Metaphysical Review

Sedona Method

In the early 1950’s engineer and businessman Lester Levenson was struck down by a heart attack, among many other health issues. Given only a short time to live Lester realized he had never invested time in spiritual development, instead of looking to external sources for answers he looked inside himself and found an innate ability to release emotion by asking himself a series of simple questions repeatedly. Lester wondered how far he could take this, after three months he entered a state of profound peace, his heath cleared up and he went on to live another 42 years.

A good friend of mine who was going on a two week Sedona method retreat introduced me to the technique. At the time I found it difficult to connect with and it wasn’t until a long time later I revisited it, other friends of mine, mostly male, said they also found it hard to identify with. I think this happens because Sedona method can be a little bit too verbose for some masculine minds, we mostly prefer visual or physical modalities, asking and then having to answer questions can seem tiresome.

I started again with Hale Dwoskin’s (pictured) The Sedona Method DVD, Dale worked closely with Levenson for nearly 30 years. Hale can charitably be described as a little shrill, but with some persistence his presenting style can become less distracting, with the Sedona book I found some frustration in the technique itself feeling buried under page upon page of recommendations and stories, but they do serve a purpose, which is to illustrate that it really can be that simple to release emotions. The DVD was more to my taste because it compressed a lot of the bulk out and to my mind left more important points easier to pick up. One point that really hit home with me was that if you are trying to solve an issue then you are planning to have the problem again, that can be a good root to remove a whole issue from.

I’ve found the best way to use the method for myself is to ask the questions and see how my awareness changes, usually without answering. The basic method goes as folows: Notice the feeling you want to release and ask yourself the following questions.

1. Could I welcome this feeling to be here as best I could?
2. Could I let go of this? (Questioning if you are capable of letting go.)
3. Would I let go of this? (Questioning if you are willing to let go.)
4. When will I let go? (An invitation to let go now.)

Overly procedural oriented minds such as mine and a lot of other people’s seem to get hung up on answering the questions, it took a couple of days doing this to get over that. I’ve achieved some useful results in that time but nothing like a handful of people seem to be able to get almost instantly, so I believe it can be a very useful technique and well worth investigating to see if you get results from it.