Workbook Sedona Training Associates 60 Tortilla Drive • Sedona, AZ 86336 928.282.3522 • 888.282.5656 [email protected] • www.sedona.com Beyond Letting Go The publisher and author of this material make no medical claims for its use. This material is not in- tended to treat, diagnose, advise about, or cure any illness. If you need medical attention, please consult with your medical practitioner. The Sedona Method® is a trademarked process. Copyright © 2009 by Hale Dwoskin. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission of the publisher. Publisher: Sedona Press 60 Tortilla Dr. Sedona, AZ 86336 Phone (928) 282-3522 Fax (928) 203-0602 e-mail: [email protected] 2 ©2010 by Sedona Training Associates Beyond Letting Go Table Of Contents You already are what you are seeking .............................................................4 Lester Levenson called the main process we will be exploring The 5th Way ...4 The first four ways of letting go .......................................................................4 Explanation of the “I” Diagram ........................................................................7 A direct looking through the illusion of separation with The 5th Way ..........12 Remember, it is not about the words ............................................................12 You are already awareness ............................................................................13 The false reference point of me ....................................................................13 What is actually here now? ...........................................................................15 Are you? ........................................................................................................15 Integrating the basic Method ........................................................................17 Working with the wants ................................................................................17 Truth is that which never changes .................................................................18 You are already beyond all the spinning........................................................19 Challenging false identities ............................................................................20 Action as the functioning of the One ............................................................20 There are no boundaries ...............................................................................21 Is that attached to anything or anyone? .......................................................21 Rest ................................................................................................................21 Partner Work .................................................................................................23 Enough ..................................................................................................................23 Believe it’s personal ..............................................................................................24 Pretending to be the doer .....................................................................................24 Enlightenment belief .............................................................................................24 Maintaining suffering ............................................................................................25 Exist in time ...........................................................................................................25 Body-mind belief ...................................................................................................25 Seeking/striving ....................................................................................................26 Always been ..........................................................................................................26 World Peace Begins Within ...........................................................................29 Share this Message with People Who Are Open to It ..................................32 3 ©2010 by Sedona Training Associates Beyond Letting Go You already are what you are seeking Remember, right here, right now, there is already happiness, peace and joy—not as some future attainment, experience or event, but right here, right now. What you are is this perfect presence that is already seeing through those eyes, hearing through those ears, feeling through that body, all being translated and interpreted through the inner sounds you hear—called thoughts—that appear or arise in “your” head. All of this is happening here and now…without “your” help. In fact, all attempts to help or hinder this natural and effortless happening are merely more sounds or thoughts. Our wanting to change what is prevents us from experiencing what is actually already here now. You already are Enlightenment. You can and will not get what you are from this or any other course. “You are already whole complete and perfect as you are.” - Lester Levenson Lester Levenson called the main process we will be exploring The 5th Way Lester Levenson believed that the end of the search was the answering of the question “What am I?” The 5th Way of releasing is dedicated to helping you discover that you already are the answer to that question. Long after we coined the term The 5th Way for the exploration that this course is about, Annrika James pointed out to me that Lester Levenson had been referring to this work as the fifth way. She found evidence of this on the very last page of the book called The Verities by Lester Levenson. He had been using this term since at least the 1960s, before there even was a Sedona Method. He used it to describe what he felt was the highest path of the yogas of the East. This fifth way he was referring to in his book is called Jnana Yoga or Wisdom Yoga. Before we get into exploring The 5th Way let’s explore the other four ways of letting go. The first four ways of letting go • Deciding to drop it • Welcoming or allowing the emotion • Diving into the core of the emotion • Holistic releasing There are the four basic ways besides The 5th Way to approach the process of releasing and all lead to the same result: liberating your natural ability to let go of any unwanted emotion on the spot and allow- ing some of the suppressed energy in your subconscious to dissipate. All these ways of letting go when 4 ©2010 by Sedona Training Associates Beyond Letting Go taken to completion reveal that which we already are right now. The first way is by choosing to let go of the unwanted feeling. The second way is to welcome the feeling—to allow the emotion just to be. The third way is to dive into the core of the emotion. The fourth way is by holistically embracing both sides of any issue or belief. The 5th Way of releasing will be described later in this manual. Letting go is natural. Babies do it and so do you. It is happening all the time without our even re- alizing it. Where are all the thoughts and feelings you had yesterday? Unless you call them back into consciousness now, they are gone. Deciding to Drop It Let me explain by asking you to participate in a simple release. Pick up a pen, a pencil, or some small object that you would be willing to drop without giving it a second thought. Now, hold the ob- ject in front of you and really grip it tightly. Pretend this is one of your limiting feelings and that your hand represents your gut or your consciousness. If you held the object long enough, this would start to feel uncomfortable yet familiar. Now, open your hand and roll the object around in it. Notice that you are the one holding on to it; it is not attached to your hand. The same is true with your feelings. Your feelings are as attached to you as this object is attached to your hand. We hold on to our feelings and forget that we are holding on to them. It’s even in our language. When we feel angry or sad, we don’t usually say, “I feel angry,” or “I feel sad.” We say, “I am angry,” or “I am sad.” Without realizing it, we are misidentifying that we are the feeling. Often, we believe a feeling is holding on to us. This is not true… we are always able to let go and just don’t know it. Now, let the object go. What happened? You let go of the object, and it dropped to the floor. Was that hard? Of course not. That’s what we mean when we say, “Let go” or “release.’” You can do the same thing with any emotion: choose to let it go. Welcoming or Allowing the Emotion Sticking with this same analogy: If you walked around with your hand open, wouldn’t it be very difficult to hold on to the pen or other object you’re holding? Likewise, when you allow or welcome a feeling, you are opening your consciousness, and this enables the feeling to drop away all by itself like clouds passing in the sky or smoke passing up an open chimney flue. It is as though you are removing the lid from a pressure cooker. Diving into the Core of the Emotion Now, if you took the same object—a pencil, pen, or pebble—and magnified it large enough, it would appear more and more like empty space. You would be looking into the gaps between the molecules and atoms. When you dive into the very core of a feeling, you will observe a comparable phenomenon: Nothing is really there. As you master the process of releasing, you will discover that even your deepest feelings are just on the surface. At the core you are empty, silent, and at peace, not in the pain and darkness that most of us would assume. In fact, even our most extreme feelings have only as much substance as a soap bubble. And you know what happens when you poke your fin- ger into a soap bubble. It pops. That’s exactly what happens when you dive into the core of a feeling. 5 ©2010 by Sedona Training Associates Beyond Letting Go Holistic Releasing Lastly, as you focus on the object in your hand you will notice that it is defined by opposites. In other words the reason you can perceive the object is because of the space around it. Without space there can be no contents. When it comes to emotionally-based problems and feelings, they are defined or held together by opposites as well. We have good and bad, right and wrong, happy and sad, and love and hate to just name a few. When you welcome both sides of any of these pairs, as opposed to clinging to one and resisting the other, you find that they both dissolve leaving you with the empty space that allows for all experiencing. We call this fourth way of releasing Holistic Releasing. Please keep these four analogies in mind as we go through the releasing process together. Notes 6 ©2010 by Sedona Training Associates Beyond Letting Go 7 ©2010 by Sedona Training Associates Beyond Letting Go Explanation of the “I” Diagram Our entire sense of limitation stems from identification with the thought “I” or “me.” When we were born, we came in with certain tendencies. However, these tendencies did not lock in and bear the sting of personal suffering until we believed we were the “me” or “I” to which everyone we knew kept referring. In truth, we start out and never leave the stateless state of perfection that contains unlimited potential, that is beyond all imagined limitations, that’s in the background even right now. Any suffering we appear to go through and all the limitations we appear to be bound by, are only an appearance in, or on that which we are. With the Method, we uncover the intuitive knowingness or space, like awareness that is just behind our mind, which is just behind our feelings, which is just behind our troubles in life. You’ve probably al- ready noticed there is an increasing awareness of this unlimited potential as you explore the truth of who or what you are. The other thing to notice about the “I” Diagram is something quite obvious that most people miss. If you look at the page it is printed on you’ll see that, although there’s some writing on the page, too, it’s mostly white space. Another way to look at our unlimited potential is how we look at the white space of this page: most of it is already shining through, uncovered. That’s also true in our lives. The unlimited po- tential that you are is always shining in plain view. As you use the Method, this will become more obvious. An analogy for what we’re doing with the Method is taking an eraser to the remaining limitation that’s still on the page (thoughts, feelings, wants) and gradually eroding it or taking it away. That’s letting go. Now, notice the letter “I” at the top of the page. It represents our limited sense of who we are: “I,” Hale or “I,” your name. If we didn’t believe it was real, and therefore believe in the programs that appear to be attached to it, it would dissolve right back into the unlimited potential. In fact, limitation often does dissolve throughout the day. But it would not keep coming back and hooking us without our belief in our programmed thoughts, feelings, and wants. Let us move down the chart now, item by item, to see where each fits in. As you can see, the deepest want is the desire to be separate. Wanting to be separate comes from the sense of being an individual apart from the presence of awareness. Remember, you can directly release on this want anytime you choose. The other three wants, which are right below wanting separation on the diagram, are wanting to sur- vive as a body (a.k.a. wanting security), wanting approval, and wanting to control. Wanting security is based on the assumption that we are the limited bodies we appear to inhabit. Even if you don’t have any meta- physical inclinations, I am sure you at least have a sense that there’s more to life than the obvious. That’s probably part of what attracted you to this course in the beginning. As Lester Levenson used to say “The body is the least of us, not the most of us.” As you release, you’ll discover that maybe, just maybe, the body isn’t all you are. By letting go of your sense of wanting security or survival, you’ll begin to feel safer. The second deepest program is the sense of wanting survival. Underneath that on the chart is the sense of wanting approval. We believe that if everyone loves us, likes us, and cares about us, we’ll be safe and able to survive. We believe that somehow we need to get love and approval from outside of our- selves. This is not true; and you have probably already discovered this for yourself. You will notice that in letting go of wanting love or approval, you feel more loving, approved of, and approving. You will discover that you already are the love that you had been seeking outside of yourself. 8 ©2010 by Sedona Training Associates Beyond Letting Go Right underneath wanting approval on the chart is the sense of wanting to control. Sometimes people don’t approve of us in exactly the right way. They don’t give us the right gift, the right compli- ment, or they’re not being nice enough to us. You get the picture. Then, we want to control them to get their approval in the way that we’d prefer. Sometimes we give up on getting approval from a particular person, or in a particular situation, or we sense an apparent threat that has nothing to do with others or with love. In cases such as these, we want to control directly—instead of for the sake of approval—in order to be safe or survive as a body. That’s what the arrow connecting wanting to control with wanting to survive as a body represents. All four wants culminate in the nine emotional states discussed in our basic program: apathy, grief, fear, lust, anger, pride, and the limited parts of courageousness, acceptance, and peace. That’s why AGFLAP-CAP appears underneath wanting to control on the diagram. The feelings are what we use to try to get approval, control, security, and oneness. Our feelings also motivate our thoughts. In The Sedona Method, we’ve been focusing more on what we feel, than on what we think. We do this because it is nearly impossible to make changes in your life solely by thinking positive thoughts. If you’ve ever tried, you know it can be very difficult unless you deal with any apathy, grief, fear, lust, anger, and pride you may be feeling, and the underlying wants. What you’ve probably already noticed, however, is that your thinking naturally changes to the positive as you start to release on any topic, feeling, or want. You don’t have to try to think positively. It just happens of its own accord. You don’t have to effort at it. You don’t have to try to do something. It is plain to see that, to a degree, your thinking does color your perception of the world; and, if you’re willing to stretch a little bit, you might even see that it colors what actually happens in your life. Here is a concrete example from sales. If you’re a salesperson and have a positive attitude—you feel good about yourself and good about your product—it’s easier to sell your product. Whereas if you’ve had a bad day, experienced a series of rejections, or it’s been a long time since you made a sale, it is difficult to make sales, because you feel progressively less positive. That is the time to re- lease. As a result, your thinking will be increasingly positive—and so will your world. Have you noticed that the emphasis in this program, unlike the emphasis of most self improve- ment programs, has nothing to do with getting you to modify your behavior? That’s because people naturally move in a positive direction through releasing. Lasting change, positive change, real change comes from the inside out, not from trying to impose changes from the outside. Look to your past experiences to verify this point. For instance, before you had the tools of the Method, you may have been able to quit smoking temporarily, only to have the habit reassert itself. Or perhaps you replaced smoking with overeating. Thus, in suppressing your urge, you possibly gained weight. The reason this happens is that when you push down a tendency in one spot, it usually pops up somewhere else. That is what most people and organizations do when they try to change from the outside in. It is different when you fully release a tendency. When you change from the inside out, the changes are lasting and they’re positive. Every change you make using the Method uncovers more of the unlimited potential of who you are. We encourage you to ponder the “I” Diagram. Work with it. Take it for checking. Don’t believe it: prove it for yourself. Please note: The 5th Way may contradict the last few paragraphs of this explanation. You may discover throughout this course that you are not your thoughts or feelings and that they are merely appearing in or on the presence of awareness that you are. In fact you may even discover that what we call our world is merely an appearance in or on this knowing presence and has no independent nature, nor is there anyone directing the show. 9 ©2010 by Sedona Training Associates Beyond Letting Go Notes 10 ©2010 by Sedona Training Associates