The Practical Side of All This Thought Stuff

Written on May 10, 2008 by Tom Stine / 28 Comments »



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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.”

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Coaching with the Sedona Method

Written on February 13, 2008 by Tom Stine / 5 Comments »


Live a Life Free from Limitation

The Sedona Method is a unique, simple, powerful, easy-to-learn technique that shows you how to uncover your natural ability to let go of any painful or unwanted feeling in the moment. As you let go of painful and unwanted feelings, you will experience a clearer mind, more positive thoughts and greater creativity. The Sedona Method thus becomes the key that unlocks a life of greater ease, greater success, and overall happiness and joy.

What Makes Coaching with the Sedona Method Special?

If you look at most of the coaching world, you will find a wide variety of approaches. Most coaching has, at its very core, an attitude of action. There is a fundamental attitude that pervades our world that says if only we would DO something different then our lives would improve. But what if action wasn’t the answer? What if action is simply the natural result of our feelings and our thoughts? What if the place to experience true, lasting change was inside of us, not outside?

That’s what makes Coaching with the Sedona Method special. It turns the attention where the attention belongs: the person inside. Working with The Sedona Method is an inside-out process, because for lasting change to occur, the inside must change first. We start with the cause, and the actions that lead to changes in the external world follow naturally.

Using a Coach

Whether you are new to The Sedona Method or a long-time user, a coach can give you the assistance you need to go further than you ever thought possible. For long-time users, you will work with someone who speaks your language, who knows your process, who understands why you use The Sedona Method: because it works! Unlike a releasing partner, a coach will focus exclusively on you, putting all his energy into assisting you with releasing whatever issues are arising for you and with achieving all the goals you have chosen to get.

For the relative newcomer to The Sedona Method, a coach will help you to understand how The Method works and how to apply it to your life. A coach learns early on from working with The Sedona Method that everyone can release, and much more easily than they would have believed. And, as everyone who has used The Method has discovered, the benefits of releasing are virtually limitless. Everyone can enjoy:

  • Freedom from financial difficulties.
  • Better relationships with partners, children, friends and co-workers.
  • Greater joy, peace and ease of living.
  • Easing of health issues.
  • Freedom from stress and fear.
  • Freedom from negative habits.
  • Emotional well-being and happiness.
  • Deep fulfillment in living every day.

These are just a few of the benefits that can be yours from working with a a coach who works with the Sedona Method.

If you want to experience the benefits of Coaching for the Sedona Method, contact Tom to discuss how you can benefit personally.

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Guru Quotes

All of our thoughts are conditioned. We all are thinking exactly along the lines we are conditioned to think. Programmed like a computer. Anybody who thinks they are actually choosing of their own free will the line of thinking that they have is completely deluded by their thinking.


Behind most spiritual practices is the belief that you have to get someplace you’re not- a destination called realization or enlightenment. But realization isn’t someplace else; it’s the naturally occurring human state. It doesn’t belong to anybody. It’s who we all are. Spiritual practices also set up many pictures of what this state looks like. For example, when I described how much fear was present, people told me the fear meant that something must be wrong, because fear was an indication that I wasn’t in the proper state. But fear is just what it is, and it’s there too in the vastness of who we are.

In spiritual life there is no room for compromise. Awakening is not negotiable; we cannot bargain to hold on to things that please us while relinquishing things that do not matter to us. A lukewarm yearning for awakening is not enough to sustain us through the difficulties involved in letting go. It is important to understand that anything that can be lost was never truly ours, anything that we deeply cling to only imprisons us.

Those who awaken never rest in one place.
Like swans, they rise and leave the lake.
On the air they rise and fly an invisible course.
Their food is knowledge.
They live on emptiness.
They have seen how to break free.
Who can follow them?

We always want someone else to change so that we will feel good. But has it ever struck you that even if your wife changes or your husband changes, what does that do to you? You’re just as vulnerable as before; you’re just as idiotic as before; you’re just as asleep as before. You are the one who needs to change, who needs to take medicine. You keep insisting, “I feel good because the world is right.” Wrong! The world is right because I feel good. That’s what all the mystics are saying.