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Please be an active participant in the releasing process. The more you put into it, the more you will get out of it. But set aside any unpleasant notions you have about work. Many people believe in the adage “no pain, no gain.” As you practice letting go, I’m sure you’ll discover that this simply doesn’t have to be true. Rather than working with this process, allow yourself to engage in it as a game of exploration of everything that is truly possible for you. Yes, personal growth and healing—becoming whole—can be playful and fun.
Have the courage to make wonderful changes for the better in your life. Give yourself the happiness, success, and well-being you deserve. I want you to have it, and this process was developed to help you get it. As you allow the ease, simplicity, and amazing power of the Sedona Method to reveal itself to you in the pages of this book and through your personal explorations, you’ll be gaining a tool that will be with you from now on. For nearly 30 years, people just like you have been using this incredible technique to radically improve every aspect of their lives.
Chapter 3 Your Roadmap to Emotional Freedom (#ulink_5c06253d-1dea-50e2-89f4-bb91c4c9a8a4)
Please read this chapter with an open heart and mind. It is designed to help you explore and release through the nine basic emotional states that everyone experiences throughout the day: apathy, grief, fear, lust, anger, pride, courage, acceptance, and peace. Not only will this information help you to gain greater clarity about your emotions, and those of others, it will also aid you in incorporating the process of conscious releasing into your life.
Freedom/Imperturbability
Freedom, or imperturbability, is the ultimate goal of the Sedona Method—the freedom to choose to have, be, or do or to not have, be, or do anything and everything. This is the natural state of being when we cannot be disturbed any longer by what happens in our lives. Your freedom is already here and now, resting just beneath the surface of your emotions, and, as you master releasing, you’ll eventually uncover it within. Then nothing and no one can perturb you. Although you’ll be aware of everything that’s happening, and you’ll enjoy it, you won’t be attached to, or bothered by, any particular outcomes. You will remain at rest, at peace.
Right now you may be wondering, “I don’t know if I want to let go of all my emotions. They give color to life. They make me feel alive.” I assure you that releasing in no way leads to emotional deadness. The exact opposite is true. Because we typically keep so much suppressed, we don’t really let ourselves feel enough. That numbness cuts us off from the natural goodness and richness of life even more than it cuts us off from the so-called negative emotions. Once you understand that you can let your emotions go, and you start letting them go, you’ll be able to feel everything to a greater degree and in a very positive way. You will rest safely in the knowledge that no feeling has power over you unless you choose to allow it.
Uncover Your Intuition
Another reason many people are hesitant when they begin letting go of feelings is the belief that feelings give them important information and intuition. In my experience, the opposite is true. Although limiting feelings may seem to arise from the same place below conscious awareness as intuition does, intuition is actually the natural knowing of our true nature that gets obstructed by emotions. When we release, we uncover intuition.
Lester Levenson used to say, “Intuition is only right 100 percent of the time.” Until you can tell the difference between your intuition and your emotional reactions, you may find this hard to accept. So, use the process of letting go to distinguish more easily between them. Simply release in the moment and pay attention. You’ll soon discover that as you let go of a limiting feeling, it diminishes or disappears, whereas intuition simply gets clearer and quieter when you release. You cannot release intuition. In fact, the more you release, the more intuitive you’ll be—without even needing to let go in the moment.
The Nine Emotional States
Inherent in all of us are nine emotional states: apathy, grief, fear, lust, anger, pride, courageousness, acceptance, and peace. These emotional states are listed on a two-page graph at the end of this chapter (see page 106). These fall along a gradient scale of energy and action. In apathy, we have almost no energy available to us and take little or no external action. We have more energy and take more external action when we move up to grief. Each successive emotion in this scale, all the way up to peace, has more energy and affords us a greater capability for outward action.
Here’s an analogy you may find useful. Imagine that your emotions are how you would experience an ocean of energy being channeled through a garden hose that represents your body and your mind. When you’re in apathy, the hose is almost totally crimped, letting very little energy through. In grief, it is a little more open. By the time you get to courageousness, it’s mostly open, so you can focus your energy on creating what you choose. In peace, there is no longer any constriction: you are one with the ocean. Among other things, if you look at your emotions this way, it can help you to stop judging yourself for those emotions you do or do not have. After all, emotions are just energy.
Please use the remainder of this chapter to help you identify which emotional state you’re experiencing in a given moment. Refer to the lists of words and phrases that describe each of the nine emotional states whenever you’re having a hard time getting in touch with what you’re feeling. For instance, if you find that you often give up, feel negative about yourself or others, or just have a hard time getting started, you’re probably experiencing a state of apathy. Perhaps you find yourself thinking, “I’m not like them. I’m right. I’m smarter than everyone,” or feeling smug or better than … Thoughts and feeling of this nature indicate that you’re probably experiencing a state of pride.
As you work through this material, you’ll probably find that you can relate more easily to certain emotions than others, and that you tend to spend more time experiencing certain emotional states than others. It is important, however, to work on releasing your emotions while experiencing all nine emotional states in order to attain true imperturbability and freedom in life.
The nine emotional categories are a way to make sense of the large part of our mind that is below our conscious awareness. This part of our mind is like a junk drawer—you know, the place where you throw everything that you don’t know what else to do with. Some of us have a junk room or a junk attic or garage that looks that way. Over time, we’ve tossed everything into this part of our minds that we didn’t know how to handle or that remains unresolved in any way. As I mentioned earlier, any feeling that’s not let go of gets stored in the subconscious mind, which is filled with buried emotional baggage and limiting thoughts and feelings. Because of the accumulation of unresolved issues that most of us develop, it is often hard to remember what we consider important and far too easy to remember what we wish we could forget.
I don’t know about you, but when I used to keep a junk drawer, I could get very frustrated trying to find anything there. Finally, I cleared it out and organized its contents. Using the Sedona Method, you can do this with the mind as well. As you spend time working through and releasing the nine emotional states, you’ll see that all the emotions relate to each other in a very organized way. This will help you to sift through your accumulation, discard what you no longer need, and uncover what is important to you. As you release, you’ll find your mind getting progressively sharper and your memory progressively clearer. Not only will you get clearer about what you’re feeling in the moment, you’ll also begin to understand other people’s emotions better.
“Understanding my feelings gives me a more peaceful life with better focus. I feel more in present time. The Sedona Method Course gave me what no other course ever did: a clear-cut system to support my goal of letting go of the barriers. I can also decide for myself where to go and how fast to develop.”
—B.V., Gent, Belgium
When you visualize the scale of energy and action, or look at the chart at the end of this chapter, imagine that courageousness, acceptance, and peace are buried under the other emotions. As you let go of your apathy, grief, fear, lust, anger, and pride, you’ll be uncovering these higher energy emotions, which are the real you that has always been here. Your whole life will turn around as a result. Everything will get easier for you.
Please be aware that the turn-around might not happen suddenly. It might be a gradual process. However, every time you work through the process of releasing, no matter where you start out—whether in apathy, grief, fear, lust, anger, or pride—you will find that you tend to gravitate naturally towards courageousness, acceptance, and peace. Recognizing your underlying strengths in this way can make a tremendous difference in how you feel and act and your whole outlook on life.
As you read through the nine sections that follow, permit yourself to be as open as you can to whatever feelings, thoughts, or pictures arise. Please pause any time you’d like to release whatever has come up. Definitely pause at the end of each section and spend some time releasing everything that is in your awareness.
Apathy
When we experience apathy, we feel as though desire is dead and it’s no use. We can’t do anything, and no one else can help. We feel dense and heavy and see no way out. We withdraw and play weak so we won’t get hurt. Our minds can get so noisy that we may go numb. The pictures we have are limited and destructive. We only see failure and how we can’t do it and how no one else can, either. We have little or no energy to act on our pictures and thoughts, because inwardly we are being pulled in so many conflicting directions.
Cheryl was retired and had been living in the same house for over 30 years, a period she’d spent collecting all kinds of objects and detritus. Her house, in fact, looked like the junk drawer I described a few pages ago in reference to the subconscious mind. By the time she decided to attend the Sedona Method Basic Course, she reported feeling quite heavy and apathetic about the condition of her environment. Interestingly, during the course she never directly released on the issues of her accumulation or her apathy. She merely listed procrastination as one of her goals. But when she arrived for the second weekend of the course—looking much more alive—she excitedly told the story of how, as she released throughout the week, she found herself cleaning and throwing things out. As her surroundings became less cluttered, her energy and self-confidence grew steadily higher. Cheryl said that she’d been trying to force herself to clean her home for many years, but to no avail. When she lightened up by releasing, she found herself doing just that.
Words and phrases that describe apathy:
• Bored
• Can’t win
• Careless
• Cold
• Cut-off
• Dead
• Defeated
• Depressed
• Demoralized
• Desolate
• Despair
• Discouraged
• Disillusioned
• Doomed
• Drained
• Failure
• Forgetful
• Futile
• Giving up
• Hardened
• Hopeless
• Humorless
• I can’t
• I don’t care
• I don’t count
• Inattentive
• Indecisive
• Indifferent
• Invisible
• It’s too late
• Lazy
• Let it wait
• Listless
• Loser
• Lost
• Negative
• Numb
• Overwhelmed
• Powerless
• Resigned
• Shock
• Spaced out
• Stoned
• Stuck
• Too tired
• Unfeeling
• Unfocused
• Useless
• Vague
• Wasted
• What’s the use?
• Why try?
• Worthless
Allow yourself to take a few moments and remember the last time that you or someone you know experienced apathy. Then give yourself a few moments just to be with whatever feeling this memory brings up in this moment.
Could you allow yourself to welcome this feeling as best you can?
Could you allow yourself to let it go?
Would you let it go?
When?
Repeat the releasing process a few more times until you feel as though you’re able to let go of some or all of what you are feeling. Then move on to the next emotion.
Grief
When we experience grief, we want someone else to help us because we feel that we can’t do anything on our own. We hope maybe someone else can. We cry out in pain for someone to do it for us. Our bodies have a little more energy than in apathy, but the energy is so contracted that it is painful. Our minds are a little less cluttered than in apathy, but they are still very noisy and opaque. We picture our pain and loss, often getting lost in these pictures. Our thoughts revolve around how much we hurt, what we have lost, and whether we can get anyone else to help us.
When Sarah’s aging mother had a stroke, she realized they had turned a corner. She felt extremely sad to be losing the relationship they used to enjoy when her mom was vital and capable. Because of how much help her mom now required, it was as though Sarah were taking on the role of being the parent while her mom was becoming the child, at least part of the time. Making a decision one day, Sarah dove into her grief and found a measure of peace. She understood that, as long as she used the Sedona Method, she could allow herself to grieve appropriately instead of being stuck in a constant state of sorrow. Although there was sadness, and the unknown, there was also a feeling of great relief and movement. Releasing made it easier to welcome the changes in her mother.
Words and phrases that describe grief:
• Abandoned
• Abused
• Accused
• Anguished
• Ashamed
• Betrayed
• Blue
• Cheated
• Despair
• Disappointed
• Distraught
