Sedona Yourself

jakelodwick:

It’s so simple and useful, yet totally unconventional, so I’m not surprised The Sedona Method isn’t used by everyone. Someone taught it to me a few years ago in Mill Valley and I use it several times a week, often on myself but sometimes on someone else. It’s a technique for dismissing troublesome internal states, like when you can’t think clearly because you’re ‘obsessed’ with some neurotic little need. It only takes a few seconds, and there are books and seminars on it but the essence is this simple exchange:

“Do you feel a desire for control, security, approval, or oneness?”
“Yeah, approval.”
“Can you welcome that feeling?”
“Ok…”
“Could you let go of it?”
“Sure.”
“When?”
“Now.”

These steps cause you to embrace desires you may have been evading; to let them ‘pass through’ you so you can be free of them. It may sound like a form of escaping your emotions, but it’s quite the opposite. It’s allowing the emotions to ravage you for a few seconds, then to dismiss them.

The strange thing is, if you’re in an anxious or neurotic state, it can almost always be identified as a desire for one of those four things. The last one, “oneness”, could be either aloneness or togetherness, ie, to be ‘one with myself, distinct from others’ or to be ‘one with a larger group’. It’s about boundaries.

There is much more to read about The Sedona Method and I’m just floating this out there for anyone who feels out-of-control anxiety sometimes. I wish more people knew this and used it; it’s simple, it works, and it’s ‘no strings attached’.

Thanks for sharing this!