Create Hell or Heaven With Your Beliefs About Sexuality

Last shout-out for Our Wonderful Sexuality teleclass. It starts tomorrow, Weds at 9 am Pacific time. If you’ve taken this class before, it’s been revised and updated after teaching it six times.

(People repeating can take it again for half the fee–this is always the policy with any classes I teach, you can repeat them as often as you want or need to).

So I have a confession to make. True honesty has always, in the end, been the best policy.

It’s related to this topic of sexuality and sexual expression.

What I’m about to tell you obliterated the Me that wanted to have a strong or perfect, untainted persona when it came to being a devoted partner….

….and allowed me to be a regular mediocre human.

My icky thing I have to tell about has to with betrayal.

I’ll be blunt.

Once when I was in a committed partnership, I made out with another person, who was NOT my partner. I was also sometimes attracted to others. It would come along unexpectedly, and there it would be….attraction. This started when I was oh, about eighteen.

But when I actually acted out on it that time, I was sick with guilt, confusion, sadness….and very strangely, I was also suddenly on THAT side of the fence.

The side where I was the sneaky, twisted up “bad” person instead of the innocent one.

Wait. I’m the betrayer.

Oh, now I get it.

I’ve known amazing clients who had experiences of being in relationship in marriage, who found themselves moving towards someone else instead.

Their marriages as they knew them fell to smithereens. One was reborn again in a new, powerful way. The other was completely over.

Before my own personal experience, which seemed so unconscious and fogged out like being on a drug, I had the belief that people should and could control themselves when it came to having sexual contact with others outside of their primary relationship.

Those people who have affairs, or even just kiss someone else, are disgusting, lying cheaters. Some people get all upset about flirting, without any touch at all.

The rules are, you don’t lust after others, you aren’t interested in others, you keep your hands to yourself, you work it out with your partner first before you ditch your agreements.

I notice the rules get broken. Constantly.

But the worst part about loyalty, betrayal, commitment, expectations….is the self-hate when either you OR your partner break these rules.

I say ditch the rules and start from scratch, and see what feels truly most deep, right, honorable and kind when it comes to attraction, connection and actual contact.

Whether you are the perpetrator, or someone else was, you might feel the same sting of pain. It comes from one, deep and very painful underlying belief. You’re supposed to follow some set of ideal “rules” and if you don’t….

….you’re a horrible person (or they are).

Yes, this happens even if you are not the one who has had an affair or been sexual with anyone else, but your partner has. You may assume somewhere inside that you’ve been horrible, or they wouldn’t have done it.

So let’s take a look. It’s a freaky stressful belief. It’s very repetitive, and it causes a lot of pain for people.

I’ve heard Byron Katie facilitate people through The Work on affairs and break-ups many times.

So…..you are a horrible person.

Is that true?

Yes. I can hardly believe it went the way it did. There was hardly any pleasure in any of it. It caused pain to a dearly beloved. Dang it.

Can you be sure? Are you positive you were horrible?

Sigh. No.

How do you react when you believe you did it wrong, you made a mistake, you hurt other people, you were stupid?

Crushed. Irresponsible. A victim of feelings gone wild (either mine or my partners). Suspicious of all crazed attraction feelings. They are not to be trusted. Ever! People get hurt!

G*&%$#@ attraction feelings!!

Who would you be without the belief that you are horrible because of what has ensued?

“If my husband were cheating on me and I found out about it and if I experience heartache and pain and suffering, anger and sadness, any of it….I am creating that within me. Because I’m believing my thoughts about him. It’s as though it’s assumed that he doesn’t have a right to his own life….What are we believing? What are we believing, that is costing us our freedom, our birthright, which is happiness? And basically the awareness of our own true nature, which is love?~ Byron Katie

Without the belief that anyone is horrible, including you, you may simply move in another direction without rage or revenge.

You’d notice what works for you and what doesn’t. It’s easier.

Not so complicated and full of horror stories. Yes, that is OK with me. No, that’s a no. No big moral judgment on the whole thing like you are condemned or they are evil.

Turning the thought around: you’re a wonderful person.

How could this be true, even as you look and remember and watch what you did that you felt confused and terrible about?

If that’s a bit too much to think of yourself (or the person who did the terrible thing) as wonderful, just start finding examples of how you’re NOT a horrible person.

For me, I was feeling like testing a roller coaster ride (not horrible). I was feeling tired and dull and believing ideas about wanting excitement (not horrible). I was forgetting how much I adore my own company like no one else’s on the planet (not horrible). I was letting someone else’s words, behavior, actions override my inner sense of well-being (not horrible). I was imaging what freedom meant, what commitment meant, and what was expected of me that felt trapped (not horrible).

None of those assumptions made me horrible. They just made me a believer of my thoughts.

“The only reason anyone ever suffers or feels unhappy is they aren’t recognizing how still and peaceful they already are.” ~ Ross Oldenstadt

Maybe anyone who steps outside their own loving nature and hurts someone is not able, in that moment, to remember how awesome they are all by themselves.