The Sedona Method: Your Key to Lasting Happiness, Success, Peace and Emotional Well-Being

This book has changed my life. The techniques in the book are extremely simple - to the point that if you like to over-think things you might find the book frustrating unless you are willing to accept the simplicity of it all. But there is one part, about one third of the way through the book, where the author describes who we are. When I read this, my view of the world shifted 180 degrees. I am amazed at how much happiness I am feeling after reading this book, and especially that part of it. If you are someone that is willing to keep an open mind and allow for the possibility that there is a way to look at this world that is completely different from the way you might currently be looking at it, this book will change your life forever.

I've been using the Sedona Method for more than a year now, but I've gotten the hang of it only recently, so perhaps these words of caution will save you time and allow you to take full advantage of this wonderful method right off the bat. The basic idea of the Sedona Method is this: if we "release" our emotions and feelings, we immediately feel better and are more able to deal with whatever life has handed us. So, the entire book is geared toward teaching you how to "release." In particular, there are lists of questions that you can ask yourself and that will help you to release. The crucial point to understand, however, is that the questions themselves do not get the job done on their own. In fact, YOU have to do the releasing - just reading the question or memorizing them won't do. As the author notes on page 40 "[The questions] are not important in and of themselves but are designed to point you to the experience of letting go, to the experience of stopping holding on." I should point out that the written format is certainly not the best support for the Method. I am not advertising for the Sedona Method audio program nor the live seminars (both are very expensive, indeed, well beyond my current financial means), but I am guessing that hearing someone guide you through a release is more powerful than just reading about it and then having to figure it out yourself. Besides, Hale Dwoskin (the author of this book) is not a writer at all, and his writing is really not that great. (It should be pointed out, however, that it's quite an achievement for a non-professional writer to write 400 pages like this book, which in itself shows the Method to be quite powerful.) Yet, it's very possible to learn how to release by reading this book, providing you are mindful of not "just reading" but actually trying to find in your mind and your body what it is to release, and then practicing it over and over. I don't remember the date I first "released" using the Method. What I can say, though, is that using it makes life better and better. Problems are easier to solve, and if there is something you can't solve, you will be more able to accept it the way it is and it will not ruin your life. I don't think anything can be more helpful than this method in having a better life.

Our society has turned "feelings" into sacred cows, perhaps in response to the repression and denial of feeling in past generations. Some now suggest that cognitive therapies, such as the Sedona Method, can encourage the suppression of feeling. Not in my experience! The Sedona Method actually takes emotions quite seriously and encourages participants to go deeply into their emotions before releasing. Here's what I've learned through the Sedona Method: My holding onto a feeling is actually a RESISTANCE to investigating and experiencing the feeling deeply. I notice I'd rather go on and on about my story about "my" feeling, thus creating more even drama, rather than pausing to examine the feeling itself. In a perverse way, I often resist letting go of feelings simply because I identify them as being "MY" feeling. Through cognitive approaches, I've learned that it's my own worshipful attachment to "MY" feeling that causes the suffering, not the feeling itself. That's where the Sedona Method is so helpful. The Sedona Method contradicts much of traditional therapy in that it understands that one does not need endless analysis and manufacturing of "story" about emotion in order to release it. Indeed, our endless analysis and masturbatory fondling of "our" feelings is often subtle ego ploy to KEEP the suffering firmly in place. As in: "This is MY story about MY suffering. And, look! Here is MY depression .... I am a very sensitive, emotional person who has suffered terrible things at the hands of others (which people with fancy initials after their names agree with me on ....), and I thus need years of understanding and exploration before I can let this feeling go." Perhaps it's true for some of us. I don't know. In my case, it was a lie. I discovered that this was just a clever form of ego resistance which, unfortunately, finds much (unhelpful) support in our culture. There definitely is a body-mind connection. The Sedona Method demonstrates that once the thinking is addressed directly THROUGH the feeling, the feeling will drop. This is true for everyone. It doesn't matter how big or small your I.Q. is, or how much money you make. The Buddhists have been saying this for centuries. In Alcoholics Anonymous, old-timers routinely say to people who feel like drinking out of anger or depression, "Feelings aren't facts." The Sedona Method invites us to look more deeply at feelings rather than repress them. Cognitive approaches such as The Sedona Method also gently challenge our resistances to releasing the feelings. After years of getting absolutely nowhere with traditional feeling-based therapy, I found liberation * only * through cognitive approaches. But I had to give up wanting to suffer first. I was completely unconscious of my attraction to the very pain I claimed to want to release ... but there it was. The Sedona Method points this out to you ... And that's the tricky part of this process. Our mind clutches at so many

Although I have read dozens of self-help books and attended weeks of self-help seminars, none of those books and seminars helped me in the profound way that The Sedona Method has. The book's core observation is that we allow emotions based on old memories to block our minds and bodies from experiencing what is possible now. Many self-help authors make the same point.What makes The Sedona Method different from the others is the proposed method for eliminating those emotions. I have learned many other techniques for changing memories (such as the Tony Robbins Swish pattern) and use meditation to withdraw from emotions. I have found that meditation has worked best for me in the past. While meditating, my head is pleasantly vibrating and I feel at mental peace. With The Sedona Method teachings, I find that my whole body shudders pleasantly into relaxation and peace. In other words, this process causes me to enjoy a greater release from old memories and emotions than I had thought possible. It's a wonderful gift.So what do you have to do to enjoy this peace? You just need to ask yourself a series of questions (and the book is full of exercises to help you do that). I soon found that I did not need to ask all of the questions. With practice, I could just release negative emotions whenever I wanted to. This book came to me at a very stressful time . . . just after my Father died. I find that the grieving process has been greatly eased by the emotional releases I can stimulate any time I want.To get the most benefit from this book, you should practice every day to establish new habits. I read the book over two weeks to help make that transition. In retrospect, I would have done better to have read it over more weeks and practiced more each day. I plan to reread the book now to deepen my benefit.What was most impressive to me was that I could get so much benefit without going to a class or listening to an audio version. I suspect the teachings would be much more powerful in those forms. But you certainly can experience great things from just reading the book, doing the exercises, practicing and remembering to use the teachings when those emotions well up.May your days be filled with tranquility and a greater sense of what is possible!

This book is an invaluable adjunct to taking the live Sedona Method Course, and as a stand alone!I was introduced to the Sedona Method approximately 20 years ago, while I was going through a very painful divorce. I saw how this approach was very simple, direct, and powerful, especially in helping me to go through the pain I was experiencing. I had studied many change processes, and had gone through many personal growth seminars, workshops and intensives prior to that time, and since then. I found the Sedona Method to be the most elegant and straightforward of the ones I have experienced. Even though I use other techniques and processes, I continually return to the simplicity of the Sedona Method.It has opened inner doors for me that have been sweet, and profound. It has allowed me to explore my inner nature in a very gentle, yet commanding way. I have used it with most of my clients in my private psychology practice, and have seen how it has helped most people make changes that are transformative in nature. And yet, it is so easy to learn and to apply on a moment-to-moment basis. It is truly a gift that comes from a place of purity and truth.I have also had the sacred privilege of meeting Lester Levinson, the founder of the Sedona Method, on a number of occasions prior to his death. I was always aware of how present he was, totally there for whomever he was with. His presence inspired me to continue the journey of releasing, and to go ever-deeper into the heart of my soul.The SEDONA METHOD BOOK has managed to capture the most important elements of the live course, and the essence of what Lester lived and taught. DO YOURSELF AND YOUR SOUL A FAVOR, AND READ IT TODAY! - Daniel Sternberg, Ph.D.