Self Awareness

* Hypnosis and Weight Loss

* Addictions and Fetishes
--by Marnia Robinson

Publisher's Note:

"Back into the Lab" has to do with initiating, within ourselves, something completely new. This keeps us young besides keeping us growing.

At least a couple of times a year I put myself into the position of the novice. I apprentice myself to some idea and usually love the experience. One thing for sure, your ego has no chance of remaining over-inflated under these circumstances, if you are truly seeking to learn.

Fresh endeavors keep us young.

And what better environment to conduct these little experiments than our own "being". What other canvass do we really have?

Like it says on the index page of Higher Self Improvement Pursuits, "In the crucible of your day to day experience, right here in the laboratory of your life...". Read on and you'll see what I mean.

Also you'll find a recap of a "Dateline" story regarding weight and hypnosis along with an article by a friend of mine who happens to be the author of the book which is instigating my latest (upcoming) experiment.

So please, enjoy.

On: The Inner Laboratory

Back into the laboratory

I was going to undertake a serious 2 to 3 week fast sometime this fall.

And I intended to report to you my process (while in progress) and the results.

But instead I've decided to stare another (perhaps bigger) beast in the face. This one will be a bit more "delicate".

When considering Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs (physiological, safety, love/belonging, self-esteem, etc.), various forms of deprivation seem to fly in the face of basic human need.

Fasting is one such undertaking which goes against everything our mammalian inheritance "needs".

However, there are needs within humanity which outstrip those of mere biology.

Reaching Higher

Humans must contend with a little thing called self-actualization. Potentialities and intuited possibilities must be entertained. If we feel we can "become" then we must "become".

As Maslow says, "Musicians must make music, artists must paint, poets must write if they are to be ultimately at peace with themselves. What humans can be, they must be." And I'll add, those who sense the possibility of conscious evolution, must evolve.

There is an innate desire to be the best we feel we can be.

It's the difference between deficit needs, which no longer motivate once they are satisfied, and growth needs, which seem to grow the more we feed them. (This could be why it is sometime considered a "curse" to discover growth needs within ourselves... unleashing the "beast" within).

The notion I'm referring to here is expertly presented by Marnia Robinson in "Peace Between the Sheets", found at http://www.reuniting.info

Kundalini-Tantra-like

I first wrote of these ideas in the section of the main site dealing with addiction. This after limited exposure to the idea. It resonated with a "truth" within me... reminiscent of the sex transmutation concept of Napoleon Hill's "Think and Grow Rich"... but on a higher, more "participatory" level.

A new way of making love while at the same time, re-routing the "urge to fertilization". Rather than being mere gene machines, we purposely "arouse" intimacy through cuddling, mutual massage, "petting", even intercourse... while the bio-chemical "energy" takes "alternate" paths through our neuro-chemistry.

When I first became acquainted with Marnia's site, I bought 2 copies of the book. One for myself and one for my partner. And though my partners copy isn't as "well read" as mine, Marnia suggested to me (we've become sorta' email pals lately) that I don't issue the type of ultimatum I'd been frustrated into making. She suggested that I not insist my partner "totally agree with these weird ideas, or else", but simply "try this experiment with me for 3 weeks"... to which I added "or else".

Again, the felt need to grow won't be denied.

There is an engaging account of a couple (related by "him") of the first few weeks of this experiment in the "testimonials" section of the site. I found it encouraging... http://www.reuniting.info/Testamonial.htm

As you can see, this is a "charged" and potentially controversial topic that I highly suggest you investigate.

There is potential for higher self actualization here, for sure.

I'm looking forward to this experience and, as I mentioned, I'll let you all know how it all goes.

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Hypnosis and Weight Loss

Maybe you saw Dateline's show, The Weight Loss Challenge?

Dateline showed several diet programs being used, and they followed the results.

They were: * Weight Watchers * Slim Fast * Atkins diet * Extreme exercise * Hypnotism * Jorge Cruise weight-loss program

The participant with the most impressive record was Marc, a pastry chef, who used hypnosis to lose 13 pounds in a single week. You can read the complete article here: http://www.msnbc.com/news/903727.asp

Dateline did a terrific job of demonstrating hypnosis and hypnotherapy to the public. By the way, I understand they also did a show on hypnosis for childbirth a while back. They showed expectant mothers using hypnosis for stress-free childbirth.

Weight Release CD Set -- 8 tracks
Participants included:

Lynne - extreme exercise and a daily 1,300-calorie diet. Her weight did not change in three months.

Mark "Gio" - used the Slim Fast diet After 1 week on Slim Fast "Gio" gained 3 pounds.

Kathy - did Weight Watchers, stayed under 20 points/day Lost 4.8 pounds in one week ("I starved all week.")

Eleanor - at 300 pounds used an 8 min. weight workout Eleanor lost three pounds in the first week.

Rick - followed the Atkins low-carb diet. Also exercise Lost 13 pounds

And of course, there was Marc - (the pastry chef), who decided to try hypnosis Lost 13 pounds in first week.

The fascinating part is that Marc, using hypnosis, did not suffer. The guy was happy. He felt good and it happened naturally.

Weight Release CD Set -- 8 tracks

Here are some of the results after 3 months...

Kathy lost 18 pounds.

Eleanor lost 24 pounds.

Lynne lost 14 pounds

Marc lost 40 pounds (And didn't suffer during that time.)

He says he's very happy with the hypnotist. He's motivated and doesn't feel like anything is holding him back. He now enjoys exercising and has developed a greater love for healthy, nutritious food. In fact, he says he wants to, rather than feeling he ought to. All he wants now is healthy food, he says.

Weight Release CD Set -- 8 tracks

Dateline presented a fair and balanced story on how the different methods stacked up. Hypnosis was demonstrated to be effective and fast. But more importantly, it was painless because it helps direct the inner mind to feel better and gravitate to natural good health.

Hope you find a useful method here for reaching your own goals. Hypnosis really is powerful stuff.

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Addictions and Fetishes

Much time and effort in the last few decades has been well spent in absolving us of guilt for various behaviors mankind once self-righteously condemned. Yet humanity’s benediction is small comfort if you’re suffering from an addiction or slave to an unwanted fetish.

Rick, for example, was an alcoholic for years. He kept his drinking in the closet. His self-imposed isolation made him a social recluse, fed a tendency toward depression (which led to further chemical dependence in the form of Prozac®), and resulted in deep self-loathing.

Suzanne lived with a sexual fetish: she never had orgasm unless she ran a torture movie in her mind. For years she wondered what was wrong with her. Eventually she learned that her pediatrician had done some minor snipping of her genitals when she was an infant. Yet, even after she understood the reason for her pain/arousal association, she couldn’t break the iron link between her “turn on” mechanism and the reward of orgasm.

Both Rick and Suzanne are free of these obsessions—without time spent on a psychiatrist’s couch. How did they do it? By learning to make love differently. Not only did this change free them of their compulsions, but there is also a growing body of scientific evidence to explain how it could.

In July-August, 2002, Clinical Neuropharmacology published an article about a man who was given high doses of dopamine to treat Parkinson's disease. Dopamine can alleviate the shaking associated with Parkinson’s. After 70 years as a run of the mill heterosexual, he suddenly found himself cross-dressing. When doctors decreased his dosage, the urge to put on his wife’s clothing evaporated. The authors hypothesized that excess, or sensitivity to dopamine may be behind both paraphilias (fetishes) and hypersexuality (sex addictions).

The Role of Dopamine in Sex and Addictions

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that occurs naturally in the brain. Its primary job is to light up a section of the primitive brain with intense pleasure when we take any action that once furthered mankind’s survival. The dopamine buzz is so powerful that in an experiment where rats could push a lever to stimulate this portion of their brains, they “blissed” themselves till they dropped, without even pausing to eat.

Evolutionary biology has found its uses for this mechanism. For example, we receive a dopamine buzz for:

*eating high calorie foods, because the best way our nomadic ancestors could store food was as fat,
*taking risks, because bold, aggressive lovers were more likely to pass on their genes, and
*having sex, even when a harsh existence didn’t leave our ancestors with much opportunity for hanky-panky, or energy/resources for raising offspring. (The drive toward orgasm is basically a big blast of dopamine in our primitive brain.)

As Burnham and Phelan, the authors of MEAN GENES, From Sex to Money to Food, Taming our Primal Instincts, point out, such activities now create more havoc than benefit. For example,

*High calorie foods are too plentiful for many of us, yet we continue to receive our biological reward for ordering extra fries. This reward for impulsive consuming, rather than saving, also causes many of us to run up nasty credit card debts.
*The reward for taking risks proves equally treacherous for some. We develop gambling addictions or obsessions for extreme sports because they offer such a buzz.
*Sexual stimulation is readily available these days, and compulsion to orgasm frequently leads to irresponsible and aggressive sexual behavior. This particular reward has achieved its biological objective so well that many cultures have already overpopulated themselves to the point of starvation.

The “dopamine for engaging in sex” reward is also the mechanism behind sexual fetishes and compulsive masturbation/sex addictions. It’s hard to kick any habit that’s readily accessible, and for which we receive such an intense buzz. The buzz, by the way, is empty, like the thrill of eating junk food. The true rewards of sexual intimacy are provided by other neurochemicals like oxytocin (more on that in a moment) and endorphins, the body’s natural opiates.

This point about empty buzzes brings us to alcohol and drug addictions. Over the course of history, mankind has learned to hijack this pleasure/reward mechanism with numerous substances that do not further our survival as a species: alcohol, cocaine, nicotine, chocolate, and heroin, to name a few. Some of these—like too much orgasm—trigger the release of so much dopamine (or block so much of its re-absorption) that they overwhelm the dopamine breakdown process. Our bodies can’t restore equilibrium.

Unfortunately, too much dopamine floating around in our synapses can lead to nerve damage (as it has in cocaine users). This may explain why our bodies eventually cope with these “pleasure excesses” by reducing the number of sites on our nerve cells to which dopamine can bind. (Unless dopamine binds, it cannot stimulate the pleasure nerve.) Recently scientists have also learned that prolactin rises dramatically after orgasm (or after several, if one is multi-orgasmic), which acts as a sexual satiation mechanism and can also promote depression. Sadly, this protective “down regulation” of dopamine receptors and rise in prolactin (after sex) feel to us like an intense “low.” All the joy literally goes out of our lives at a neurochemical level—until our receptors and prolactin levels reset themselves.

To cope with these periods of intense anxiety (and our sense that something vital is missing), we usually reach for higher and higher doses of dopamine (whether through orgasm, drugs or alcohol). So our addictions are often mutually reinforcing, and we are less and less likely to achieve any lasting sense of lasting well-being. Instead we forget what it feels like to operate with a natural sense of healthy equilibrium and end up dependent upon lithium, Prozac®, and so on.

Often we do our relationships irreparable damage while under the influence of this high/low cycle. Sure, our partner looks delicious as the dopamine pounds between our ears. But we tend to “fall out of love” just as fast when we’re feeling “off.” In short, our emotions (and attraction to our partner) tend to be governed by these powerful, fluctuating feelings—and we mistake them for our will. Many times we change partners frequently because of this syndrome—believing we’re victims of incompatibility. Actually, we’re victims of brain chemical delusions.

Regaining Control of Our Circuitry

As we said earlier, Rick and Suzanne regained control of their primitive brains by learning to make love differently. Instead of following biology’s “dopamine incentive plan” in bed, they employed an approach to sex that’s been around for thousands of years. It calls for avoiding conventional orgasm in favor of another quality of sexual ecstasy. Clues about it are found in Taoist, pre-Roman Christian (“Gnostic”), and selected Tantric texts. These sources speak of a deeply satisfying, very balanced way of making love that stills cravings and is remarkable for its calmness. It is also a path to heightened awareness.

They took a very slow route to intercourse, first sleeping together every night for several weeks. They spent that time cuddling and exchanging energy through massage, dancing, laughing, talking about past relationship trauma and comforting each other, without having sex. To their amazement they felt deeply satisfied by their “love making.” In fact, Rick noted that after three days, the burning desire to have conventional orgasm decreased substantially, even though his libido did not.

When they did add intercourse to their intimacy they stuck to a schedule instead of being spontaneous. Biology rewards spontaneous sex with lots of exciting neurochemicals because it is more likely to result in careless pregnancy. But Rick and Suzanne were consciously tiptoeing past all the familiar dopamine reward triggers—commonly known as “skilled foreplay for great, hot sex.”

They discovered that there are other kinds of orgasms. Rick, for example, described his experiences as heart orgasms—periods of ecstatic closeness that go on and on, without the “heat up and explode” experience biology had been “rewarding” him for.

As the months passed, they also noticed that their relationship had a stability and sense of emotional equilibrium that had been absent from past relationships. They laughed more and processed less. Instead of taking each other for granted, they became increasingly attentive and generous. The familiar need for “space” they’d experienced in past relationships disappeared. They were both unusually productive in their careers. Rick was able to stop drinking entirely within a few months, and, months later, also withdrew from Prozac® (something he’d never thought would be possible, due to a personal and genetic history of depression).

Suzanne, who was also very orgasmic and sexually active, had begun experimenting with non-orgasmic sex years earlier. She’d already found that without the reward of orgasm, her fetish had faded away. What a relief! She also noticed that her chronic problems with yeast infection and urinary tract infection had disappeared. Moreover, one of her lovers, who had herpes, discovered that he never had an outbreak while he avoided conventional orgasm.

How Could This Be?

Rick has a human sciences background, so he wondered if science could explain how making love without conventional orgasm might have such powerful, beneficial effects. He unearthed some fascinating clues. Not only did he deepen his understanding of how dopamine can drive addictions, he also found evidence that biology “rewards” sex with multiple partners. An experiment involving rats demonstrated that if a rat was sexually exhausted with one mate, and then moved to a cage with another mate, the exhausted rat would perk right up (at least temporarily). This is how biology wants it, though, as individuals, we are best served by deep heart connections that encourage higher levels of a most beneficial neurochemical called oxytocin.

Rick learned that the heart orgasms he and Suzanne had experienced were probably a function of this other, non-addictive neurochemical, also known as the cuddle hormone. Oxytocin promotes deeper bonding and selfless behavior. It, too, feels great, though it is not an explosive buzz like dopamine. It also does not trigger a defensive “low” (or sense of lack), and it has a host of other benefits. It makes females more sexually receptive and promotes sexual arousal in males. It also increases the attraction between established partners, but not between unfamiliar potential mates.

And it’s a powerful tonic. It reduces pain signals to the brain, so we feel better. It mitigates the effects of cortisol, a stress hormone that can otherwise lower our immunity to disease, cause us to gain weight, damage our brain cells, and lessen our ability to cope. Rick also found research from Heartmath Institute revealing that open-hearted emotions, associated with oxytocin, correlate with faster regeneration, reversal of high blood pressure, better cognitive ability, higher levels of DHEA (“anti-aging hormone”), and improved immune response.

Nor was his recovery from addiction any longer a mystery. Oxytocin diminishes cravings. For example, rats addicted to heroin, which they could self-administer, used significantly less heroin when also injected with oxytocin. Oxytocin has also been shown to ease withdrawal from cannabis. In short, Rick’s personal experience—of healing an alcohol addiction that had haunted him for 15 years—was entirely aligned with the latest scientific findings. With more oxytocin flowing, impossible challenges had become quite manageable.

To tap the benefits of oxytocin we must stay loving and generous. If we’re feeling gratitude, reverence, love or a sense of selfless nurturing, even a conventional orgasm is going to have powerful benefits. However, conventional orgasms—especially over time—carry the risk of setting off the “down regulation” low that we mentioned earlier. A sense of lack can trigger a selfish pursuit of more and more dopamine. Often this leads to feelings of defensiveness or greed—both of which close the heart. Without the ecstasy oxytocin contributes, sex deteriorates into “just sex” and stronger cravings than ever, fueling a search for new thrills from switching partners, or intense foreplay (both of which over-stimulate the brain with dopamine).

So if you’re tired of chasing empty dopamine highs, or if you are struggling to release an addiction or fetish, take comfort in knowing that a powerful antidote lies in lovemaking that promotes equilibrium, rather than highs and lows. Equilibrium brings well-being to aspects of our lives that have no direct relationship to sex. And, according to the Taoists, this inner calm may be the precursor for a permanent, transcendental shift. As Lao Tsu wrote long ago:

Where ordinary intercourse is effortful, angelic cultivation is calm, relaxed, quiet, and natural. Where ordinary intercourse unites sex organs with sex organs, angelic cultivation unites spirit with spirit, mind with mind, and every cell of one body with every cell of the other body….The cords of passion and desire weave a binding net around you....The trap of duality is tenacious. Bound, rigid, and trapped, you cannot experience liberation. Through dual cultivation it is possible to unravel the net, soften the rigidity, dismantle the trap…. you become filled with inexhaustible vitality and are liberated forever from the cycle of death and rebirth.

Marnia Robinson is the author of PEACE BETWEEN THE SHEETS: Healing with Sexual Relationships, which contains a simple, step-by-step program for couples who wish to outwit biology. It is available for $14.95 through www.amazon.com, North Atlantic Books, or any bookstore. Her husband, Gary Wilson, teaches human sciences and advanced bodywork.