As a Life Coach I am always intrigued by any tools and techniques that may help me with clients. I don’t think I can ever have too much training and I’m happy to consider anything that people rave over that doesn’t involve naked dancing round log fires and howling at the moon.
I’ve done additional training in hypnotherapy, NLP, Time Line Therapy and was even booked on an EFT course until they shut it down blaming it on the recession. Couldn’t they have tapped the recession away?
Probably THE training I would most like to do the most if money were no issue would be The Sedona Method. It’s one training, a bit like NLP, that I’ve never heard a bad word against and a lot of people whom I respect, speak highly of it.
Then as if my magic, Craig pops into my life care of Twitter and Craig is a Sedona Method guy. So I thought why not ask Craig to write a guest post about sad subject? So I did, he agreed and this is the result.
What Is The Sedona Method?
Do you remember the last time you were down-spirited, depressed, or just plain pissed off and some bright, chippery person gave you that age-old advice
“Think positively!” (*Tim: I just want to add an important note about this at the end)
And do you remember that feeling you experienced right after where you wanted to “positively” rip one of their legs off and beat them into submission with it? OK, well maybe you just wanted to give them a piece of your mind, but the suggestion to think positively rubbed you the wrong way, didn’t it?
That’s because positive thinking by itself simply doesn’t work! Plastering a smiley face all over a genuinely negative mood or attitude is agonizingly torturous. It’s like trying to tie your brain into a sheep shank knot.
“I want to be pissed off right now, dammit!”
That’s what’s on your mind when you’re in the dumps about something. But we resist that feeling. What we typically do is play the classic “angel on one shoulder, devil on the other” game. One part of you wants to lash out, the other is telling you that it wouldn’t be prudent to do that. It’s a back-and-forth dance performed in the ballroom of emotional suppression.
And it hurts!
But the good news is that you don’t have to put yourself through that. There are some wonderful things that you may or may not know about yourself, and you can take advantage of them in any moment to ensure that self-imposed torture is no longer a standard procedure when you experience unwanted emotions.
Here are some great facts about you!
- You are not your thoughts, feelings, emotions, or limiting beliefs.
- You have the built-in ability to let go of any thought, feeling, emotion, or limiting belief in any moment.
- Underneath all of your thoughts, feelings, emotions, and limiting beliefs, your default nature is happiness. In other words, at the core you are happy! (even if you don’t believe that)
Now, you may be thinking to yourself, “Yeah right, Craig. You don’t know about MY problems! They’re really SPECIAL!”
But the fact is that there are no exceptions to those three wonderful rules listed above. But I don’t want you to take my word for it. In a moment, I’ll give you a way to discover and experience that for yourself today.
Bad habits
Even though that would make a great name for a heavy metal band comprised of renegade nuns, I’m not talking about that. What I’m about to do is show you some of the bad tendencies we all adopt somewhere along the way in our lives that reinforce false beliefs about the emotional content we experience.
When we experience unwanted thoughts, feelings, emotions, and limiting beliefs in life, here’s a bit of what we do in reaction to them (in no particular order):
- Suppression
- Expression
- Over-analysis
- Exaggeration
- Story-telling
- Identification
- Resistance
- Manipulation
There’s more, but listing everything really isn’t necessary. The point is that when we experience emotional content that we don’t like, we expend an awful lot of effort doing things that don’t really help us at all. But the common thread that ties all of these bad habits together is this
We hold on to the stuff we don’t want!
In order to do any of the things I mentioned, you must actually hold on to the unwanted thoughts, feelings, emotions, and limiting beliefs that you’re striving to get rid of. But that’s all entirely unnecessary
The simple solution
There really is an easy way out of all of the nonsense. And that is to simply let go. But unfortunately, despite the simplicity in letting go, the vast majority of human beings inhabiting this planet choose not to. Skeptical about that? Just have a look around, that should about clear it up.
For some strange reason, we’ve become conditioned to hold on. It’s a cultural norm in most places. Maybe it’s because letting go is too easy. Lord knows the human mind has an everlasting love affair with unnecessary complexity. Or maybe it’s because we’re afraid that life will be too boring if we don’t create trouble for ourselves. Who knows? Who cares!
The good news is that there exists a very simple technique for you to use in order to end the struggle and suffering. Because you’re tired of dragging yourself through emotional briar patches, right?
The Sedona Method
Remember when I told you that happiness is your default nature and you almost threw your computer monitor against the wall while yelling expletives? Well, the Sedona Method is the remarkable technique that you can use to experience that natural happiness for yourself. In short, the Sedona Method reconnects you with your innate ability to let go of the crap you don’t want and be happy a heck of a lot more often.
Here’s a very basic explanation of how it works:
At the core, you’re happy and empowered. But there is an accumulation of negative emotional content piled on top that is obscuring your access to it. The typical “just be positive” approach has you forcibly paint fake positivity on top of the negativity (slathering a smiley face over it). But guess what? The negativity is still there gnawing away at you and sabotaging your life by way of your subconscious.
With the Sedona Method, you remove the layers of negative emotional content by bringing them up into your conscious mind and then letting go of them. As you remove more and more, you reveal your default nature: happiness/freedom/peace/whatever you want to call it.
And here’s a bonus: you can use the Sedona Method to remove any unwanted emotional content in any moment. How’s that for handy?
But that’s not where the fun ends. The beauty of this technique is that you can actually use it to improve any and every area of your life. It’s like life enhancement…or augmentation…or something like that.
One warning though, if you decide to use the Sedona Method along with NLP, you may end up completely unstoppable! Beware of the uncanny potential at your disposal! You’re also likely to laugh a lot more and smile for long periods of time for no apparent reason.
About the author: Craig Wildenradt helps people destroy limitation with the Sedona Method. He founded the BloomVerse community and writes about the Sedona Method on his blog Inward Bloom.
* I want to reiterate what Craig said there. Many people confuse optimistic thinking with positive thinking. The latter has never been proven to achieve a fat lot, whereas the former has been proven to ward of depression , improve health and lengthen life! Not bad for starters.
We talk about this in How To Be Rich and Happy amazingly enough! Grab the free no -opt in download and check out the first 3 chapters. Also if you like this blog, you’ll like the Rich and Happy blog, check out my latest post ‘What Is Money Worth To You?’
Life Coaching Offer: I have no filled the 5 places I offered for coaching prior to the end of the year. I am working on something else that I like to call Power Coaching and I’ll let you have more details when I have them. Stay tuned.
Tim Brownson is a Certified Life Coach and has been unsticking people and helping them reach their true potential since 2005. If you would like to know how he can help you
Sounds interesting, thanks for the guest post, Craig. I will check out the ebook and am passing on this link to some friends I think might be interested, too.
Argh, Tim! It kills me that you wrote “Probably THE training I would most like to do the most if money were no issue.” Didn’t you author a book called “How to be Rich and Happy?” “Whatever you want, whenever you want it?” I find this a bit ironic.
Oh well …
@ Tracy – Cheers!
@ Andrea – You know something, as I typed that I wondered who would be the first person to make such a comment.
You maybe find it ironic because you haven’t read the book that I CO-authored and our explanation of what we mean by Rich and Happy.
I’ve heard a lot of similar comments and guess what? They ALWAYS come from people that haven’t read the book or really understand what we’re talking about.
A lot of the material (Johns stuff obviously) was new to me until relatively recently. Historically I’ve been fairly reckless with money, mainly because I always had a very good income working in sales.
The last 12 months or so we’ve had to deal with $15k worth of medical and dental bills and some other stuff that I wont go into here that have hurt us big time.
I am adopting the stuff in the book into my life NOW. Am I rich? No not as most people would think of that, although 95% of my time I am doing exactly what I want to do.
So yeh it’s ironic and the irony is not lost on me to the point where I resisted the title of the book for a long time, but it’s probably no more ironic than somebody who is an empowered soul deciding that they needed to point it out with little or no facts of the matter.
Maybe I should hire you at the highly affordable $350 an hour to teach me how to manifest money?
@Tracy
You’re welcome! And thank you for spreading the word!
I can understand the appeal of the Sedona Method, but personally, I find it to be simplistic. And I don’t mean simple, I mean simplistic. I find the idea of just letting go of negative emotions to be preposterous. Emotions are triggered by mental associations and our belief system. You don’t just let them go.
Sure, you can diminish their intensity for a while by apparently letting go, but unless you change your automatic thinking patterns, those negative emotions are mostly there to stay.
Eduard
Just a quick note to say a huge thanks to Craig for a great post and I hope you have all found it helpful.
@ Eduard – I get where you are coming from, but I’m not sure I agree. Having said that, I’m not sure I disagree, just that I would have said curing phobias in 20 minutes was preposterous 5 years ago.
It has a lot to do with the clients belief system and if they believe in a process it can work.
There is a huge body of, admittedly anecdotal work with The Sedona Method and it isn’t easy to dismiss that.
Thanks for offering a counter point.
@Eduard
I understand your perspective, and it’s very common among people who haven’t yet used the Sedona Method and are skeptical. However, there may be some confusion in regard to what I’ve said here and what can be done with the Sedona Method. Allow me to explain a couple of things.
1) Nowhere am I claiming that you will never have feelings or emotions ever again. Feelings and emotions are of course part of the human condition. They are our responses to interaction with our world. And yes, you are correct that belief systems and subconscious habit patterns influence most of our emotional responses. However, this is about dealing with those feelings and emotions. And you can absolutely let go of them in the moment—completely.
Having been severely depressed for several years and having visited a psychologist for months at one point to try and deal with it (with absolutely zero success), I can assure you firsthand that I know exactly what it’s like to believe that feelings and emotions are meaningful, profound, and hugely important. I used to believe that with such devotion, that at one point in my life it took every ounce of my energy just to get out of bed and get dressed in the morning.
But that’s a lie. Feelings and emotions are not meaningful, significant or important. They’re just feelings and emotions. And they are ridiculously easy to let go of if you simply make the choice to.
But it’s a choice.
That’s how I completely eliminated my depression in 2 weeks with the Sedona Method. And it’s never come back. Years of depression, gone in 2 weeks. No medications, no psychologists. And I’ve been helping people all over the world incorporate this Method in every area of life with great success. In fact, I’ve never had a single client bring up a feeling that couldn’t be let go of within minutes—including one who had held on to a particular feeling for 40 years.
2) The Sedona Method is not only used to let go of feelings in the moment. It’s used to undo the belief systems, mental programming, and subconscious habit patterns that cause you all the trouble in the first place. I touch on this in the “Digging Deeper” section of my eBook. It’s not about making you believe something, it’s about letting go of beliefs. It’s not about programming the mind, it’s about getting rid of programming.
When I introduce the Sedona Method, I start with the basics. But it goes much deeper to address the root causes of all suffering and feelings of limitation. However, it never gets any more difficult. It’s very simple, which is why most of the world misses it.
Thanks for your response.
Hey – I just wanted to say thanks for this posting! Exactly what I needed this morning, have had some limiting beliefs being frustratingly obvious and making me procrastinate the last few days, wasn’t sure what to do about it though. I’ve used EFT to mediocre to good effect before – this was so much… simpler/less work, made a lot of sense and a really instant feeling of relief.
After the free recording being so instantly helpful, i thought it would be worth it to check out the Money Mastery course – and thanks for the discount code! Pushed it from a ‘i must seriously consider this (and probably forget)’ to a ‘absolutely!’ purchase. (I’m working on upping my limits for ‘absolutely’ things – if they’re going to be helpful, $15 shouldn’t be a big deal)
Anyway, thanks! I love your blog and frequently your posts make my day better, I just don’t often comment – this one was so directly relevant I just had to though. :)
Hey guys,
Craig, thanks for the detailed explanation and the personal story. I appreciate the effort and the openness.
I realize up to a point how the Sedona method can help. Putting it in my terms, it means you don’t feed your negative emotions with negative thoughts and more negative emotions, but instead just let them flow. It makes sense. Being a skeptic, I’m just not sure this is enough for people in general to make a lasting change in emotional reactions. I believe in consciously putting something in their place.
Got me curious though. So I’ll look into it.
Eduard
@ Craig – Thanks for your in-depth response bud!
@ Beth- Good to see you comment and I’m glad Craigs stuff has helped. Thanks a lot for the feedback!
Interesting post Craig.
Although we were all born happy it seems like to come out of the womb with boxing gloves on. All people are impressed with images of people fighting off their thoughts and feelings, and this resistance develops into the holding syndrome that you speak of.
I have heard of the Sedona Method and do agree with its core ideals of embracing and letting go. Let go and grow ;)
@ Ryan – Do you think so? I’m not so sure. I think we come out all peaceful and serene and we’re taught to put the gloves on in the first few months.
Nicely put though and I very much agree in principle.
Underneath all of your thoughts, feelings, emotions, and limiting beliefs, your default nature is happiness. In other words, at the core you are happy! (even if you don’t believe that)
I stopped reading right there. This is false. Some people may be that way, but others are naturally anxious at their core, instead. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080827100818.htm
Other people might be angry at their core, and yes others still might be happy. We need more studies to confirm that. What is clear, however, is that genetics can play a large role in what we’re predisposed towards feeling, at our core.
@ Dms – The fact you stopped reading shows you had already made you find up.
The article you link to says that genes MAY lead to a PREDISPOSITION. It then goes on to suggest that environmental circumstances can then trigger that predisposition.
What about people that don’t have that gene, do they never get depressed? If they do, then isn’t it worth investigating other avenues for them that doesn’t involve medication.
What about Craigs own story, isn’t that worth consideration?
The results aren’t conclusive or even close to conclusive. It is a study done with a small amount of people in a very new field of expertise.
I have no idea if it’s right and it’s sure worth further investigation, but it’s a long way off from taking us to the point of believing nothing else if worth looking at.
Just my opinion and I appreciate you going to the trouble of linking to the article. Thanks.
@DMS
It’s unfortunate that you stopped reading for a couple of reasons.
1) You missed the part where I said:
“But I don’t want you to take my word for it. In a moment, I’ll give you a way to discover and experience that for yourself today.”
2) You stopped reading before you understood the context of the statement you quoted. The article you linked to says that a study has found certain people are genetically predisposed to anxiety disorders. Anxiety disorders are EMOTIONAL states. You are NOT your emotions. You are NOT thoughts, and you are NOT feelings. All of those things ARISE WITHIN what you are.
What you are (your default state) is BEYOND thoughts, feelings and emotions. When you let go of thoughts, feelings and emotions that temporarily cover that over, you find that at the core you are happy and peaceful. Since launching BloomVerse in June, I’ve personally corresponded with well over 150 people, several of them are clients, and I have yet to find an exception. That is far beyond what is required in order to be considered statistically significant.
So in all actuality, the fact that certain people are genetically predisposed to certain emotional states has no bearing on what I speak about in this article or in my eBook (which I highly recommend reading for more clarification). Because the Sedona Method is about letting go of emotions and getting beyond mental tendencies.
I hope you reconsider and choose to finish reading. Thanks for the comment.
Hey Tim,
Sorry, I hadn’t subscribed to your comments, so I didn’t read your reply until a Google alert for my name led me back to your blog!
You are completely correct – I did not read your book or your explanation of what you mean by “rich”. I’m a casual, very occasional reader of your blog and I took your book title literally. But you know what? Plenty of people stop by and casually peruse a site, without reading anything in great detail.
I certainly didn’t know you expected visitors to read your book and know your personal meaning of “rich” before commenting (and that you’d give me a hard time over it, too!). My mistake.
I understand and appreciate your resistance to the book title. I waited until my business was in multiple six figures before I claimed to know anything about manifesting money, and even then I only did so with great trepidation.
Blessings,
Andrea
@ Andrea – You may have a point, but most people haven’t seen fit to make negative and snide comments without knowing what the book is about.
You did and that’s a big difference.
Nicely slipped in about your multi-six figure income btw, I’m in awe ;-)
Wow, Tim! Upon casual perusal of your blog, you struck me as a pretty irreverant person … I had no idea a comment I would categorize as “tongue-in-cheek” at best would create such a reaction.
I am very sorry if my remarks pushed your buttons a bit, and I rest assured that, since your blog is called the Discomfort Zone, you appreciate the value of having our buttons pushed as much as I do!
Peace and blessings,
Andrea
P.S. I would have loved to comment on your post mentioning my comment, but I think you closed the comments? Kudos to you for publicizing your income, by the way! I wish more people talked frankly about money.