The Sedona Method: Your Key to Lasting Happiness, Success, Peace and Emotional Well-being. Hale Dwoskin

when something happens that causes an upset, we let it go. From my perspective, our relationship is very unusual in that it just keeps getting better and more loving.

      By the early ‘90’s, my relationship with Lester had grown to a place of such mutual trust and respect that he decided to turn over the copyrights of his teachings to me and asked me to continue his work. I maintained the organization that he’d established towards this end until two years after his death. Then, in 1996, I decided it would be much more effective for Amy and me to start a new company, Sedona Training Associates, to convey the Method to the world in an even bigger way.

      One of the things that impresses me most about the process of releasing is that it has resulted in a sense of unshakable peace, happiness, joy, and calmness that is always with me, no matter what’s going on around me. Not that there still aren’t ups and downs, but, as Lester used to say, this is really the “bottoms-up method.” I know from my own direct experience that what I used to think was a peak experience, or something really terrific, is now normal, and my peaks just keeping getting higher and higher. I have no idea how far “up” is, and I’m looking forward to finding out.

      The good news is that the good I have experienced using the Method isn’t unique. People around the world have been able to produce the same kind of phenomenal results in their lives. Years ago, a study of the effectiveness of the Sedona Method was done with an insurance company called Mutual of New York. A group of field underwriters were trained in the Method, and their sales results were compared with as close a control group as possible over six months. Over the study period, the group that learned the Method outperformed the control group by 33 percent. The study was also broken down into two three-month segments, and the results in the second three months were better than the first three months. The Method’s efficacy increased over time.

      How to Use this Book

      In this book, you’ll be learning the Sedona Method, a technique that you can use every day for the rest of your life. As you begin letting go of all the emotional baggage that has been getting in the way of you doing what you already know you should be doing, and want to be doing, you’ll find yourself becoming increasingly successful at everything you do. This book will not give you a whole new list of “shoulds” and “shouldn’ts,” or new behaviors you “must” try to implement in your life. We are already “shoulding” on ourselves enough. Instead, you’ll be learning how to change yourself from the inside out. When you change yourself from the inside out, the changes are permanent.

      In addition, as you experiment with this simple system in your life, you’ll keep discovering more ways that you can apply it. Whatever initial insights you gain from reading this book and working with the Method are only the tip of the iceberg. This single technique can affect every part of your life, because it is built on the fact that we are already unlimited beings. If you think back over your life, you’ve probably had glimpses of this unlimited state, which is natural to us all. You’ve probably also had glimpses or periods where you felt like you were in a state of flow, moments in which everything seemed to “click” and work effortlessly. Through using the Sedona Method, it is possible for you to experience the flow as part of your everyday life from now on.

      I don’t know what kind of a reader you are. You may be the type who participates fully in what you read, or you may just collect useful ideas that you can call on later as you choose. I recommend you participate fully and do all the exercises presented in this book. In my experience, the only way that you can effectively learn how to let go is by doing it yourself. Direct experience. Additional benefits will be gained from reading this book repeatedly, as that’s how you’ll learn and integrate the practical skill of tapping your natural ability to let go of limitation.

      This book is divided into two parts. In Part One, we’ll explore the basics of the letting go process and the underlying motivations for inner limitation. You’ll be introduced to various techniques that can accelerate you on the path to freedom, such as ways for coping with resistance, being “present,” resolving your feelings about past conflicts, achieving your goals, and balancing the positive and negative sides of emotional equations. In Part Two, we’ll explore some of the specific areas of your life where the Sedona Method can have a strong, positive impact. These include finding freedom from guilt, shame, fear, and anxiety; breaking habits; building wealth; operating a business; improving relationships; developing radiant health; and contributing to the creation of a harmonious and peaceful world.

      Please work with the material in order. Each chapter builds a solid foundation for the ones that follow. You will not have learned all that you can from this book until you’ve worked with the chapters in order and done your best to apply what you’re learning in your daily life. Each chapter contains at least a few gems that can enrich your life. Allow yourself to be as open as you can to what is being communicated in this book and look at it as an opportunity to change your consciousness and your life.

      If you want to go still further after you complete this book, Sedona Training Associates offers an audiotape version of this course, as well as live seminars in many major cities throughout the United States and the rest of the world.

      Don’t Believe Anything I Say

      Please don’t believe anything in this book unless you can prove it for yourself. Just because something is said in writing does not make it so. Especially with authorities of any kind, there is a tendency simply to accept what is said on hearsay or belief. Lester strongly believed that we should avoid doing this with our teachers. Instead, we should allow ourselves to stay open to a teacher’s message as an experiment in growing. We should only accept what he or she teaches once we can verify it through our own direct experience. He called this “taking it for checking.”

      I suggest that you take for checking everything you’re exposed to in this book. Give yourself permission to be as open to the message as you can be without accepting it on blind faith. The material will have much more value for you once you’ve explored and applied it, or checked it, under real life conditions.

      The ideas in The Sedona Method may appear to contradict what you’ve learned from other methods and modalities. But there’s no need to throw out the other material that you’ve learned. Merely set it aside, as best you can, while you explore this book. I highly recommend that you suspend comparison and judgment, if only for the moment. Once you’ve had time to draw your own conclusions, you can then go back and compare this material to everything else you’ve learned and see where it fits. People usually find releasing a wonderful adjunct to the other techniques and therapies they already use.

      Contradiction is inevitable when you compare different paths or traditions of growth. This does not necessarily invalidate the different points of view. When it comes to self-discovery, if you can embrace multiple possibilities, you’ll find yourself understanding and applying the insights you gain on a deeper, more heartfelt, and much more useful level. There are many rays that lead to the one sun.

      It’s a Matter of Resonance

      From my perspective, everything in the world has its own vibration, or resonance, including you and everyone you meet. Have you ever noticed that some people tend to pull you up when you’re with them while others seem to pull you down, and that they often don’t need to say or do anything to have this effect on you? As we let go and grow in understanding, our resonance, or frequency, tends to go up. But it’s not just a matter of “higher” or “lower.” We all relate better to some people than others, even if they’re on the same level of vibration as us. Of course, the same thing is true for teachers and ideas.

      As you read The Sedona Method, you may find that you resonate intensely with certain chapters while others leave you feeling a little confused or unmoved. Sections of this book will have more value to you on different occasions. Over time, as you work with releasing, other sections will stand out more than they did initially. That is because you’ll have changed and become ready to see things from a new perspective. When this happens, allow yourself to honor the change and shift your focus accordingly.