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

THE SEDONA METHOD^®

How to Get Rid of Your Emotional Baggage and Live the Life You Want

HALE DWOSKIN

Copyright

The publisher and author of this material make no medical claims for its use. This material is not intended to treat, diagnose, advise about, or cure any illness. If you need medical attention, please consult with your medical practitioner.

Element

An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in the US by The Sedona Press 2003

This edition published by Element 2005

© Hale Dwoskin 2005

The Sedona Method^® is a trademarked process.

Hale Dwoskin asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

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Praise for the sedona method^®

“The Sedona Method is a wonderful contribution to the field of self-acceptance and transformation. This is like an accessible, western form of Buddhist teachings that can free our hearts and minds from our self-made limitations and the old stories we tell ourselves.”

—Lama Surya Das, author of Awakening The Buddha Within and Letting Go Of The Person You Used To Be

“The Sedona Method is an effective tool for getting rid of the ‘victim’ mentality. Instead of giving away our power to others, Hale Dwoskin encourages us to look inside and take control of our own experiences of life. That’s powerful!”

—Susan Jeffers, Ph.D., author of Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway and Embracing Uncertainty

“Hale Dwoskin has succeeded in presenting a masterful healing system with a treasure of practical examples for bringing it to life. The Sedona Method contains many jewels of illumination that can take your life to the next level. Practicing these principles can bring you home. Here is a rare and useful manual for awakening.”

—Alan Cohen, author of Why Your Life Sucks: And What You Can Do about It

“There is no pilgrimage more important than the one we undertake to explore ourselves. The Sedona Method is a valuable tool to help make our journey of self-discovery one that leads to powerful personal breakthroughs and new beginnings. Designed with wisdom, simplicity, and compassion, it will offer you ways to live the life you’ve always dreamed of.”

—Barbara De Angelis, Ph.D., author of Real Moments and What Women Want Men To Know

“This is a powerful and profound way of achieving immediate and lasting improvements and breakthroughs in your personal and business life. Incredibly effective!”

—Brian Tracy, author of Deals!

“The Sedona Method is an extremely powerful tool for emotional freedom and wellness.”

—Mark Victor Hansen, co-creator of the New York Times #1 best-selling series Chicken Soup for the Soul and co-author of The One-Minute Millionaire

“Just as Kabbalah teaches us the basic spiritual laws of our existence, Hale Dwoskin looks far beyond the mere symptoms of emotional negativity to emotional freedom and mastery. If you want to fundamentally change your life for the better in the shortest possible time, start using the Sedona Method today.”

—Yehuda Berg, Author of The 72 Names of God

“A breakthrough book in terms of realizing your goals and dreams and living a life that is richer, more meaningful and much more enjoyable. And all without having to work so damn hard at it!”

—Robert Kriegel, Ph.D., New York Times best-selling author of If It Ain’t Broke—Break It! and How to Succeed in Business Without Having to Work so Damn Hard

“The Sedona Method is an easy-to-use, practical guide to releasing emotional tension, one of the key steps I recommend in my medical practice for achieving resilience, vitality, and long-term health. This book is a valuable adjunct to every healthcare program.”

—Frank Lipman, M.D., author of Total Renewal

“The Sedona Method taught us to work from our strengths rather than our fears. After learning to release, we have become best-selling authors, lecturers, and spiritual counselors. These were things we could only dream about until the Sedona Method taught us to let go of the blocks we had erected to keep us from our ‘greatness.’ Releasing moved us along our spiritual path faster than any other work we have done. We were fumbling around and the Sedona Method opened the doors to our spiritual work. We believe with all our hearts that if you learn to release ANYTHING is possible.”

—Barbara Mark, and Trudy Griswold, co-authors of The Angelspeake Trilogy and Heaven and Beyond: Conversations with Souls in Transition

“As an author, international speaker, and widow of Earl Nightingale, I have given many years to the pursuit of a method that I might teach, which would enable others to ‘let go’ and live their lives without limitations. While the timeless truth that we become what we think about has revolutionized the lives of millions of people around the world, the majority of people find that old habits die hard. Changing a lifetime of restrictive thinking, more often than not, requires something more. Recently, I discovered a tried-and-true method that can and will work for everyone: the Sedona Method. Now, you can discover it, too!”

—Diana Nightingale, owner, Keys Publishing, international speaker, and author of Learning to Fly as a Nightingale

Dedication

Dedicated to Lester Levenson

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Praise for the Sedona Method^®

Dedication

Foreword By Jack Canfield

Introduction What Is the Sedona Method?

PART ONE—THE SEDONA METHOD COURSE

Chapter 1: Beyond the Suppression-Expression Cycle

Chapter 2: Your Formula for Success

Chapter 3: Your Roadmap to Emotional Freedom

Chart of the Nine Emotional States Your Roadmap to Emotional Freedom

Chapter 4: Dissolving Your Resistance

Chapter 5: Your Key to Serenity

Chapter 6: Taking Your Releasing to a Deeper Level

Chapter 7: Letting Go of the Four Basic Wants

Chapter 8: Setting and Attaining Your Goals

Chapter 9: Beyond Attachments and Aversions

Chapter 10: Power Decision-making

Chapter 11: The Cleanup Procedure

Chapter 12: Putting It All Together

PART TWO—REAL LIFE APPLICATIONS

Chapter 13: The Secret of Letting Go of Fear and Anxiety

Chapter 14: Beyond the Tyranny of Guilt and Shame

Chapter 15: Breaking those Nasty Habits

Chapter 16: Your Wealth Builder

Chapter 17: Relationship Magic

Chapter 18: Developing Radiant Health

Chapter 19: Organizational Freedom and Effectiveness

Chapter 20: Supporting Our World

The Next Steps

Guidelines for The Sedona Method Support Groups

We Are Here for You

Are You Ready For More?

About the Author

Author’s Note

Acknowledgments

About the Publisher

Foreword By Jack Canfield

I have been hearing wonderful things about the Sedona Method^® from clients and friends for about 20 years. Recently, I finally took the course with my wife and my 12-year-old son. I’ve been amazed at the simplicity of the Method and the powerful impact it has had on my life. Through my work with Chicken Soup for the Soul and through my Self-Esteem Seminars, I have been exposed to many self-improvement techniques and processes. This one stands head and shoulders above the rest for the ease of its use, its profound impact, and the speed with which it produces results. The Sedona Method is a vastly accelerated way of letting go of feelings like anger, frustration, jealousy, anxiety, stress, and fear, as well as many other problems—even physical pain—with which almost everybody struggles at one time or another.

One of the wonderful byproducts of taking the seminar is that I have become friends with Hale Dwoskin. He is one of the calmest, clearest, most joy-filled people I have ever met, living proof that the Sedona Method works wonders. I am ecstatic about our friendship. During the seminar, I found myself constantly in awe of Hale’s brilliant teaching style. I experienced one breakthrough after another. As a result, I’ve already referred many family members, friends, and business associates to the Sedona Method seminars, and I’ve also had the entire staff at Chicken Soup for the Soul Enterprises learn the Method through the audio programs that Hale put together.

Now I am thoroughly delighted to be able to recommend The Sedona Method: Your Key to Lasting Happiness, Success, Peace and Well-being. Reading this book is the equivalent of taking the Sedona Method Basic Course and several Advanced Courses rolled together. Filled with practical techniques and enlightening true stories, Hale clearly and generously explains everything we need to know to master the releasing process and to continue using the Method day by day, moment by moment in real life situations, such as having more fulfilling and harmonious relationships, building financial security, developing satisfying careers, breaking nasty habits, losing weight, and enjoying good health. He reveals the Sedona Method’s powerful secret for manifesting what you want in your life, while showing you how to be at ease and comfortable with what you already have. The Method also enables you to have greater ease, enjoyment, and peace of mind with all that you experience on a daily basis.

So I highly encourage you to read The Sedona Method with an open mind and heart. Please allow the simplicity of its message and the power of this process to open you to all the wonders that life has to offer. It is one of those rare things in today’s world that delivers more than it promises … way more. I urge you to pay close attention to Hale’s message in this book. If you do, it will change your life.

Introduction What Is the Sedona Method?

You feel like your heart is warm and open, your spine is pleasantly tingling, and your body is floating on air. As you look around the room, the colors seem brighter and the sounds clearer, like you are truly experiencing your surroundings for the first time. Your mind feels profoundly quieter, yet there are many new and wonderful possibilities floating into your awareness about how you can improve your life and live happily now. You feel relaxed and at ease, knowing that all is well and everything is unfolding as it should be.

Your eyes are a little teary, because it is hard for you to believe that such simple exercises could make such a profound and immediate difference in how you feel. You are excited about the future, knowing that you can face whatever happens with a new feeling of inner strength, ease, and confidence, no matter what curves life throws your way.

Best of all, you know this is just the beginning.

You can easily have this type of experience for yourself, just like the tens of thousands of others who have been living and using the simple, yet powerful techniques that Sedona Training Associates have taught for years in our live seminars and audio programs. Now these techniques are available to you in this book!

Are you open to being truly happy? Are you willing to achieve everything that you have been wanting in your life? Are you ready to find what your heart has always been seeking? If you answered “no” to all three of these questions, then please don’t bother reading this book. If you answered “yes,” to any of them, The Sedona Method will show you a practical way to tap an inner source of boundless happiness, to achieve your wildest dreams and highest potential, and to become a spiritual “finder” instead of a seeker.

We live in a world that’s in a state of rapid change—and not all of it is positive. Most of us crave a certainty, security, and solidity that we cannot find outside of ourselves no matter how hard we try. But these qualities already exist within each of us, waiting to be revealed. It is as though we possess an inner wishing well or a fountain of joy and vitality that’s disconnected from the water supply. Yet, secretly, everyone has a tool to reconnect.

Intrigued? I hope so. Because I would love to share a simple process with you that can deliver on this promise: the Sedona Method. The technique has already helped many thousands of people to tap their natural ability to let go of uncomfortable or unwanted emotions on the spot. It is our limiting emotions that prevent us from creating and maintaining the lives that we choose. We abdicate our decision-making ability to them. We even imagine that our emotions can dictate to us who we are supposed to be. This is made apparent in our use of language. Have you ever said to someone, “I am angry,” or, “I am sad”? When we speak like this, we are saying to those around us and to ourselves, without realizing it, that we are our anger, or we are our grief. We relate to others and ourselves as though we are our feelings. In fact, we even invent whole stories of why we feel the way we feel in order to justify or explain this misperception of our identity.

It is not that feelings don’t occasionally appear to be justified. It’s just that feelings are only feelings, feelings are not who we are—and we can easily let them go. Choosing to let them go frees us to perceive what is actually here, and to act, or refrain from acting, accordingly. This translates into an ability to handle life—to make stronger, clearer choices. It allows you and me to act in ways that support us in achieving our goals and aspirations as opposed to sabotaging them. I have seen the process of letting go of the emotions grow into an ability to have more money, better relationships, more radiant health and physical well-being, and an ability to be happy, calm, and focused, no matter what is going on around us.

Sounds good, doesn’t it? I thought it did back in 1976 when I met Lester Levenson, the man who inspired the creation of the Sedona Method and would also become my mentor. Back then, I was an ardent, although confused, seeker who had gone to numerous seminars led by teachers from both the East and the West. I had studied various body-centered disciplines, including yoga, tai chi, and shiatsu. I had actively participated in numerous personal growth courses, including EST, Actualism, Theta Seminars, and Rebirthing. At these seminars, I had many nice experiences and heard and understood—at least intellectually—many useful concepts. Still, I felt incomplete. I longed for a simple and powerful answer to some important yet vexing questions like: “What is my life’s purpose?” “What is truth?” “Who am I?” and “How can I feel at home and at peace with my life?” Much of what I heard and experienced only added to my questioning. No one seemed to have truly satisfying answers or to have truly satisfied themselves about their true nature. There was also a strong, almost universal belief that growing was hard work that required baring your soul and reliving painful, unresolved issues. That all changed during my very fortunate encounter with this remarkable man.

Meeting Lester Levenson

I met Lester at a seminar led by a well-known speaker that Lester was attending as the leader’s guest. That day, a group of us went out to lunch together. Lester’s presence immediately struck me as unique. He was in total peace and equal-mindedness, very comfortable with himself. He was unassuming and easy to talk to and treated everyone as his friend—even me, a complete stranger. It was obvious that he’d ended his search by discovering the answers I’d been seeking. I knew I had to find out more.

When I asked Lester what he did, he invited me to a seminar that was being held the next weekend. All he would tell me was that “a group of people is going to sit around a table and release.” I wasn’t sure what releasing meant, but I knew if it could even point me in the direction of the qualities of which Lester was the living embodiment, I definitely wanted it. I took a leap of faith and signed up on the spot.

That weekend I was in essentially the same position you’re in right now. I was about to embark on a journey for which I felt a little bit of trepidation. I wasn’t sure exactly with what I was getting involved, and, since I had done so many seminars, I also had a healthy degree of skepticism. I found myself wondering, “Oh my God, is this going to be another one of those disappointments along the way?” As the course unfolded, however, I watched myself and other people in the class shedding long-held beliefs and limitations with amazing ease and speed, yet without having to relive or explain their life stories.

Almost overnight, I knew that I’d found what I was looking for. In fact, deep inside, I knew that this process of releasing was what I had been born to do and share with the world—and to this day I have never wavered. In the past 26 years, I’ve watched thousands of other people change their lives, radically yet gently, for the better just by learning one elegantly simple, yet powerful technique.

Origins of the Sedona Method

As my friendship with Lester developed, I discovered more about him that confirmed my initial impressions. He was a man who had mastered life’s greatest challenge. In 1952, at age 42, Lester, a physicist and successful entrepreneur, was at the pinnacle of worldly success, yet he was an unhappy, very unhealthy man. He had many health problems, including depression, an enlarged liver, kidney stones, spleen trouble, hyperacidity, and ulcers that had perforated his stomach and formed lesions. He was so unhealthy, in fact, that after having his second coronary, his doctors sent him home to his Central Park South penthouse apartment in New York City to die.

Lester was a man who loved challenges. So, instead of giving up, he decided to go back to the lab within himself and find some answers. Because of his determination and concentration, he was able to cut through his conscious mind to find what he needed. What he found was the ultimate tool for personal growth—a way of letting go of all inner limitations. He was so excited by his discovery that he used it intensively for a period of three months. By the end of that period, his body became totally healthy again. Furthermore, he entered a state of profound peace that never left him through the day he died on January 18, 1994.

What Lester discovered firsthand is that we are all unlimited beings, limited only by the concepts of limitation that we hold in our minds. These concepts of limitation are not true; furthermore, because they’re not really true, they can easily be released or discharged. Lester’s experience made him understand that not only could he practice this technique himself, he could teach others how to do it as well. As a result, he began working with people, both in small groups and individually.

Lester believed strongly that personal growth was not dependant on any external source, including a teacher, and he did not want to be anyone’s guru. But, because of how elevated people felt around him, despite his protestations and attempts to avoid it happening, many of Lester’s students insisted on seeing him as a guru. So, in 1973, Lester realized that his teachings needed to be formalized into a system that he could allow others to teach—leaving him out of the equation. A way to transform his powerful techniques for personal growth into a do-it-yourself system was devised, which is now called the Sedona Method: the topic of this book.