The Sedona Method – A Review

Written on May 18, 2008 by Tom Stine

I’ve mentioned the Sedona Method more than a few times in past articles, so it feels like time to write a comprehensive review of it.

Your Key to Lasting Happiness, Success, Peace and Emotional Well-Being!

If you go to sedona.com you will see the above prominently displayed at the top of the page. So the question foremost in anyone’s mind who is exploring the Sedona Method is: does this program work? Will it really bring me lasting happiness, success, peace and emotional well-being? The short answer to that question, for me personally, is yes, it really did all that it claims. So read on to see the details of this review.

Sedona, AZ credit: jmenard48

What Is the Sedona Method?

The Sedona Method is a program for teaching you how to let go of any emotion or belief. When you begin reading the book or doing the audio program, you are given the background for what the method terms releasing, i.e., letting go of emotions. The Sedona Method teaches that releasing is natural, and if you pay attention, you will notice that most feelings come and go quite easily if you do not repress them or attach to them in some way. The only reason a feeling sticks around is because we don’t allow it to be felt and then flow out.

Initially, the Sedona Method focuses on letting go of negative feelings, the ones that cause problems for us in life, like fear, anger and apathy. And you let go of feelings initially in the program by asking yourself 3 simple questions:

1. Could you let this feeling go?
2. Would you let this feeling go?
3. When?

It is interesting that these 3 simple questions could be the catalyst for letting go of a painful emotion, but they do work. Since releasing is a natural process, since feelings want to be felt and then flow out of our awareness, the power behind these questions is that they invite you to let this natural process happen. In fact, releasing is less something you do and more something you allow to be done. It is a process more of allowing the emotions to leave than anything else.

Beyond the Basics

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Once you’ve mastered the use of these 3 questions and have applied them to a few areas of your life, the Sedona Method gets a bit more involved with what it refers to as the wants that underlie all emotions. In its model, we are all being driven by 4 wants:

1. Wanting control.
2. Wanting approval.
3. Wanting security or safety.
4. Wanting separation and oneness.

While I initially found this focus on wants to be effective in going deeper with releasing and letting go of more and more difficult emotions, I found after a while that it was way too heady. Over time I became aware that all feelings were being driven by all the above. And at the core always seemed to be some sense of wanting either to survive or to be in control.

Interestingly, too, I began to see how almost every feeling I had could be reduced to anger or fear, and in most cases, anger seemed to be generated by a deep seated fear. And by seeing that it has become easier to release any emotion.

Welcoming and Allowing Feelings

In addition to the above, the Sedona Method uses other techniques for releasing. Probably the simplest, easiest to use, and most profound for me, though, was welcoming or allowing a feeling. Remember, the basic premise of the Sedona Method is that releasing is natural, that feelings merely want to be felt and then pass through. If you think about it, that is what ultimately happens with any feeling.

So, the process of welcoming a feeling is a conscious decision to feel, a conscious choice to allow what you are feeling to be exactly what it is. I had the most dramatic release one day by using this technique that permanently ended panic attacks that had plagued me off and on for almost 30 years. I woke-up one morning feeling extremely anxious, and then slipped into a full-blown panic attack. That familiar feeling of impending doom and death engulfed me. If you’ve ever had a panic attack, you know what I mean.

I had released on panic attacks before, with some success, but never had been freed from them. So, I began releasing on this one, and this time I had no luck. I was deep in panic. And then I remembered something I had heard at one of the retreats I had been to, and so I let myself sink into the panic, going deeper and deeper with it, allowing the panic to completely engulf me and even, I remember thinking, to get stronger if it could. I fully allowed the panic attack and welcomed it. In a sense, I embraced it.

And then, like a fever breaking after the flu, it left, it released, it was gone. Not only was I no longer panicked, but I knew, I absolutely knew that I would never have another panic attack. And I didn’t. Now, as I look back on it, I can’t even conceive of how I ever had panic attacks. They seem an utter impossibility to me. Chalk one up for releasing!

Who Created the Sedona Method

The man who created the Sedona Method, Lester Levenson, was an interesting character. I’ve heard him described variously as a saint, a modern day mystic, an enlightened master, a miracle worker and a shyster businessman from New Jersey. From all that I can gather of the real life Lester, he was quite likely all of these. One man I know described him as “a black hole, so egoless that nothing really could attach to him.” He sounds like he was quite a character and a remarkable man.

Lester’s story is a fascinating one, as it is the story of the awakening of a modern day spiritual master. Others have told his story much better than I can. You can read more about Lester’s life and Lester’s realization and awakening at The Sedona Method website.

Who Teaches the Sedona Method

After Lester passed away in 1994, there was a bit of the inevitable power struggle amongst the faithful. The clear winner was Hale Dwoskin, who was granted the rights to the name “The Sedona Method” by Lester and who probably is the most well known of those teaching some version of Lester Levenson’s technique. I’ve looked into most of them, and for me, Hale has proven to be the most interesting, the most helpful and the clearest, both as a person and as a teacher.

On the whole, I like Hale and his teaching style. He is a kind man, gentle with most people and truly interested in helping them. A popular question at Sedona Method retreats revolves around how enlightened Hale is, a question I know he personally laughs at. In my estimation, Hale has had a definite bit of dropping away of his ego, at least to some extent. He feels “clean” to me. He is fairly honest and straight forward. It feels good to be in his presence.

Hale is a former New York City businessman, so a bit of that shines through his personality, too. This aspect of him caused me problems at first, because the Sedona Method is a for profit endeavor, and Hale is not hurting financially. I know that this aspect of the method bothers others, too. Hale likes to hang-out with the big names in the personal and spiritual development arena, and Jack Canfield in particular is one of his buddies. Yes, Hale was in the Secret, and he knows a lot of those people quite well.

I eventually resolved all of these issues by realizing that he’s no saint and the Sedona Method isn’t perfect. And so what? It works, Hale’s an honest, delightful person, and I’ve benefited from all he does tremendously. I have learned a great deal about my own personal hang-ups about money and success in the process and gotten a fair amount of freedom going in those areas. On the whole, I like Hale a great deal.

Here is a short video of Hale discussing how to let go on the little annoyances of life, to give you a taste of his style and personality:





You can read Hale’s bio here at the Sedona Method web site.

How I Have Personally Benefited

If you go to the Sedona Method web site, you can read hundreds of testimonials from people who have benefited from using it. You can also read all the marketing material as well. But one of the most powerful things to me has been hearing how the Sedona Method has benefited people I know. So, here is how it has helped me:

• A permanent end to panic attacks.
• Less anxiety by an order of magnitude (in other words, a lot!).
• Little if any concern about the future.
• I survived a painful divorce. More importantly, my ex and I get along great, and I can honestly say I love her more now than I ever did when we were married because I’m now capable of really loving someone. Amazing.
• I’m a much, much better father these days. My son and I have bonded to an extent I wouldn’t have thought possible a few years ago.
• I don’t feel desperate about life the way I used to. I’m much happier to let life happen, to flow with life, to be a part of life rather than always fighting it.

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• I had chronic fatigue for a number of years. My doctor said at one point that he thought the fatigue would resolve when the anxiety resolved. He was right.
• I never was diagnosed with depression, but after a few years of working with the Sedona Method I felt a fog lifting from my mind. It was strange, like I had been living in a haze for at least a decade. And I never knew it.
• I finally allowed myself to fully grieve the death of my father 16 years ago. At a Sedona Method retreat, I had a realization that I had been somehow expecting my father to come back to life. I shared this insight with the group, and almost immediately I start crying, sobbing actually, and couldn’t stop. I didn’t want to stop. I cried for 20 minutes. And then I was done. Done. And I knew it. A huge weight had lifted from me.
• I finally have a sense of what I’m doing with my life. Writing, coaching, teaching, all these things are pointing me in a direction that I never had the will to move in. Now I do. I can’t say I know exactly what I’m doing, but I’m doing it, and it feels right.
• And lastly, for all the years I’ve spent in spirituality, I never really took the idea of spiritual awakening seriously. That is, until Hale started discussing it, in his own way, at one of the retreats I attended. He introduced us to spiritual inquiry, and I took to it like a duck to water. The releasing that occurred from doing inquiry was tremendous. I dove into inquiry from that point, which lead me to all the wonderful teachings I’ve explored since then (and the retreats with Adyashanti). And “best” of all, it has lead to a fuller experience of what I truly am.

In case you can’t tell, I like the Sedona Method. I use it in some form with all my coaching clients. The techniques are quite powerful and supportive of you at just about every stage of your spiritual and personal journey.

How to Learn the Sedona Method

The best way to learn it is to purchase the audio program. The audio program is quite complete, consisting of 20 CDs of recordings at a live class (I was in the audience for the recording). Hale teaches releasing from the basics to the advanced exercises. Moreover, he applies a lot of the material to the three areas of life that concern most people: money and success, relationships and health and well being. You can buy the audio program here. By following the same link, you can also ask to receive a sample CD and DVD of Hale teaching releasing at a Jack Canfield seminar (and yes, Hale really does laugh that much in real life).

You can also buy the book, The Sedona Method, by following this link to Amazon.com or heading to your local bookstore. The book is where I began, but soon after I started I bought the audio program. It helped tremendously.

Once you’ve gone through the book or audio program and learned the method, you can head out to Sedona, Arizona, for a 7 day retreat with Hale. He also offers a 9 day advanced retreat and a coaching course. I’ve loved the retreats I’ve been on (I’ve been to 6 retreats, 3 coaching trainings and 2 other weekend courses with Hale). And I’m heading back to Sedona in June for 2 weeks of retreat and additional coaching training. I can’t say enough good things about them.

In conclusion, if you want to dive into a personal and spiritual development program that is as good, if not better, than anything out there, and lives up to its hype and claims, then go grab the Sedona Method.

Disclaimer: all the links in this article are affiliate links. I make a commission from each copy of the Sedona Method audio program sold from this website. I think it should be obvious that I’m not reviewing the Sedona Method primarily to make a buck, but if you decide it is right for you, your purchase does support this website and my writing. Only fair to let you know, don’t you think?

Letting Go of Fear

Written on May 13, 2008 by Tom Stine

credit: Kables

I’ve been playing around with several ideas about fear for a few months now, and after sharing some of them with a few clients and friends, I feel at least one of them is ready for prime time. It is a very simple and easy way to let go of fear.

First, the Background Info

Whenever you are afraid, your mind is focused on something happening in the future. If you think about it, there is no fear without the future. For instance, if you are afraid of not being able to pay the bills at the end of the month, you are feeling fear about something in the future. Pretty obvious, eh?

But what about being confronted by something dangerous right now? What if I were confronted by a tiger in my backyard (yes, we have tigers roaming free here in Missouri *grins*)? Well, in the exact moment you see the tiger, and your body hits the adrenaline button, you are actually still not in danger at that instant. The fear you feel comes from what you believe is going to happen in the next few minutes, and yes, being eaten or mauled is a real possibility. But notice, it is still in the future. Even if you are being mauled, the fear you are experiencing is about dying in the future.

Okay, you get the point, right? Fear = future. No way around it.

Second, How Fear = Future Helps

So how does this fear = future help me? Ah, now we get to the entire point of Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now, and, for that matter, hundreds of other spiritual teachings. The bottom line to everything Tolle discusses is that there is only one moment, one time, and it is now. There is no future except to the mind (and no past, too). There is only right now. As a matter of fact, you can say there is no time at all. Just now, ever present now, infinite now.

And this simple fact that there is only now is great news. If you are experiencing fear about paying the bills, or a possible illness, or your marriage, or anything for that matter, all you have to do is remember there is no future, there is only now.

Third, The Practice

Using the above, here is a very simple practice you can do whenever you are feeling fear. Note for all the literalists out there: if you are feeling fear because a bus is about to hit you or a tiger is about to eat you, do not do this practice! Run, run like hell. Have some common sense, please!

1. Sit down. I’ve found that sitting down is the #1 thing to do when you are feeling any sort of distress. Just sit. You can easily take 15 minutes to sit.
2. Review your situation. Spend a moment or two reviewing your situation paying careful attention to how all of it is in the future. That’s the important part. All of it is in the future.
3. Be honest about your fears. Name them, say them out loud, write them down. You are already afraid, so you are already telling yourself these things in your mind. So be honest. You are afraid of going broke, of being homeless, of being alone, of dying. Again, notice that it all is in the future.
4. Fear = future. Repeat to yourself a few times that the fear you are feeling is about something in the future. Notice how all of these events are in the future.
5. “Is it here now?” Ask yourself, “Is any of this stuff here now? Is any of it what I’m experiencing now?” And sit with the answer. Don’t do anything with it. Just experience the answer. Give it a moment to sink down from your head through your body. Feel the answer.
6. Notice what is here now. You are sitting in a chair. You are doing this practice. You are quiet. Look at the room around you. Notice that the future you are imagining isn’t here. Allow yourself to sit with right now.
7. Sit for a few more minutes. Be still. Just enjoy the moment.

Fourth, The Benefits

Doing this practice has several benefits. The first benefit is that it slows you down, it takes a chunk of nervous energy out of your system. Your adrenal glands get a moment to relax, your heart calms down, your breathing slows, all good stuff for you. Because when your body calms down, it takes a further load off your nervous system. A nice cycle of physical calming occurs.

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The second benefit is that by relaxing your body and mind, you open yourself to knew possibilities. It seems to me that creativity is most active in the gap between thinking, in the pause that occurs when thinking stills for a moment. By getting your thoughts out of their imagined future, they naturally calm down, slow down, and at moments become very still.

And in this place of stillness you might have a new insight, a new burst of inspiration about your life and life situations. You may see a way to earn more money, reduce debt, feel a new found love for your partner, experience a sense of peace about your body and any illness it has. Solutions are often found right here in the stillness of now. You will surprise yourself with the creativity you will have when you are still.

The third benefit to you is that you will feel more connected with who you truly are. What you are is Now, is Presence, is here. When your thoughts are floating around in the imagined future, you are removed from the truth of who and what you are. Getting connected to the truth of your being is, well, the only way to go.

So give this practice a try next time you are feeling fear or anxiety. It will work wonders the more consistently you use it. Enjoy!

The Practical Side of All This Thought Stuff

Written on May 10, 2008 by Tom Stine

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I have a coaching client who has quite a bit of difficulty using his hands and arms due to a long-term problem of pain and stiffness. I frequently type notes for him during and after our sessions so he has a reminder of what we discussed, plus it is a good way to make certain he knows what he will be working on between sessions.

We’ve been working together for a while, and I have worked with him often on his beliefs about the various issues in his life. Obviously from my last few articles, I’ve had thoughts, beliefs and thinking on my mind of late, and during our coaching session last week, I said something to him about his thoughts and beliefs on a few subjects, and then I typed the following into my notes for him:

You will discover, if you are open to it, that much of what goes through your head, your thoughts and thinking, look suspiciously like the behaviors of a drug addict or alcoholic.

He pondered this statement for a day or two, and then he left me a message yesterday asking me to explain further what I meant by the above. I typed a response and sent it to him, explaining what I meant and why my emphasis on thoughts and feelings is helpful and extremely practical. He left me another message this morning begging me to post my response on my website because, in his words, “it was freaking brilliant and would help far more people than I could ever help by coaching alone.” Well, who am I to argue with a statement like that? So, here is what I wrote to him (with minor editing to preserve his privacy):

“Our minds, if we are honest, are quite obsessive. They get stuck on a topic and they keep going round and round and round about it. They don’t stop. Like an addict, they go back for another hit, another high, sticking with a subject or a belief until they literally fall apart from it. Just like an addict.

“We continually give energy to our thoughts by believing them to be true. We say, ‘Well, since I thought it, it must be true.’ But a touch of honesty reveals that most of what we think is no where near true. I would contend that none of it is true. It is all just mental noise, far removed from our actual moment to moment, minute to minute experience.

“So, what I’m encouraging you to do is to suck some of the energy out of the stories you tell yourself. That’s why I always emphasized working with your beliefs. Beliefs are stories. You only believe those things you don’t know to be 100% true. Do you have to believe in breathing? Do you have to believe in gravity? No. You may not know what gravity really is, or how breathing works, or whether gravity will be working tomorrow, but it seems to be the case that every time you jump, you come right back down. No believing really required.

“Let me be very blunt with you. You believe that you can’t make money because of your hands. We’ve discussed that many times. Do you have evidence even remotely as strong as gravity to justify this belief? Or did you decide at some point that it must be true? Do you see? You’ve repeated that story so much that if you will look, you will see that you are clinging to the belief that until your hands get better, you can’t earn money. But is it true? Is it real? Where’s the proof?

“And when you start to doubt your own beliefs, you will find that your creativity will skyrocket. Suddenly, things that seemed impossible start seeming possible. You have new prospects, new perspectives. But only when you question your old beliefs. This process is releasing in its most basic form. Real and true and deep Sedona Method releasing. Exactly what Lester Levenson did when he awaken and healed himself from terminal heart disease.

“Plus, as you shed these beliefs, your body will have a chance to relax. It will not be under so much constant mental stress. And who knows what good things might happen if you relaxed your body!

“Is this making more sense? Let me know….. Tom”

I’ve been thinking lately of writing more articles that focus on how to live from consciousness, spirituality, etc. Personally, I think that spirituality is the most practical approach to life and life’s issues. That’s why I work with people. That’s why I write. To help people with life’s ups and downs.

Spiritual awakening seems to me to be the absolute best solution to all of life’s problems and issues. It is difficult to explain, but it is truly amazing the relief that you feel when you start realizing that all of your problems are not a big deal because they aren’t your problems. Quite simply, there is no you to have them. They are just stuff, part of life, but they do not ultimately threaten who you truly are.

I encourage everyone reading this article to do what I encourage my clients to do: challenge your beliefs. Start to see that they are just thoughts, just ideas floating around they mind, and that they aren’t true and they certainly are not you. You will be surprised by what happens when you start to let all this stuff go. All I can say is, “magical.”

Q&A: How Can the Sedona Method Help Traders?

Written on March 23, 2008 by Tom Stine

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A few days ago, a potential client wrote to me asking a few questions about how coaching and The Sedona Method would apply to his career, professional commodities trading. With his permission, I’d like to share his question with you and my response (with a few additional thoughts added).

The Question

Hi Tom
I am wondering since you are familiar with the [commodity] trading aspect [of my work], how do you deal with the difficulties of trading when you don’t take losses after you said you would and doing the opposite of what you planned to do? How does, or even does, this work help with that?

My Response

In a nutshell, if I’m following your question correctly, you are asking “how does the Sedona Method and coaching in general help with the fundamental problem of all traders: discipline.” I can’t tell you how many times I read when I was learning to trade commodities that successful traders do not pay attention to their emotions, but stick to their plan, their trading strategy. Obviously, having a way of dealing with your emotions is central to that. Here is how I see the work I do as helping:

The two emotions that are the most important with regard to trading are fear and lust (some call it greed, but the word lust is more appropriate in my view). Traders make lousy decisions when they operate from either of these two. The Sedona Method has numerous ways to approach these, but the simplest of all is to simply get in touch with them, give yourself permission to actually feel them as fully as you can, and then give yourself permission to let them go. The process is simple, quick and effective. It often takes many repetitions, but sometimes it works very quickly. You never know.

More Intuitive from Letting Go

Another benefit to doing this type of work is that one is often more intuitive the more open you become. For me personally, I feel more in sync with what is occurring around me. The markets sometimes feel more transparent. I’m not a professional trader, nor do I follow technical analysis, but I do some trading and tend to hold longer-term positions. I almost exclusive use options so I don’t have to worry about many of the problems that are inherent with futures contracts. I follow a financial writer who is quite often accurate in his ideas about the markets, but he is VERY doom and gloom. I can’t tell you how I know, but I just KNOW that we won’t see what he predicts. That’s what I mean by more intuitive.

In essence, as I have dealt with my fears and my lust/greed, the better my trading/investing has been. I still get afraid at times, but I can release through it easily. I’m less subject to hoping things will turn out okay and then being disappointed. And, I’m less subject to the lust part of the equation, which really caused me some difficulties in the distant past.

Working with Lust and Greed

The way out the lust/greed side is to recognize the inherent feeling of lacking, of craving, of wanting inside the lust. If you close your eyes and think about something you’ve really been wanting, you can feel that lusty, greedy feeling inside of it. In an of themselves, desires and wants are not really a problem, but that greedy feeling can really get in the way.

You can work with it in the same way as outlined above: first allow yourself to feel it. Then make the choice to release it, to drop it, to let it go. Finally, see if you can feel paste your prior feelings of lust and craving into the state of actually having things. You know you are there if you have a sense of completeness. It is a much better place emotionally to feel “I have” than “I want.” And it is a lot better for making good investment decisions.

I hope the above makes sense. If not, ask me for a clarification. I will be glad to help.

And the same offer goes out to all my readers. As you can see, I’m more than happy to answer questions, time permitting. If you have a question, be sure to ask.