ashamed about,

somebody's reminding you of it and

you're resenting them for doing the thing

you're feeling ashamed about.

And the shame is basically an injected

value of some moral tradition that you

may have subordinated to

without ever questioning.

And then you get trapped in that,

and then you're judging other people

because you're judging yourself.

Better to go in there and find out

how whatever you've done has served.

Because I take people who have

been caught in that and I go, okay,

what did you do? And how did it

benefit? In fact, I had a lady,

it was interesting,

there was a lady that

had been incested by a

stepfather for six years.

And I asked her, I said,

so she was in the Breakthrough Experience

Program and she brought this up.

About one out of four women in the world

have gone through this, by the way.

And so in the process of doing

that she was saying that,

and I asked her a simple question. I

said, did you scream? Did you yell?

Did you fight? Did you bite?

Did you go to the police or did

you go to your parents or whatever?

And she goes, no. I said,

so you went on and had sexual interactions

with this stepfather for six years.

And I said,

so you must have had more advantage

than disadvantage out of doing that,

or you would've done something

else. So she said, well, I said,

so what was the advantage you

got out of staying doing that?

And she finally opened up.

At first she was sort of repressed and

tried to pretend she didn't have memories

of things and all that, which I see

very commonly when you have shame,

I always say, shame and

guilt can block memory.

And so we asked her and

they found out this,

they found out that her father

left her when she was very young.

When the father left, the mother

had to go and barely get by and she had

to take on two jobs and she didn't make

but almost minimum wage. The

daughter didn't have clothes,

the daughter didn't have transportation,

the daughter had didn't have thing

and she was suicidal almost

during this period, the daughter,

because the mother barely could pay bills

and barely keep food on the table and

had no way of even taking her to school

and had no way of getting her to do

other things and so her

life was sort of miserable.

And then the stepfather came in, her

new boyfriend came in and they married.

And then all of a sudden that she had

clothes and food and transportation and

all the things she wanted. And she

didn't want a father to leave again.

And so the mothers the only control,

she was sort of disempowered

and she didn't have a lot going,

didn't have a lot of education, didn't

have a business, didn't have this.

So the mothers only control over the

guy was sex. So she would shut it down.

And then the daughter and the

stepfather, that became the outlet.

And so in the process of doing that she

didn't want to lose the father, again,

because of what was going on.

And she didn't want to see the

mother have to work so hard,

and she didn't want to be

trapped without things.

So she finally admitted that I had more

advantage keeping the family together

and doing that.

And the advantages of that in my mind

were greater than the disadvantages,

even though I would rather

not have that happen.

And I didn't like the guy

for having to do that.

And she did that until she reached an

age where she was able to be on her own

independent. And when she felt her

mother had gotten enough of an education,

because she went back to school when

she had the money from the stepfather to

get enough education to survive.

So the moment the mother could survive

and she was able to be on her own,

it was over with.

So she saw it as a strategy in order

to survive with more advantages than

disadvantage.

No one continues to do something

unless they get more advantage than

disadvantages. So she was

feeling kind of guilty,

angry and shamed until we

got it all out. And I said,

I asked her to say to this to herself,

no matter what I've done or not done,

I'm worthy of love. And I made her

say that. And she started crying.

And then she finally realized that

she did it consciously, as a strategy,

for the benefit of her family, benefit

of her mom, benefit of her own, you know,

advantages and to not lose another

father. And it was interesting,

the moment she ended up

meeting a guy who was older,

who was a new father figure

that she started dating,

she reached a certain age where she was

autonomous and her mom had finished her

schooling, it was over and she

was out, and she went on her way.

So she used it as a strategy.

So before we jump to conclusion and put

absolutes around different behaviors,

as a human behavioral specialist,

I try to find out what's going down in

the family dynamic and what's going on in

their life. Because people have,

they continue to do things if they

get more advantage than disadvantage,

even though they may say, oh,

I don't want this happening,

I find that there's an underlying

unconscious motive sometimes.

And when we find that it's opening.

Now I'm not saying that all people,

because you might have somebody

that's aggressively tied and roped,

I had a case where somebody was tied

in a basement for 11 years and beaten,

I mean, it was a sex

slavery kind of thing.

That was a totally different type of case,

but I take each case differently. So,

if you're in a situation where you're,

maybe you've had sexuality with somebody

and maybe you had a boyfriend that you

were young,

you didn't want anybody to know about

and you had sex with and you felt that

would be shamed of whatever, my

advice is to sit there, it done,

so sitting there and carrying shame and

guilt about it the rest of your life

doesn't make sense. So I

would ask, who are you,

if you're feeling shame and guilt

about it, who are you affecting,

who do you think it's

negatively affecting?

And find out how it's actually serving.

And what you do is you'll find

out there's two sides to things.

There's advantages and disadvantages

to every action. You know,

what's interesting is things that

we label terrible or you know,

evil in the world many times,

if it was really that way,

it would've gone extinct. If it

didn't somehow serve human beings,

it would've gone extinct.

And I find that very shallow,

I find it much more productive to go

and say, okay, so this has happened,

it's not necessarily my first

choice. How is it now serving me?

How is it serving other

people? And move forward.

When you're able to take things and find

out how it's a benefit to others and

yourself, and balance out the equation

and find the benefits to the drawbacks,

instead of carrying

around shame and guilt,

you are now resourceful and you use it

as a lesson and a learning process and

move forward in life. Every weekend

in the Breakthrough Experience,

I have people who feel guilty,

they resent somebody for something,

they find out where they've

done the same thing.

They then we show them how to dissolve

the resentment by finding the benefits of

it.

And we find out how to dissolve their

shame and guilt by finding the benefits to

the people they're involved with it and

how they assisted other people in the

process. And then they go around,

I've been carrying around

shame and guilt over this

for decades and it's not even necessary.

It was an incomplete awareness.

I always say when you have, you

know, emotions, extreme emotions,

you have incomplete awareness. When

you have love and appreciation,

you have complete awareness.

That's why I tell people to come

to the Breakthrough Experience,

because the Breakthrough Experience I

have a series of questions that can help

people dissolve unnecessary

shames and guilts and prides and

resentments and infatuations and things

that distract you from the outside world

that disempower them. Because anything

you infatuate with in others or yourself,

anything you resent in others or yourself

is going to occupy space and time in

your mind. It's going to run your life.

And it's going to be

intrusive and distract you,

consciously or unconsciously,

and it's going to create impulses

and instincts and associations that

are going to end up keep regurgitating

in your life and reverberating in your

life until you finally bring

them back into balance.

So that's why in the Breakthrough

Experience I ask a series of questions to

balance out your perceptions of these

so you don't carry around the prides and

shames. Because the pride

is an inauthentic self.

The shame is an inauthentic self.

The infatuation with others is inauthentic

on them because that's not who they

are. And the resentment to

people is not who they are.

So I bring those all back into balance

and get to see themselves and you and

other people as they are.

And the way they are is more magnificent

than the delusions that we put around

them.

So I find it less productive to sit

there and wallow in the shame and guilt.

I'd rather find out how it

served and find the upside to it.

Because otherwise you sit there and

carry around and you go around and self

depreciate unnecessarily over something

that may be biologically normal.

And you may have just subordinated to

some indoctrinated moral hypocrisy that

built out of somebody that

didn't understand human

behavior and you're trapped.

And I see this,

particularly in highly religious

families and people that are high moral

absolutist. I find that that's

less resourceful, more fundamental,

and less resourceful.

Anytime you label something

extremely positive without negative,

you're going to fear the loss of it.

Anytime you label something extremely

negative and evil without benefits,

you're going to feel the gain of it.

You're going to live your life in

fear with these absolute labels,

instead of seeing some sort of relativity.

Situational ethics and the study of

morality is a murky game because,

you know, some one

culture in South Africa,

the former president had nine wives

and that was honored in their culture.

And in America, if you had

nine wives, you go to prison.

So here's two different belief systems

around the world. And Montaigne,

the philosopher traveled around the world

and showed that there's no universal

belief systems out there.

So watch out for subordinating to a local

belief system that may or may not be

really universally sound.

And then it may just be some

dogma that's not really rational,

that hasn't been thought through and

you've basically subordinated to it,

instead of actually confronting

it and balancing out the equation,

and being resourceful. When you see

both sides you have more resilience,

more adaptability, less prides and

shames, less pointing of the fingers,

and more love for yourself.

And that's why I teach people the

Breakthrough Experience and want people to

come to that because it liberates people

from a whole lot of baggage that's

weighing them down and lightens them up

and liberates them to get on with their

life. And there's absolutely

no reason to do it.

I always say that there's nothing your

mortal body can experience that your

immortal soul can't love.

Your immortal soul is basically the

part of you that's timeless mind,

ageless body, that's in a

state of love and appreciation.

And we have access to that.

I have yet to see anything in

the Breakthrough Experience

that people brought me

and come to the program with that we

can't help them see both sides of and

return it to love. And I believe that

love's still one of the greatest healers.

So if you're walking around with shame

or guilt about some sort of sexual thing

just know that if you want to

do that and continue that, fine,

but don't gripe about it, bitch about it,

because there is a solution and you can

neutralize that and you can get on with

your life.

And I just wanted to share this little

presentation here just in case you may be

trapped in that, because

it's not necessary.

And you can find out the

other side of the equation.

Anytime you have a strong emotion,

you're only seeing a side.

When you see both sides

simultaneously, you get to love again.

Love is the balance of opposites.

And so you might as well

learn to love yourself.

Everybody wants to be loved for yourself

and there's no reason why you can't.

So if you're carrying around something

you're afraid to share and you're afraid

people will judge you and all

that, that's you judging you,

and you're sitting there subordinating

unnecessarily to probably a dogma that's

not necessarily sound. Human beings

are sexual creatures and they're,

you know, we're here to have

sexuality in moderation, wisely,

for procreation and for other

purposes and so, you know,

get grounded in that.

Don't get caught in some delusionary

fantasy or nightmare about it.

Don't go to one extreme or the other.

Anytime you go to an extreme one side or

the other, you probably are off track,

and it's trying to guide you.

The symptoms of your physiology and

psychology are trying to get you back to

learn to love and appreciate your

authentic self. So that's my presentation.

Please consider coming to

the Breakthrough Experience.

The Breakthrough Experience is where I've

helped thousands of people do exactly

that, liberate themselves from a lot of

baggage unnecessarily that they've been

storing because of subordinating to some

outside authority that may or may not

even be sound. So see you next time.

Thank for being with me today and

hopefully see you at the Breakthrough

Experience.