it is easy and can become second nature, requiring as little thought from you as the act of breathing does now. Do you recall how suppressed feelings were likened in Chapter 1 to an emotional pressure cooker? When you release often, you’ll also discover that keeping the lid off your feelings and allowing them to release is more natural than trying to keep them crammed inside.
• What does it feel like to let go? The experience of letting go is highly individual. Most people feel an immediate sense of lightness or relaxation as they use the process. Others feel energy moving through their bodies as though they are coming back to life. Changes can become more pronounced over time. In addition to physical sensations, you’ll notice that your mind is getting progressively quieter and your remaining thoughts are clearer. You will start to perceive more solutions rather than problems. Over time, your experience of releasing may even feel positively blissful.
• How do I know that I’m doing it right? If you notice any positive shifts in feeling, attitude, or behavior when you’re releasing, then you are doing it right. However, each issue that you work on could require different amounts of letting go. If at first it doesn’t shift completely, let go and then let go again. Continue releasing until you have achieved your desired result.
• What should I do if I find myself getting caught up again in old patterns of behavior, or if I just plain forget to release? First, it’s important to understand that this is to be expected—and it’s okay. Your ability to release spontaneously and in the moment that it’s necessary will increase over time. Soon, you’ll be able to release in “real time.” Meanwhile, you can always release once you do recognize that there has been a problem. Soon, when you catch yourself in the middle of an old behavior pattern, you’ll be able to release as the pattern is happening and interrupt it. By doing so, you’ll find that you’re able to change the pattern. After a while, you’ll learn to catch yourself before you get caught up in the old pattern, and then you’ll release and not do it. Ultimately, you won’t need to release about that particular tendency anymore, because you’ll have let it go entirely. If you allow yourself to be persistent, your attitude and effectiveness will eventually change for the better, even with longstanding problems. You may even get to the point where the only time you’ll remember that you even had a particular problem is when someone else reminds you of it.
It can also be helpful to schedule short releasing breaks throughout the day to remind yourself to release.
• Do I have to change my beliefs or believe something new to do the Sedona Method? Absolutely not. As I mentioned in the Introduction, please don’t believe anything in this book unless you can prove it for yourself. Just because something is said in writing does not make it so. Knowledge is not useful unless or until you can verify it for yourself experientially. Simply be as available as you can to what is being communicated in this book and look at it as an opportunity to change your consciousness and your life. Remain open to discovery and prove or disprove it for yourself. Whatever your religious beliefs or affiliations, they will only be supported by the process of letting go. People who have used the Sedona Method report that it helps them to be more in tune with and open to uncovering their true spiritual experience and conviction.
• What should I do if I am already involved in therapy or some other system for personal growth? Since letting go is the essence of any good therapy and every effective tool for personal growth, you’ll find that using the Sedona Method is an ideal support for other systems. This includes those you are already doing and those you may do in the future. As you combine releasing with other forms of self-exploration, results will come more quickly and easily. The Method will make it easier to stick with whatever process is working in your life, because you’ll be able to understand and apply the concepts that you’re learning on a more consistent basis. People who learn the Method frequently comment that it is the missing piece they’ve been looking for in everything else they’ve done to help themselves.
Note: If you are presently involved in any form of psychological or medical treatment, please do not change your treatment regimen without first consulting your healthcare professional.
Harness the Strength of Your Different Modes of Sensing
Most of us have a predominant form of physical sensing: visual (sight), kinesthetic (physical feeling), or auditory (sound). If you’re not sure which one is your leading mode of sensing, then, in addition to asking yourself the releasing questions, try incorporating all three of these modes into the process. Later, use the one that works best for you.
Visual Sensing
If you lead with your visual sense, or you simply like working with it, allow yourself to come up with visual images while you go through the releasing questions. Here are a few suggestions to get you started:
• Visualize a knot where you feel tension or another sensation in your body, and see it unraveling as you let it go.
• Picture that there’s a lid with hinges on your internal pressure cooker, and accept that all you need to do is open the lid and the feeling will leave. See yourself opening the lid and the hinge becoming looser. If you use this image frequently, after a while, you’ll be able to keep this lid open and easily allow your feelings to come up and out.
• Picture yourself tightly gripping a feeling in your hand, and then see your hand opening and the feeling leaving. As you’ll see in the kinesthetic sensing section, you can reinforce this image physically by making an actual fist as you hold on to a feeling and then opening it as you let go.
• Imagine that your feelings are pockets of unwanted energy trapped in your body. See yourself poking holes in these pockets and watch negative energy drain out.
• You may also experience your limiting feelings as a sense of darkness. As you use this process, picture the darkness being washed away, illuminated by the light.
Kinesthetic Sensing
If you are predominantly kinesthetic, you lead with your physical sensations. Therefore, allow yourself to experience a feeling as fully as you can in your body first, and then relax, open, and feel the feeling leaving as you let go. You may especially enjoy reinforcing the experience of releasing with touch and movement. Try the following:
• Place both hands face down touching each other on your solar plexus. As you let go a feeling, simply tilt your hands up, creating an imaginary space through which it can pass up and out.
• Make a fist with one hand, holding it to your solar plexus, and then open your hand as you let go of a feeling.
• Combine the physical action of opening your arms with the same inner sense that you have when you’re about to hug someone whom you care about deeply. First, place your hands together in front of you in a prayerful position and simply allow yourself to become aware of whatever you’re feeling in the moment. Then, slowly open your arms wide and, at the same time, let yourself feel welcoming. Keep opening inwardly as best you can while moving your hands slowly outward until they are as far apart as they can go without
