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

all, nurture yourself as you engage in the processes in this book. Be your best friend and supporter, rather than a drill sergeant or taskmaster. Transform yourself through the experience of joy. Soon you’ll be making many interesting and inspiring discoveries about ways that you’ve been limiting yourself. Then, as these limitations drop away one by one, you’ll be lighter, happier, more relaxed, and at ease.

      The Sedona Method reminds us of what our spirits already recognize intuitively. We can have freedom and happiness now. We don’t have to wait for it to arrive some far off day in the future when we’ve worked hard enough to deserve it, or when we’ve succeeded somehow in making ourselves ready. We have reason for joy, and to delight, now!

       PART 1 THE SEDONA METHOD COURSE

      Part One covers most of the material that’s usually covered in both the live and audio versions of the Sedona Method Basic Course. It also covers material from the Advanced Courses, and some altogether new material, so that you can take all these tools, turn your life around, and keep it on track from here on. Although these techniques are extremely simple—as you’ll soon discover—they are also much more powerful than you can probably imagine at this stage. As you continue to apply these techniques and principles in your life, however, their ease and power will grow on you exponentially.

      Over a quarter of a century after first learning these processes myself, I am still seeing them each day through newly-amazed eyes. When I watch how easily people can make positive changes in their lives, I am always filled with wonder and gratitude at being given the chance to share this elegantly powerful process with the world.

       Chapter 1 Beyond the Suppression-Expression Cycle

      The rapid and positive changes that took place in Joe’s life as soon as he began using the Sedona Method are an ideal model of what can happen for us all. Persistent difficulties clear up, exciting new possibilities emerge, and serendipity smoothes the flow of events. When Joe learned the Method, he was at a low point both personally and professionally. A year and half earlier, he’d been in a plane crash that had left him wheelchair bound for seven months, his company was forcing him out of his job, and his estranged wife and he had been tied up in legal knots for three years hammering out their divorce agreement. Within a few weeks, everything turned around 180 degrees. First, Joe’s ex-wife agreed to go to mediation where they reached an amicable settlement. Then, he happened to run into the chairman of the company he was suing for wrongful termination at a charity ball. The chairman hadn’t known about Joe’s severance until then, and the next Monday Joe’s lawyer called with news of a favorable settlement that was more than the original offer.

      Even better, Joe decided to take a long weekend trip to a warm island paradise to celebrate his good fortune. Sitting and reading a book on the beach in Nassau, he pursued an idle conversation with a woman who turned out to be the love of his life. He wasn’t looking for a date because he had to catch the plane home in a couple of hours. But Jean seemed familiar, and after she told him that she also lived in Toronto, he asked, “Look, this isn’t a line, but do you live at such and such a corner?”

      “Yes, I do,” she answered.

      “That’s funny,” said Joe. “I go to physiotherapy there. I must have seen you on the subway. Do you also go to the theater downtown?”

      “Yes, once or twice a week,” Jean replied.

      “I work in downtown Toronto,” Joe then mentioned, “in Scotia Plaza on the 53^rd floor.”

      “That’s strange … I work on the 30^th floor!”

      An hour went by. When Joe got up to leave, they traded phone numbers, and he didn’t give her another thought for a couple of weeks until that same slip of paper fell out of his notebook and reminded him. When he called, they connected amazingly well. They soon fell in love, and Joe asked Jean to marry him.

      The more Joe applied the Sedona Method, the faster his career as an executive in the investment banking industry took off, and the higher it flew. His income grew at an exponential rate. In terms of wealth and money, the Method has been absolutely incredible for him. In addition, Joe continued using the Method to let go of his worries about his physical condition. In the plane crash, he was crippled from breaking 32 bones, including bones in his left leg, his right kneecap, his hand, and his skull. Although his doctors told him he would never walk well again, today he walks perfectly with virtually no pain. Joe uses the same Sedona Method techniques that you’ll be learning in this book—morning and night and all through the day. As a result, he is happy and successful, life is fun, and he is peacefully flowing from event to event. In his words: “I feel blessed. The Sedona Method turns big issues into small issues.”

      Life as We Know It

      Harmony and unqualified happiness are natural to each and every one of us, yet here’s how a typical workday looks and feels for too many people. We wake up, drag ourselves out of bed, and, even before we get to the bathroom, we begin worrying or planning what will happen during the day ahead. We are already spending what little energy we have stored up from our night’s sleep—if we were lucky enough to have had one. Many of us then commute to our jobs, which puts additional stress on us due to traffic, or mass transit crowds, or just the frustration of “wasted” time. Once we arrive, we’re not excited to be there and we are dreading the things we must get done. As we push ourselves through the day, we look ahead to lunch or the end of business. We have various interactions with coworkers—some satisfactory, many not. Since we believe there is nothing much we can do about anything that happens or how we feel about it, usually we simply stuff down our emotions and barrel on forward.

      By the time we’re done for the day, we’re exhausted from bottling up our feelings. Maybe we drag ourselves to the local bar to hang out with some friends and eat, drink, and watch the news on TV—which adds its own layer of stress—hoping our feelings will just disappear. Even though we may feel a little better afterwards, in truth, the feelings have only gone underground. We are now like human pressure cookers with plugged stopcocks, and it takes us tremendous energy to keep the lid on. When we finally get home to our husbands or wives and children, and they want to talk about their days with us, we have no energy left to listen. We might try to put on a happy face only to lose our tempers over the smallest things. The family eventually zones out in front of the TV until it is time to go to bed. And the next morning we get up and start the whole scenario over again.

      Kind of bleak, isn’t it? But isn’t it also kind of familiar?

      Your story may be a little different; hopefully it’s brighter than this picture. Perhaps you’re a stay-at-home parent with young kids. Maybe you’re an independent contractor and handle most of your daily affairs over the telephone and/or internet. Perhaps you’re an artist. Still, the trend is probably quite similar. The ruts that we tend to find ourselves in seem to get deeper over time, until we can feel like there is no way out.

      Well, it doesn’t have to be that way. There is a way out.

      Letting Go

      One of the main ways that we ourselves create disappointments, unhappiness, and misjudgments is by holding on to limiting thoughts and feelings. It is not that “holding on,” in and of itself, is inappropriate. Holding on is perfectly appropriate in many situations. I wouldn’t suggest, for instance, that you not hold on to the steering wheel of a car that you were driving, or not hold on to a ladder that you were climbing. Obviously, the results of such choices could be unfortunate. But have you ever held on to a point of view even when it didn’t serve you? Have you ever held on to an emotion even though there was nothing you could do to satisfy it, make it right, or change the situation that appeared to cause it? Have you ever held