The Want for Separation and the Desire for Exclusivity

There is a desire for exclusivity in many people: they want things that are exclusive such as a membership to an exclusive country club or an exclusive car model and so on. We tend to hear this word “exclusive” being bandied about and think of it as meaning something that is of a high standard of quality. We therefore equate the word “exclusive” to the term “gold edition” or “gold membership status”.

But in actual fact, the word “exclusive” is a rather offensive one as it means that in order for someone to enjoy their extra luxury – other people have to live without it. The word “exclusive” is akin to the word “rejection” because it means that the majority of people are rejected from being a member of a club or owning a certain item. This desire to be distinctive is actually the want for separation.

When something is exclusive it means that only a select few members of society can enjoy that privilege – I believe that this becomes part of the appeal of something, because it makes that person feel special. Feeling special is linked to the want for approval in that people want it in order to know that who they are is good and acceptable.

I think the desire for approval moves in stages in that it begins with wanting to appear normal and just like everyone else. The want for approval then manifests itself as wanting to be better than everyone else so that other people give you special and preferential treatment. I find that it is often the same case with the want for security which may start as wanting to fulfil basic needs, before progressing to greed propelled by a never-ending sense of insecurity.

But it is this desire to feel special that creates an unhealthy competitive nature, which perpetuates a dog-eat-dog kind of society; a society in which people are willing to tread on the toes of others so that they are unable to climb the ladder of life for themselves so that they can be where they themselves are.

When a person with a want for approval becomes exposed to spiritual or self-help teaching that emphasise prosperity - it can fire-up a lust within them to get those things, and do those things, that they feel will make them superior to other people. A want for wealth, fame, achievement and ability are obvious ways in which this desire will manifest itself. These desires are often not from God or the higher nature, but arise from the flesh nature or ego.

The Sedona Method, and especially the Release Technique – both seem to promise prosperity. Word of Faith and “charismatic” preaching in the Christian church, also offer prosperity in much the same way as a self-help method such as The Law of Attraction and The Secret. However, if we use spiritual or self-help teaching with prosperity as one of the main goals, or perhaps, the main goal – we are likely to experience disappointment.

I believe that the best way to prosper in all areas of life, including finances, is to be free of worry and any wants that may be producing wrong motives in relation to the pursuit of wealth, power and material goods. It is not that we can’t prosper – it is just that we need to ensure that we are free of the wants that might be driving a lust for wealth, power and possessions. It is for this reason that Jesus Himself said in Matthew 6:34 that we should seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.

Something amazing that I have noticed in the releasing community is that their goals and motives are often the same as Christians. For instance, releasers will say something like, “Seek freedom more than you seek the world.”

Have you tried to use spiritual or self-help teaching to attain prosperity? If you recognise that you have such motives, you can use the Sedona Method or Release Technique to release on the emotions of lust and/or pride, as well as the wants for separation, security or approval. As always, it is best to ask your subconscious mind what want you are experiencing in the moment before you release a want (see the previous blog post Identifying Emotions and Wants for details on this).

Wanting To Love

The Sedona Method identifies wanting to love as an aspect of wanting approval. (See the section Letting Go of the Four Basic Wants in the book The Sedona Method by Hale Dwoskin). When a person wants to love, they feel as if they cannot give enough; they become more focused on other people than themselves to the point of being self abdicating. This drive to want to love others may seem unselfish, but in actual fact, it usually comes from a want to receive the approval of other people.

A lot of the people who come to Christianity are looking for some sort of way out of their own difficult situations which have been created by their own unmet needs and unhealed hurts. There is often a drive in the church to be compassionate towards other people, to be giving, loving and to do nice things for others. This drive to be a good person is often spurred on by a want for the approval of other people and the approval of God. The idea is that if a person is kind to others and does something nice for them then they deserve the appreciation of those people and from God Himself.

The Bible encourages people to be selfless and to sacrifice their own needs for the sake of helping others. But this can make kindness into yet another rule, which hurting and needy Christians feel obligated to fulfil. Some Christians are even deluded into thinking that they have to make an effort to be kind to others and to do a works in order to maintain their salvation. Therefore, some Christians are forced into trying to act kind under the threat of eternal damnation. Nothing could be further from the truth.

When a person has genuine love in their heart, it becomes a natural expression for them to be kind and compassionate towards others. When a person does not have love in their heart, they will feel rejected, empty, unfulfilled, and perhaps even abused. A sense of rejection, separation and unfulfilment is certainly not a good foundation for kindness and charity.

Furthermore, without genuine love people’s efforts to be nice to others will be nothing more than an act. Our motive for doing good works has got to be genuine: it must be motivated out of the love of God in our hearts. Wanting to love can throw a person open to abuse as they strive continually to do things for others with the aim of alleviating their own guilt and getting some sort of response of appreciation from the people they serve. Wanting to love can cause a person to allow other people to control, manipulate and abuse them. It is true that love is long-suffering in that it accepts ill-treatment from others and accepts their faults. Genuine long-suffering will prevent a person from being hurt by the selfishness of other people.

Whereas a person who is wanting to love and give approval to other people, and does not have the power of long-suffering, will be motivated to expose themselves to people and situations that will cause them to add to their own sense of hurt and a “victim mentality”. This abusive cycle can continue until a person simply cannot take any more, and they've just collapse under the weight of their own guilt and hurt.

Some Christians can actually be the deluded into thinking that this is what love is meant to be. In the absence of knowing what true love is Christians can erroneously believe that they are keeping the single commandment of the New Testament - when all along they are just following their own selfish motives as well as being misled and abused.

The pressure to do good works in the church can be so great that it causes a person to misdirect the focus from receiving the love that God has for them, to just putting on an act. When such people do get abused by other people, they legitimise it by quoting verses of Scripture, such as the following:

¹² Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.

2 Timothy 3:12 nkjv

² My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, ³ knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.

James 1:2-3 nkjv

⁴² And whoever gives one of these little ones only a cup of cold water in the name of a disciple, assuredly, I say to you, he shall by no means lose his reward."

Matthew 10:42 nkvj

²⁵ He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

John 12:25 nkjv

In the absence of the approval of others and genuine joy, a Christian can easily get caught up in a martyr mentality whereby they see their suffering, misery and struggle as being a positive thing; they believe that God will reward them in heaven for their “service” to Him amidst their suffering and the persecution of others. This persecution can be in the form of threats of physical violence (especially in non-Christian countries) to just subtle rejection and gentle teasing. Little do they know, their persecution is probably the direct result of their wanting approval. If they did not strive so much for the approval of other people, they would know and experience God’s love for them, thereby feeling whole and accepted – without having to run around doing things for other people so much.

Remember, holding onto the want for something often seems a positive way of getting your needs met. But in actual fact, holding onto a want keeps that want in place, wards off fulfilment and sends out a message of lack. If a person holds onto a want – they will typically find that they attract the opposite of what they want. If a person wants approval – they will attract those people and circumstances that reinforce that sense of disapproval and the need to get more approval. It becomes a vicious cycle whereby a person believes that he cannot do enough for other people. Eventually, it will lead to burn-out, guilt and resentment.

Prominent Bible teachers are now becoming more aware of the want for approval amongst Christians and the drive to gain approval through performance. Quite notably, Joyce Meyer has written an excellent book on the subject called Approval Addiction which made it onto the New York Times Best Seller list. Byron Katie, the founder of The Work, also has an excellent book on the subject called I Need Your Love – Is It True?

Anxiety and the Want for Control

I have found that in my own life, the want for control manifests itself in two distinct ways. Firstly, there is the want to try to figure things out. Secondly, there is a want to change things. I have found the major component of my anxiety comes down to the want for control, in that I'm trying to figure out things for myself. When I try to figure things out I'm trying to work out why things have happened the way that they have, why I have made the decisions that I have, why so-and-so said such and such a thing to me and so on.

It is often difficult to let go of this want to try to figure things out because the fear is that if we don't make an effort to try to figure things out then we will never ever be able to change our circumstances. So really, the want of trying to figure things out is about trying to change your circumstances.

Wanting Control and Blaming Others

Whenever an anxious person feels that life is not going the way he wants, he tends not to look to himself to take responsibility for the situation and ultimately change who he is and change the way that we see the situation – if he does, it tends to be in a negative way that heaps guilt on himself. Anxious people tend to opt for trying to change other people and trying to change external circumstances. This brings us into a great deal of anxiety because we find that we are not able to change other people's will and we are not able to change external circumstances.

Anger has a lot of power in it and it makes us feel strong. But in actual fact, anger arises from a sense of powerlessness because we feel that someone somewhere is to blame for our unhappiness and that our life would be better if they thought the way we did. A sense of powerlessness in relation to anything outside a person’s will, such as so-called “acts of God”, earthquakes and the like, brings despair more than anger. However, those people who believe in God may tend to direct anger towards God for such things, because they believe that he could have changed His will.

Goals - The Source of Anxiety

In his book, Mastering Your Emotions, Pastor Colin Dye identifies the source of anxiety in our lives:

• Fear is the result of an uncertain goal.
• Anger is the result of a blocked goal.
• Depression is the result of an unattainable goal.

So when we experience anxiety, we have a want - a desire for something. The AGFLAP-CAP chart of emotions gives us an indication of what that want might actually be by identifying the accompanying emotions - whether we are seeking a goal that is uncertain, unattainable or blocked.

Trying to Figure Things Out

I have found that what has often caused me to remain in an anxious state is that it sometimes appears to me that I am actually thinking or saying something wise and useful. But in actual fact, the ratio of good and useful thoughts to those thoughts which are not useful and even harmful is probably a ratio of about one to twenty – at a guess.

In fact, I would say really that when I'm in a state of anxiety, the useful thoughts that I have are probably from zero to five percent. When I am trying to figure things out for myself and I’m getting anxious, I am often aware that probably about a third of what I think and say appears to be positive at the time, but in actual fact, it is mostly all negative. When a person is angry, for instance, they often feel justified in that angry state, with the belief that their anger is achieving something useful and that the target of that anger actually deserves every negative thing that you have to say about him, her or it. Such directed anger does little to change or hurt the other person – it hurts the person being angry more than anything.

Emotions Conducive to Wisdom

When I look at the AGFLAP chart, I find the emotional state that I need to be in so that I can have the wisdom that I need – this is courageousness, acceptance or peace. Some of the synonymous for courageousness are resourceful, positive, decisive, dynamic and aware. Some of the synonymous for acceptance are understanding and intuitive.

I believe that wisdom is at the core of our being and therefore it is impossible for us to relinquish wisdom. But what often happens is that we end-up covering the wisdom that is part of our true essence; with the whole lot of junk in terms of anxious thoughts which are just a fearful response to what our five senses tell us is true.

Seeking Wisdom like Panning for Gold

So when were looking for wisdom, it's more like panning for gold: what we need to be able to do is just sift through all the mud, rocks and rubbish. The more we pan for gold, the more we clear away what we don't need so that we can better see, and get to, the stuff we do need, the stuff that is actually of value to us. This is what happens when we release when we are anxious, especially when we release on wanting control.

Releasing is like panning for gold in that we are filtering out our own misinterpretations of a situation so we can better see the wisdom that lies beneath all the junk - the thoughts that obscure our intuition. In order to facilitate this filtering of our own thoughts, we need to be able to let go of wanting control in the form of wanting to figure things for ourselves and wanting to change things.

AGFLAP and Confusion

Our level of intuition is reflected in the AGFLAP-CAP chart in that if a person is in a state of AGFLAP then it is very unlikely that they will be able to draw upon their intuition, so that they can know the truth and so that the can act upon that truth.

Courageousness is that condition whereby a person has the confidence, ability and the dynamism in order to act resourcefully in a situation. Fortunately, with that spontaneity and dynamism to act in a situation, comes clarity of thought and vision.

So we have to come to the realisation that if we are in a state of AGFLAP, then it becomes very difficult for us to act positively. If a person is in AGFLAP there is basically not very much that they can do in order to change their life and their situation. So instead of seeking to change other people and wish circumstances were different than they are – it is better to actually change ourselves by changing the way that we perceive the situation - then we can better act in that situation.

Releasing as a Way to Wisdom and Peace

The great thing about releasing is that you don't need to know all the facts about the situation - you just need to be willing to release. All that you need to in order to release is to be aware of your feelings, thoughts and spoken words. If you are feeling anxious then you should think about what want or wants need to be released and release them.

If you are in a state of AGFLAP then it is likely that you want to control the way you feel and wanting to change your circumstances - this should be your queue to release. Holding on to the want for control is a decision to suffer and it simply keeps us in a state of confusion and frustration that is likely to perpetuate the circumstances that made us anxious in the first place. Letting go of the core wants, including the want for control, enables a person to become more calm, confident, positive, focused, decisive and resourceful.

There are times when we actually let go of the want for control in the form of wanting to figure things out and the solution to our problem does not come to us straight away. It can be very discouraging when this kind of thing happens because it makes us feel inadequate and perhaps that God has rejected us and that we need to try to solve the problem ourselves.

A major part of the Christian life is surrender to God and this includes being willing to let go of wanting to do things our way and in our timing. We have to trust in God's ways and His timing, knowing that His ways are not our ways. We must acknowledge the fact that it might not be the right time for God to move in that situation and that the only thing we can really do it to wait. But if we allow ourselves to get anxious during such times, it will only make matters worse for us and will only prolong our struggle and suffering.

Measuring Up Against the AGFLAP-CAP Chart

The AGFLAP-CAP chart is a wonderfully accurate way of showing where we measure-up when it comes to our emotional state. I’ve encountered quite a few self-help books and methods attempt to map-out the emotions. One such example is the excellent book, Mastering Your Emotions, by pastor and Bible Teacher Colin Dye. But I would say that none of these books have come close to Sedona Method and Release Technique when it comes to providing a comprehensive chart of the different emotional states – in a way that is so simple to understand as well.

There is often an emphasis in the church on the things that people do as a means of identifying a person’s character. However, the Pharisees were the religious elite of Jesus’ day - they kept the religious rules and observed the rituals, yet Jesus called them a “brood of vipers”. Even today, we have Christians who claim they are “walking in love”, when all along, they are masquerading a sinful nature behind good works, rituals and religious clichés.

Courageousness and Acceptance

The AGFLAP-CAP chart tells us that the emotional states of courageousness and acceptance are both loving. Acceptance includes the following synonyms: friendly, gracious, embracing, considerate, compassion and understanding. How can a person walk in love without these qualities?

In order to walk in love and towards others, we need to have the kind of qualities seen in courageousness, such as: aware, cheerful, compassion, competent, confident, decisive, enthusiastic, flexible, giving, loving, self-sufficient and supportive. We cannot adequately serve other people without these essential qualities – no matter how much we want to. Without these kind of qualities, people can end-up half-heartedly going through the motions, not being able to make decisions and giving-up when the going gets tough.

Courageousness, acceptance and peace are the states in which a person can be seen as abiding in love, and for Christians - possessing faith. A person cannot say they have love if they have a tendency, for example, to be: foreboding (fear), timid (fear), guilty (grief), listless (apathy), frustrated (lust and anger), compulsive (lust) or opinionated (pride) - you get the idea. If a person has these kind of tendencies, they will often wonder why life is not going so well for them.

Anger

We cannot adequately serve others if we are regularly in a state of anger, which includes the synonyms: abrasive, aggressive, argumentative, brooding, demanding and jealous. If a Christian attempts to serve God when he is regularly angry or jealous towards people, then that anger can easily become diverted towards those people whom the angry Christian is trying to good works for or with – this is particularly the case when the want for approval is the motivating force behind such acts of benevolence, and that want is not being fulfilled by the other person’s appreciation.

Apathy and Grief

If a person is in a state of apathy or grief they will hardly be able to do anything good for others or themselves; apathy includes: depressed, drained, indecisive, lazy, and unfocused and why try? Living a life of serving others requires commitment – apathy or grief will rob a person of that ability to keep on going when the way gets hard. In fact, if a person is in apathy, they will lack the energy to do even the simplest of things.

Lust

Even lust, which has enough energy to commit to something for a time, cannot serve people well; synonyms for lust include: devious, driven, envy, impatient, manipulative and pushy. When a person is in lust they want something – they are operating in one or more of the four wants and maybe some of their opposites as well. When a person is in a state of lust they will often make efforts to be kind, friendly and helpful – but it will be subconsciously, and perhaps consciously, motivated largely out of a compulsion to fulfil their wants in some way.

The Want for Approval and False Love

The want for approval is a huge motivator for those who do seek to do nice things for people. I have seen many anxious Christians who seek to please God, and other Christians, with their efforts to do good works. I have heard so many Christians complain that they have invested so much time and effort into “serving God”, only to find that they are at loggerheads with other Christians and their efforts don’t seem to gain them the reward, attention and appreciation they were hoping for.

The Need to Let Go of Pent-Up Emotion

The AGFLAP-CAP chart of emotions can give us a clue as to why our best efforts to be kind to other people never seem to endure or fulfil our expectations. We can become more aware of our real intentions by focusing on our emotional state in relation to our actions. This is not intended to put someone into a state of morbid introspection, but to simply become aware of their feelings so that they can release them effectively.

If not released, these negative emotions simply become ignored, repressed or expressed in the wrong way. Repressed emotions often become expressed through other channels when the emotions become to much to contain and when the opportunity presents itself – often when a person least expects it. You could see releasing as a means of opening these emotional “pressure valves” as a means of letting go of pent-up emotion.

Releasing versus Morality

Living life by a set of rules simply does not work. There are many Christians who try to live by a moral code, much of which is founded more on religious tradition than the Bible. Even if the Bible says that a person should or should not do a thing – that written rule has no power whatsoever to make a person obey it. It is for this reason that Jesus came to fulfil the law so that we could be made right with God by believing in Him. The Bible promises a blessed life to those who believe in Christ, yet many Christians still struggle in life. There are scores of Christian books that advocate following principles and maintaining a positive attitude as a means of being blessed. There are also scores of secular self-help books which do a very similar thing. In all of these methods the onus is put on the adherent to think positively and live right – which is often easier, said than done! Thankfully, releasing offers a simple and effective solution to this dilemma by allowing the ability to release emotions and their underlying wants.

⁴ And now what the law code asked for but we couldn't deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us.

⁵ Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God's action in them find that God's Spirit is in them - living and breathing God!

⁶ Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life.

⁷ Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing.

⁸ And God isn't pleased at being ignored.

⁹ But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won't know what we're talking about.

Romans 8:4-9 msg

A Zero-Tolerance Policy to Releasing

This week, I also stepped-up my releasing another gear: I took a zero-tolerance policy to my wants! Every stressful thought that arose from my subconscious mind, I would question, as follows, "What does it want?" Then, allow the answer to arise effortlessly into consciousness. Then, ask the releasing question to release it. I also find it useful to articulate and describe vague feelings, for example, "I'm worrying about missing the deadline on this piece of work - what does it want?" The answer to this particular question for me is usually approval and security.

I can tell you, using this method I was literally able to release constantly, as per the six steps - I mean constantly! I felt there was no need to revert to using advantages/disadvantages or any of the written releasing exercises (I’ll write about these later on) in order to access repressed wants as I could simply work with what was present "in the moment". All you need is the stress of everyday life and an anxious mind!

Resistance in Relation to Christianity

It is a known fact that people who are in a religious environment, such as Christianity, experience a resistance to doing what they know is right. It seems the more they are pressured by other people to do certain things and avoid other things – the more resistance they experience in relation to those things. This is very much in-line with the struggles of the Apostle Paul in Romans 7, here is an excerpt from The Living Bible translation:

¹⁴ The law is good, then, and the trouble is not there but with me because I am sold into slavery with Sin as my owner.

¹⁵ I don't understand myself at all, for I really want to do what is right, but I can't. I do what I don't want to--what I hate.

¹⁶ I know perfectly well that what I am doing is wrong, and my bad conscience proves that I agree with these laws I am breaking.

¹⁷ But I can't help myself because I'm no longer doing it. It is sin inside me that is stronger than I am that makes me do these evil things.

¹⁸ I know I am rotten through and through so far as my old sinful nature is concerned. No matter which way I turn I can't make myself do right. I want to but I can't.

¹⁹ When I want to do good, I don't; and when I try not to do wrong, I do it anyway.

²⁰ Now if I am doing what I don't want to, it is plain where the trouble is: sin still has me in its evil grasp.

²¹ It seems to be a fact of life that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong.

Romans 7:14-21 TLB

The Message Bible says that the Jewish law, which included the Ten Commandments, made a forbidden fruit out of sin:

⁷ But I can hear you say, "If the law code was as bad as all that, it's no better than sin itself." That's certainly not true. The law code had a perfectly legitimate function. Without its clear guidelines for right and wrong, moral behavior would be mostly guesswork. Apart from the succinct, surgical command, "You shall not covet," I could have dressed covetousness up to look like a virtue and ruined my life with it.

⁸ Don't you remember how it was? I do, perfectly well. The law code started out as an excellent piece of work. What happened, though, was that sin found a way to pervert the command into a temptation, making a piece of "forbidden fruit" out of it. The law code, instead of being used to guide me, was used to seduce me. Without all the paraphernalia of the law code, sin looked pretty dull and lifeless,

⁹ and I went along without paying much attention to it. But once sin got its hands on the law code and decked itself out in all that finery, I was fooled, and fell for it.

¹⁰ The very command that was supposed to guide me into life was cleverly used to trip me up, throwing me headlong.

Romans 7:7-10 msg

Most Christian churches preach a list of rules that believers are supposed to make an effort to keep. However, there is a revolution taking place in the church at the moment with what has been called “The Grace Message”. This message of grace simply chooses to see the books and verses of the Bible in the context in which they were originally written.

In essence, we live in New Testament times now. The New Testament does not strictly begin in the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Much of Jesus’ earthly ministry were focused on bringing people to the end of themselves through realising that they could not keep the Old Testament law with its rules, regulations and rituals. Jesus was constantly at odds with the Pharisees and Sadducees who were the religious elite of the day; He called them “a brood of vipers”. Jesus said in Matthew 5:20 that our righteousness should exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. This was clearly an impossible task because no one was as religious as the scribes and Pharisees!

Thankfully, the newly emerging Christian grace message takes the focus away from keeping rules, and the guilt it inevitably leads to. This message grace focuses more on righteousness by faith in Christ, knowing that Jesus became righteous on our behalf. We have right-standing with God through the obedience of another – Jesus Christ. (See Romans 3:21, 2 Corinthians 5:21, 1 Corinthians 1:30).

Rather than focusing on the plight of Paul and his struggle with sin in Romans 7 and the way it mirrors our own struggle with sin – we should look to the following chapter: Romans chapter 8.

¹ With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ's being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud.

² A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death.

³ God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn't deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that.

⁴ And now what the law code asked for but we couldn't deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us.

⁵ Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God's action in them find that God's Spirit is in them - living and breathing God!

Romans 8:1-5 msg

Focusing on what God has already done for us, rather than what we can do for God, really sets us free from guilt and condemnation. Knowing that Jesus is our righteousness empowers us to live life freely, without “shoulding” on ourselves and making efforts to be pleasing to God. The more we try to do what is right – the more we experience resistance to it. It would appear that any religious condemnation that Christians go through becomes the catalyst which draws them to God’s grace – His unmerited favour and His power living in us.

If you would like to know more about the Christian grace message, please visit my Christian blog, The Divine Nature, in which you will find inspiring messages which will encourage you and not put you on a guilt trip. Check out the Grace Preachers List tag for links to some really good grace resources.

Dealing With Resistance – Part 2

In addition to letting go of emotions and wants, we can let go of resistance itself. Resistance is anything that prevents you from living your life as you ought to live it, doing the things that you ought to do. It is quite possible to do what you need to do, and yet, still experience resistance. Resistance may or may not stop you from doing something – but it will always contribute to the sense of struggle that you experience. Resistance is what causes a person to start a project and give-up on it without completing it.

In my Christian blog The Divine Nature I have a blog post entitled The Traffic Light Analogy. In this blog post I compare a person’s spiritual state and freedom to act in a given situation to a traffic light: red means that they cannot act; amber means they more or less have the same ability to act or not act; whilst green means that they act, seemingly without giving it a second thought.

When I first attempted to release resistance, I got nowhere with it. In the Sedona Method basic course, Hale Dwoskin recommends looking at, or thinking about, something that you feel reluctant about. Then, feel the resistance to that thing and let it go. So, I tried this on a pile of dirty dishes: I looked at the dishes, felt the resistance and asked myself, “Could I let go of resisting washes these dishes?” I got no response at all from my subconscious mind. My efforts with other sources of resistance continued with no success - until finally, I made a breakthrough.

What I learned from my experiences with releasing resistance is that you can’t use it as a tool to make yourself do something that you feel you ought to do with your mind. So what it does do is to take the brakes off in that moment – but it does not apply pressure on the accelerator or gas pedal.

I tend to use releasing resistance on getting up in the morning, when I can remember to do it and when I feel inclined to do it. But I find that it does not always work for me. What has increased my success with this is that I also release on the next thing. In order words, I will ask myself, “Could I let go of resisting getting out of bed?” Then, I will ask myself, “Could I let go of resisting going to work?” Through this, I find a lot of the time that what is causing the resistance to getting out of bed is actually the thought of going to work. Again, this does not work for me every time. But sometimes, it makes the difference between getting out of bed in good time and being late!

Another useful application for releasing resistance is to release resisting releasing! I also combine releasing with inquiry by releasing resisting doing The Work. Again, it does not always work and I can’t use releasing resistance to make myself do something. But there are times when releasing in this way is the difference between being able to release or inquire and not being able to do these things at all!

There are also other applications of resistance that you can read about in the Sedona Method basic course. There are also some more advanced techniques available, such as using holistic releasing with resistance in the Sedona Method CD course The Resistance Dissolver.

Dealing With Resistance – Part 1

Something that I learned while practising the Sedona Method basic course – is letting go of resistance. All of us have some degree of resistance to those things in life that we should be doing. There are times when we want to do something that we should not really be doing in that moment – that kind of resistance is beneficial to us. In everything that we do in life, we should look to our heart to let us know what we should do in that moment. That is what love is all about: when we feel good about something and feel compelled to do that thing – oftentimes it is love. When we want to do something that is not good for us, but feel hesitant, and perhaps don’t know why – that is love as well, or an absence of it for our benefit.

There are also times when we feel compelled to do something that is not good for us, or anyone else for that matter, but we feel compelled to do it nonetheless. In such times as these it is not love that is motivating us – it is one of the negative emotions: fear, lust, anger or pride. I find that the emotions with the least energy in them, apathy and grief, do not motivate us like the other emotions, but simply provide apathy or resistance to doing what we ought to be doing. It goes without saying that the lower we are on the AGFLAP chart of emotions – the more apathy and resistance we will experience. By the way, AGFLAP is an acronym for the negative emotions identified in the Sedona Method and Release Technique: apathy, grief, fear, lust, anger and pride. I recall feeling rather confused and amused at first when I began frequenting a releasing forum and they would write things like, “I’ve been in AGFLAP all day…”

It is also perfectly possible to be at rest in a given moment, not being motivated to do anything in particular, and yet, be in one of the positive emotional states: courageousness, acceptance or peace. The positive emotions are sometimes referred to as CAP, being an acronym of courageousness, acceptance and peace. The more we abide in CAP – the more energy we will have at our disposal for when the need arises.

We can assume that the existence of one or more of the underlying wants, and the strength of them in any given moment – is what creates resistance. Therefore, the more we let go of emotions, even the positive ones, and the underlying wants – the less resistance we will experience to living our life as we should.

One of the biggest sources of resistance in our lives is when someone tells us that we should or must do something. I remember from an early age that when my mother would pester me to do something – I felt that I really did not, or even could not, do it. There is something about being told to do something by other people that seems to engender resistance in us.

Identifying Emotions and Wants

Identifying Emotions

Whilst it is possible to let go of the limitation and find freedom through the identification of the underlying restrictive beliefs through Psychoanalysis - it is not always necessary. An easier and simpler solution is to merely be aware of the negative emotion and let go of that. What makes releasing simple is that the human emotions have been categorised into nine states in the Sedona Method and Release Technique.

These releasing methods also provide a chart with a huge array of synonyms for each of these emotions, which we can use if we ever find ourselves, stuck trying to figure out what emotion we are feeling in any given moment. For instance, synonyms for grief include guilty, hurt, and ashamed. Synonyms for pride include arrogant, gloating, patronizing and pious.

Identifying Wants

We can deepen our experience of releasing by identifying the underlying want or wants that are fuelling the emotions, and release them. Usually, the emotions and wants will go hand, like the want for control will often go with anger; the want for separation often goes with the emotion of pride, and so on.

In many cases, these underlying wants are really quite typical and therefore easy to identify.

For instance, when a person is in a crisis situation and nothing seems to be going right and is trying to figure things out – the underlying want, one of them at least, is the want for control.

If you feel you have not got enough money and the bills are piling up and you wonder whether you will ever have enough money – that is the want for security.

When you go on a date with a person you like and you wonder if they also like you – that is the want for approval.

When Wants are Not Easily Identifiable

There are some situations in which the underling wants are not so immediately apparent. There are some life situations which are complicated, to say the least, and it is difficult to discern why you think, feel and behave the way you do.

A regular pattern which I have noticed on the releasing forums on the Internet is that people will seek advice about what wants they are experiencing in a given set of circumstances. These people will post-up a long essay, providing personal details and in-depth accounts of embarrassing and painful situations which have transpired in their life. I sometimes wonder to myself what the motives for doing this really are: is it for the acceptance or pity of others? I have noticed that members of the releasing community are often quick to respond and willing to help. But they are simply using their own logical reasoning to understand the issues of another person’s life.

The truth of the matter is that everyone is different and a given set of circumstances could trigger different wants in me, for different reasons, than another person. Therefore, it is not entirely possible or practical to seek to compile a compendium of life circumstances, mapping out the underlying wants, together with an analysis of the reasons why these wants are attributed to the situation.

Seeking the Answer Within

A much better solution, the one which the Sedona Method and Release Technique both advocate, is to find the answer within. You can quieten your mind before releasing and ask yourself the question, “Does this come from wanting approval, control, security, separation or oneness?” The last two wants, separation and oneness, are relatively advanced concepts and are included in the Sedona Method basic course, but not in the Release Technique basic course. I will explain the want for separation and oneness in another blog entry later on. This question could be contracted down to, “Does this come from wanting approval, control or security?” We could contract this question down further still by simply asking, “What does it want?”

If you simply wait for the answer, it will come to you from the subconscious mind. I find myself speaking the answer out verbally or I hear it mentally. Other people simply “feel” or “know” the answer when it comes. Sometimes the answer takes several seconds to come to me; sometimes I have to ask the question a second time; but if I am patient and my mind is quiet – the answer will come.

This method is so much more effective than simply second-guessing what want it is. I believe that the effectiveness of releasing lies in the ability to properly identify the core wants in a given situation, before letting it go. Asking your own subconscious mind for the answer gets you in touch with your higher self which knows the answer, rather than relying on another person’s own logical reasoning. This method will always facilitate a substantial release. Once the want has been identified and attributed to a given situation – you gain a greater understanding of yourself. When that situation, feeling and thought pattern arises again in the future – you will know what want it is so you can release it. Be weary though of releasing on similar situations, believing you know what want it is, when you could be wrong. If in doubt, if the underlying want is not immediately apparent, it is best to ask the subconscious mind what want it is.

Articulating the Wants

I find what works well for me is when I articulate the want in the context of the situation in which it arose, before asking the releasing question. For instance, a thought comes to me that my girlfriend has not called me for several days. I start to get worried and all kinds of thoughts run through my mind. I sit down, take some deep breaths and quieten my mind. I ask, “What does it want?” The answer comes to me “approval”. Then, I articulate the following releasing question, “I’m worried because my girlfriend hasn’t called me for a few days. Could I let go of the want for approval?” Then the want releases itself and I feel lighter and less stressed. I find this method is effective in that it “tunes me in” to the want that I’m experiencing in the context of the situation in which I experience it.

Releasing and the Sin Issue

Emotions as Warning Signs

It is all too easy to get caught up in the trap of trying to figure out exactly why we believe the things that we believe and why we do the things we do. Complexes (clusters of related thoughts) are such, that as soon as we start thinking about them, we actually start activating them. This means that we actually invoke an emotional reaction according to the limitations that the complex imposes upon us.

Each emotional state can be seen as being a signal, a warning sign, which alerts us to the existence of the beliefs that are composed of, and give rise to, limiting thoughts. When we understand this fact we can actually work intelligently with emotions and see them as being nature's warning sign and an opportunity for personal growth.

Almost every day, we have the opportunity to have most of our limiting thought patterns exposed and tested by everyday life. Instead of seeing this as being a frightening experience and something to avoid, we can actually see it as something we ought to embrace and work with intelligently and enthusiastically. James said:

² My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, ³ knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.

James 1:2-3

Victory over Sin

So we know from the Bible that it is possible to be able to actually work with our limitations in such a way that we are able to find freedom through them. When you think about it, the Biblical concept of sin so accurately mirrors the wants and emotions that are identified by the Sedona Method and Release Technique.

The Epistles (letters to the churches) of Paul are seen as being the most important books in the Bible because they tell us who we are in Christ through His death, burial and resurrection. Many Christians see the book Romans as being Paul’s masterwork. My favourite chapter in the Bible is Romans 6 because it deals with the subject of freedom of sin like no other chapter in the Bible.

Romans 6:6 says that be do not need to be held captive by our own emotions, because Jesus Christ has bore the body of sin on our behalf so that we no longer need to be slaves to sin – no longer controlled by our limiting thoughts and feelings. Through Jesus’ sacrifice, we can find freedom from our limiting flesh nature, so that we can be the person that we were made to be.

¹¹ Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

¹² Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts.

¹³ And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.

¹⁴ For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

Romans 6:11-14 nkjv

The apostle Paul also said let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us (Hebrews 12:1). The Bible would not tell Christians to do something that they were not able to do. Through belief in Christ and the remission of sin through His precious blood, we have the ability to let go of our sin.

24 And those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

Galatians 5:24

The Bible also says that we must crucify the flesh. We know that Jesus Christ has already born the body of sin on our behalf and that through his blood there is remission of sin. Jesus has therefore done everything that He is prepared to do about the sin issue – the rest is very much up to us. We can expect the Holy Spirit to alert us, advise us, teach us and help us deal with sin – but He cannot release wrong desires for us – we have to do it – we have to make that choice because it is an expression of our free will. James 4:7 says resist the devil and he will flee from you.

Jesus has done all that He is willing to do for us when it comes to the sin issue and He did everything that needed to be done. Now, as believers in Christ, it is up to us to resist the devil – Jesus will not do it for us. The Bible says that we have been given authority over the devil and all his evil works:

¹⁹ Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.

Luke 10:19 nkjv

Living Holy Lives through Rule keeping

For years Christians have been put under a great deal of strain to make their own efforts to stop sinning and live a holy life that is acceptable to God. But there has been hardly any teaching on how Christians can actually resist sinful thoughts and desires. The assumption has been that wrong thoughts and desires can be controlled by an effort of the will. Some people struggle more than others and it seems to me those who struggle with the flesh soon find that they are not able to live up to the demands placed on them by other Christians. In an effort to instil holiness in the church, Christians have resorted to badgering and patronising believers into conforming to the religious demands of the church.

Releasing Provides a Solution

We know that negative emotions are the result of our own limiting thoughts that caught our energy to be blocked, energy which could otherwise be put to good use. So we know from our own emotions that there is a limitation present in our own thinking. We also know that emotions are rooted in one or more of the core wants that all of us have to some extent: security, approval, control, oneness or separation. When these wants manifest themselves and we experience the corresponding emotions – we can simply choose to identify them, see them for what they are and release them with a simple releasing question. There is no need to get sidetracked with trying to keep rules and to follow formulas and principles.

Being Free To Be Guided

When we let go of wants, thoughts and feelings, we can eventually reach a state where we become free from allowing people, circumstances and objects to control us by allowing them to elicit an emotional response in us. This could be likened to a condition of surrender. It is only when we are in a condition of surrender, with no attachments or aversions to things, that we are able to know the will of God in our hearts as we embrace His love within us; another way of putting it is that we become in-tune with our higher self. But as long as we continue to allow our thoughts and feelings to dominate us, we resist, or even forfeit, the love of God.

It is only through surrender and love that we are able to fully obey God and live according to His will for our lives. Christians often anxiously seek to know what God’s will is for their lives. Yet God’s will for our lives is not something that you can be told, as such. God’s will for your life is something that can be understood only through knowing and it has to be experienced.

When we ask God for direction through prayer or when we ask other people what we should do for God, we are ignoring the fact that He promised that He would lead us by the Holy Spirit. If we become confused about the will of God for our lives, it is because we are trying to figure out the will of God in our minds and trying to obey Him with our own soul (mind, will and emotions).

The truth of the matter is that the soul cannot effectively lead us and make decisions for our lives, without taking instruction from our spirit, our heart, which is our true self which is in contact with God’s Spirit. When we are in a condition of surrender to God, we are more submitted to the truth of “what is”, than to the false reality that we have created in our minds.

When we are set free from the wrong beliefs which have limited us by keeping us separate from the truth of God, we find ourselves in the right places at the right times doing the right things with the right people, etc. This is known as synchronicity.

Are There Such Things As Bad Emotions?

Emotions are not bad things as such. But there many people who actually say that anger is a good and useful motion in that it is fiery and passionate, perhaps even creative – just what is needed to get a job done. However, anger is often misused a lot of the time instead of being actually put to good use. Some people would also argue that fear is also a good and useful emotion; because fear protects us through the fight and flight response; if a person sees a dangerous dog then fear will cause him to run or take some other defensive action. This is, of course, is a natural and appropriate action to take.

So there is nothing intrinsically bad about emotions as such, but what it is that makes our emotions bad are the structures of thought with which people have been conditioned over many years. Our thoughts are what ultimately create the struggle and the pain we experience in life.

The difficulty that this situation imposes upon us is that these thought structures, known as complexes, are often extremely complicated, extensive and difficult to understand. It has been the role of psychoanalysis to work with these belief systems, in an attempt to understand the logic behind these thought structures, and something of how these thought structures actually came into being, according to our life experiences. Many of these limiting complexes are not uncommon to other people, and therefore, the study, diagnosis and resolution of the mental and emotional issues of one person, can often be used to help other people who have similar problems.

A far simpler way of dealing with these restrictive belief systems and the emotions that arise from them is to simply release or welcome the emotional states that we are in at that moment. It is not entirely necessary to be able to understand exactly why we feel the way that we do, but we do have the choice to be able to let go of the restriction imposed by our own limiting beliefs, by letting go of a feeling and/or its underlying want or wants. Alternatively, we can actually allow the feeling or want to just be - we can accept it just as it is, and this will have exactly the same effect as letting it go.

When we let go of our attachment to a want or a feeling – it is allowed to rise to a higher state and in that moment we feel lighter and less stressed.

Letting Go Versus Allowing

When I read in the book, the Sedona Method, that an emotion can be effectively dealt with by asking yourself if you can allow yourself to feel it – I will admit, I was sceptical. But I tried it and to my astonishment – it worked!

This seriously challenged my existing understanding of how releasing works. I just thought that lust, for instance, was a bad energy that needed to be got rid of. I just assumed that the letting-go process “zapped” the bad energy, so that the good energy could be allowed in.

Now I am of the opinion that the energy that drives lust is not really all that bad at all. What makes it seem bad is that our belief system limits the energy so that it is not allowed to flow properly.

Larry Crane, in the audio CD version of the Release Technique basic course, often says during the exercises, “It’s not good, it’s not bad – it’s just energy passing through and it wants to leave.” This statement has enormous value when it comes to letting go of resisting an emotion or want.

If I have a belief that having an expensive car will make me happy, then when I see such a vehicle, my energy will be trapped in a state of lust. That means that the energy will be stuck because of my limited thinking, simply causing me to just get anxious as I try to fathom how I can get the money to fulfil my wish and worrying that I’ll never get what I want.

If I believed that I could be happy regardless of what I possess – then I would allow that energy to not settle at the lust stage, but it could be allowed to rise to a condition of courageousness, acceptance or peace. Therefore, I believe that it is our thinking that gives rise to negative emotional states – not the power of emotion driving itself.

So when I allow myself to feel an emotion, I am in effect letting-go of my limited thinking that prevents that energy from finding useful expression. In order for a person to be truly happy – they must not put any conditions on their happiness.

Fear results when we convince ourselves that there is no way out of our circumstances. So instead of putting our energy to good use so that we can think and act on a solution – we end-up dissipating that energy by worrying and not allowing ourselves to calmly move on to something better.

The energy within all emotions is divine energy. The thoughts we think consciously and the subconscious beliefs and attitudes provide the context that shapes the energy into positivity, if it is accordance with the truth, or negativity, if it is resisting the truth.

We should allow ourselves to experience the full range of emotions, as they all have their place. Even negative emotions provide specific internal resources we need for our existence when they are fully allowed. Therefore, it is not ideal to try to attempt to get rid of an emotion. When we allow ourselves to abide the truth, we enable the life-force within us to flow unimpeded.

I would often get good results from just allowing a feeling to be there, accepting it. Sometimes when I would ask if I can let go, the energy would get stuck, yet when I chose to accept it without any thought of letting it go, it would go.

I would often go back to the example provided in Hale Dwoskin’s book, The Sedona Method, of releasing with holding the pen in the hand and then opening the hand. There is no effort in opening the hand. You just decide to open the hand and the pen easily falls out. Sometimes we want to hold the pen, which can be likened to the feeling, and not to open the hand because we are attached to it. There are even times when we try to force ourselves to get rid of the feeling which means we resist it and whatever we resists tends to persists. When such a situation occurs, it is good to consciously hold the feeling as tightly as you do and it will go, without effort.

Releasing can be likened to allowing something to be just as it is without interacting with it. Synonyms for releasing could be welcoming, noticing, embracing the feeling etc. If it seems difficult to let go of a feeling or want, it just means you want to get rid of the feeling or control it. Perhaps you want to attain a specific goal through releasing, such as getting more money. If you observe yourself when you are releasing, you will get an idea of what you are trying to do and why it does not work for you so well. Releasing is effortless and very simple. When it is not working well, it is best to just stop and go back to the basics of releasing.

Allowing or welcoming is letting go: allowing everything to be as it is. Effective "letting go" is not the same as "wanting to get rid of." Letting go actually happens by itself when we allow, welcome or embrace that want or feeling. When we allow the free flow of love in our lives, we can effectively "let go", but we are not resisting a thought or feeling, we are simply letting go of the context we are holding in mind. It is the thought which provides the context for the pain and suffering to continue to exist. It is this context which shapes the energy into something positive or negative. When we allow and embrace a thought or feeling, the energy is allowed to evolve into a more resourceful way of seeing/being for us. There are messages in the energy and we learn from them when we "let go" by welcoming, releasing, allowing or diving in.

You might say that allowing or welcoming is the antidote to resisting, whilst letting go is the antidote to holding on - but it amounts to the same thing – a sense of relief from the pain of the want and emotion. Resistance pushes away, whilst holding on clenches onto something. It all comes back to attachments and aversions: when we have an attachment we hold on to something so we can bring it near to us; when we have an aversion to something we hold on to it in order to keep it away from us. Despite our efforts to control our life experiences, thoughts and feelings by our own efforts – we tend to attract that which we wish to keep at bay, whilst simultaneously, repelling that which we wish to experience. Releasing frees us from the interference of our own control over life, allowing things to flow freely as they should.

In either case, when we have attachments or aversions we are choosing to hold on to a want or feeling, and thereby, keeping it in place; it is our reaction to a want or feeling, our thoughts about it, which “sandwich it in”. When you just drop your hands and give no more energy to either side, whatever you have been denying or clinging to simply follows its own temporary nature and dissolves. Holding on or resisting is what causes the suffering to continue – without it, it has no energy of its own to sustain it and it vaporizes like a cloud.

Larry Crane, the creator of the Release Technique uses the example of smoking when describing attachments and aversions: there is the addiction which forms the attachment, followed by the disgust at succumbing to the habit, which forms the aversion.

What is Releasing and How Does it Work?

The Simplicity of Releasing

What makes releasing so simple is the fact that it veers away from complex spiritual or New Age concepts. Releasing does not provide teaching on principles; neither does releasing serve to "motivate" people to achieve their goals through a stimulating pep talk. In fact, I would say that the Sedona Method and Release Technique are rather unique when it comes to self-help methods.

The Sedona Method and Release Technique provide just enough teaching on the concepts behind releasing in order to facilitate the practical experience of releasing for yourself. These methods are very practical and provide a large array of “tools” and methods, each of which are more suited to certain situations. People are encouraged to try different releasing “tools” in order to find what suits them the most. I don't think anybody really knows exactly how releasing works in great depth -- but the releasing community have a basic gist of how it works, enough to make it work for them practically.

How Releasing Works – Emotions and Wants

Releasing works on the concept that there are nine emotions: six of these emotions could be described as being negative, while the other three could be described as being positive. These emotions form a hierarchy in that each successive emotion in the structure has more energy in it, starting from apathy which has the lowest energy state, all the way up to peace which has the most energy. The full list of emotions is as follows: apathy, grief, fear, lust, anger, pride, courageousness, acceptance and peace.

All of our emotions culminate in what are known as the four wants: approval, control, security and separation. Each of these wants also has its opposite, for instance, the opposite of wanting approval is wanting disapproval. When dealing with the release of opposites wants, I have noticed that there is hardly any mention of any of the opposites other than the opposite of separation, which is oneness. As the emotions are the result of the underlying wants, a more profound release can be experienced if we focus on releasing the wants more than the emotions themselves.

Letting Go of Attachments

What keeps these emotions and wants in place is merely our attachment to them. Furthermore, if we bring this knowledge to our awareness when we are experiencing any combination of these emotions and wants, we will experience a release from those emotions or wants. Basically, we can ask one or more of what are known as “releasing questions" in order to experience a release. So if I find myself getting angry in a particular situation, I could ask myself, either audibly or mentally, "Could I let go of anger?" Once I ask myself that question, I can experience a release from that anger. It works the same with wants as well: if I experience a want for security, I can ask myself the question, "Could I let go of the want for security?" Once I ask this question I can experience release from that want.

We experience attachment to an emotion or want when we choose to identify with it. If we have allowed our emotions to control us in the past, it becomes difficult to do since he ourselves with that emotion. We have all learned to identify ourselves with our emotions, believing that we are those emotions. How many times have you heard people say, “I am angry", or, “I am sad." The truth of the matter is that they are not anger; neither are we sadness. Our true self is free of these limiting wants and emotions. The founder of releasing, a man called Lester Levenson, likened our true selves as being like a table with a beautiful veneer which is covered in dust. In order to see our true self we first need to wipe the dust off the table.

So what releasing does is that it lets us know that we have the power to be able to let go of our attachment to those wants and emotions. Once we have let go of our attachment of those wants and emotions -- we experience freedom from them in that moment.

It is like holding on to a pen or another object: if I do not believe I can let go of the pen or I believe that I am the pen, I will continue to hold on to that pen unnecessarily. But if I come to the realisation that I am not the pen, that I have the ability to let go of that pen, I can open my hand and let the pen fall to the ground. I believe that the effect of asking a releasing question is that we bring ourselves to the awareness that we are not the wants, we are not the emotions and that we can let them go in the moment.

Experiencing Your First Release

It is truly amazing to experience your first release. When you know that you can achieve a sense of relief in any given moment through asking a releasing question -- it encourages you to keep on doing it on a regular basis. It is not easy at first and it takes some getting used to. There are some wants and feelings associated with certain circumstances, which are difficult for some people to let go of. But each successive release gives a person confidence and encourages them to try different tools and methods provided by the Sedona Method and Release Technique. Success with releasing should also bring a person closer to the ultimate goal of releasing: personal freedom.

Where to Look for Releasing Courses and Information

I feel that I have only touched the surface of releasing in this article and I don’t expect people to become successful releasers from this article alone. Hopefully, this will encourage you to learn more about releasing.

If you are truly interested in releasing I would strongly recommend that you see about buying the basic course of the Sedona Method or Release Technique. Both of these methods are similar, but differ in certain details. These basic courses are available in either book form, or the more expensive, but more practical, CD form. There are some more advanced courses available which can be downloaded over the internet. The wonderful thing about releasing is that you don’t really need to know a great deal about the theory behind it in order to make it work for you – you just need to get going with the various exercises and experience it for yourself.

There are also some good discussion boards which you can visit on the Internet which provide a lot of help in releasing. I recommend that you visit The Sedona Method releasing Club and Hootless.

An Introduction – Releasing and Inquiry

I still could not make much progress with loosing and binding. Although to my amazement I was actually able to loose a negative thought or feeling and feel a sense of relief after it. Therefore, I felt convinced that there was something to it. You can read more about my efforts with loosing binding in the loosing and binding label of my Christian blog The Divine Nature. I think I was looking for was something that could deal with a negative thought or feeling in the moment. Rather than come out with long winded, formulistic prayers - I just wanted something simple and effective. In what put me off loosing binding was the affirmations approach that I had picked up from self-help teaching and Word of Faith. I was sick and tired of trying to make affirmations when I just did not feel that it was true in my heart.

I was browsing around in the self-help section of a bookstore one day, when I saw a book entitled The Power of Letting Go by Patricia Carrington. This book captured my attention straightaway as I was looking for more practical and simple methods of applying this power of the "loosing" or letting go. I was delighted with this book because it provided me with the means of being able to let go of the situation with just a simple statement. I like the way that Patricia Carrington recommends just let go of little simple things to start off with: such as letting go of wanting the weather to be different or the traffic to not be as bad as it is or wanting to change the food in restaurant and so on. I found that I could use the simple statements to actually gain a sense of peace in the moment. I notice that this book is third in the foreword that the worst is based on a method called The Sedona Method. It was probably about a year like the act of buying this book that I noticed The Sedona Method book in a bookstore. Well, I just had to buy the book. But I left The Sedona Method book on my bookshelf for about a year before I picked it up and decided to actually do something with it.

It was during the summer of 2007 when I finally decided to do something with The Sedona Method. There were a few little things that I was unsure about at first so I decided to look for forums on the Internet related to it. I joined they for which was on MSN, which is now on Multiply. I found the people on that forum were friendly, knowledgeable and very helpful. In no time at all and was able to get going with some simple releasing. I found that releasing through The Sedona Method was far simpler than trying to use loosing and binding prayers. I still wasn't entirely sure how releasing fitted in with the Christian grace message -- but I felt that the two seem to go hand in hand quite well. I continued to release and to experiment with different methods such as releasing on resistance and performing the written releasing exercises, such as Likes/Dislikes and Advantages/Disadvantages. Like many of the releasers I found that the wants would simply bounce back almost immediately after I had released them. Nevertheless, I was absolutely convinced of the power of releasing and was keen to continue with it.

I think it was around the end of the year 2007 or the start of 2008 when I became interested in The Work of Byron Katie. I had never heard of The Work or Byron Katie before, not until I read frequented the releasing forum on MSN. It seems that there were quite a few releases who were interested in performing this method known as The Work. So I decided to visit The Work website and find out more about it. There were some resources that I could download for free and there were some videos on the website of Byron Katie facilitating this method known as The Work. I will admit that at first I thought that The Work seemed just too simple. But was curious about this method and thought that it would not hurt to give it a try. So I tried to work on an issue that was concerned about. To my amazement The Work just seemed to do itself! It seemed as if revelation just poured forth from my heart as I asked the questions. I've found that these inquiry sessions would take about 20 minutes to perform. After performing inquiry I would feel a great sense of relief.

Nowadays, I get the feeling that inquiry is more powerful and it affects more permanent than releasing. My experiences have led me to believe that releasing is nothing more than an on-the-spot stress reliever. Whereas, inquiry is a means of setting oneself free from accumulated negative beliefs. I could be wrong about this of course and everyone is different. If someone comes to me and tells me that they have experienced incredible breakthrough is with releasing only -- I would not argue with them and I would be very pleased and very interested with their results. This blog that am writing now is not a set of teaching as such -- I am sick and tired of being preached to having been a Christian for over 15 years -- this blog is to simply the journal of my own experiences with releasing an inquiry as a grace believing Christian.

I am convinced that Christianity (grace), releasing and inquiry – all fit together and work hand-in-hand to bring a person to a state of personal freedom and fulfilment. The inquiry I have done in the last few months has made a tremendous difference to my thinking and has brought me a great deal of peace. I have tried many self-help methods and flavours of Christianity and most of them have brought me a lot of disappointment. The message of grace as taught by Joseph Prince, releasing and inquiry have endured with me and I am convinced that they work.

It is my hope that this blog becomes a community of like-minded people who are able to share ideas and experiences, with a means of helping one another. When I say “like-minded” I appreciate that people visiting my blog are likely to have diverse beliefs, but there should be some aspects of what I write that you can relate to, at least. I realize that this is going to be a clash of beliefs – but I implore you to respect the beliefs of others and that you do not use this blog as a platform to try to convert other people to your way of thinking. In any case, show kindness and respect to other people. If you are a releaser – I would ask that you release first on a topic that you feel strongly about.

I am a Christian so don’t be surprised if I post up Bible verses to support what I write about. But rest assured, I’ll try my level best to not be excessive with Bible verses. I will never post Bible verses with the intention of trying to convert people to Christianity. We all have a spiritual path to travel and I appreciate that it takes certain experiences and influences to arrive at who you are today and what you believe. It is impossible to try to convert people to a certain belief system, such as Christianity, by just posting up Bible verses and I find that it simply annoys people.

By the way, my preferred Bible version is the New King James Version, which is a literal version. I also like the The Living Bible (the original 1971 version, not so much the later New Living Translation) and The Message. The Living Bible and The Message are both modern paraphrased versions which are excellent at bringing scripture to life and making it amazingly simple to understand. I also have a wide variety of other Bible versions which I might quote from, as appropriate.

I have also started using the alternative, but closely related form of releasing to The Sedona Method, which is called The Release Technique/Abundance Course. When I refer The Sedona Method, in most circumstances you can assume that I refer equally to The Release Technique/Abundance Course as well. From this point onwards I intend to refer to The Work as inquiry and The Sedona Method or The Release Technique/Abundance Course, as releasing.

An Introduction – Christianity

I've wanted to publish blog entries about my experiences with The Sedona Method and The Work for a little while now. Originally, I was going to post these blog entries in my grace Christianity blog The Divine Nature. But I feel that it would not be fair to the followers of that blog to publish something that they might not understand and are not ready for at this moment in time. Hence, I saw fit to create this new blog.

Let me begin with a bit of a background about myself. I have been a Christian now for about 15 years. I only really got serious about Christianity in 1997 when I first started going to Kensington Temple in London. Things really changed for me when I was dramatically baptised in the Holy Spirit in October 1998. Up until that moment I had been struggling with depression and anxiety all of my life. But in that moment in October 1998 God came into my life in an incredible way. For a couple of months after that dramatic experience I experienced a profound sense of peace and joy that I never before knew existed. But it was not long before those dark clouds of depression and anxiety started rolling back in. I think that my negativity was never quite as bad from that moment on -- but was still bad enough for me to continue my spiritual quest for peace, success and fulfilment.

It was around 1994 when I first read the book The Power of Your Subconscious Mind by Dr Joseph Murphy. It was this incredible book that changed my perspective on life forever. All of a sudden I could see that my depression and the struggles that I had in life, all the disappointments frustration I had -- was all caused by my negative thinking. Being an anxiety sufferer I could see the detrimental effects that my negative thinking had on my life. From that moment on I try to use positive affirmation is in order to change my thinking, and thereby, change my life.

It was around about the time when I was baptised in the Holy Spirit that I began studying the faith teaching of Kenneth E. Hagin. Hagin is considered by many to be the father of faith. I was amazed by the wonderful testimonies; the signs are miracles that Hagin would write about his books. Hagin's teaching also seem to focus more on the power of God working in man more than any other preacher that I knew of at the time. For instance, Hagin would teach that we are not to follow the Ten Commandments and that in the New Testament we are to simply follow love: love fulfils the law. Hagin's teaching is something that I could liken to a combination of the Christian teaching of E.W. Kenyon and the positive thinking and affirmations branch of self-help: such as Dr Joseph Murphy, The Secret and The Law of Attraction. I pursued Hagin's faith teaching, known by some as Word of Faith, for about seven years till the year 2005. By this time I had well and truly burned myself out on trying to control my life and make things happen by following principles and formulas: through confessing Scriptures as a means of controlling my life and making God bless me, how I want when I want.

I think it was about the year 2003 when I stopped going to Kensington Temple and started going to a small, local charismatic church. I was delighted with this church at first: I liked the people, pastor and the worship. I tried to get noticed by the pastor with a means of serving in the church and somehow moving into full-time ministry. Like many other Christians, I saw full-time ministry as the ultimate achievement for a Christian. After about a year or two of attending the church I started to become rather disillusioned. I just felt guilty all the time because the pastor would be constantly preaching about behaviour modification; it was all about performance and I just felt that I just never seem to have the ability to measure-up. I finally left that church because I just couldn't stand it any more.

It was during the year 2005 that I finally started attending Hillsong London church. Hillsong is a large, contemporary church that meets him a large theatre in central London. This church was like a breath of fresh air to me: the worship was professional and invigorating, the A.V. presentations were slick and professional, preaching was non-condemnatory, but above all people were friendly, positive minded, sociable and fun to hang out with. I still go to this church today, but not every week.

I have now moved away from the idea of making the institutional church the prime focus of my Christian life. There is a revolution going on at the moment in Christianity whereby Christians are tending to move away from the institutional church. This has started with books like Pagan Christianity by Frank Viola and blogs and podcasts by The Free Believers Network.

What bothers me about church and Christianity as a whole is that it doesn't seem to do much in the way of delivering on its promise of inner transformation. I've really calmed down from the days when I was trying to manifest incredible miracles and wealth through making affirmations and repeating Bible verses. Nevertheless, I still desperately needed some means of coming out of this depression and anxiety that I have and to find true happiness and fulfilment in life.

It actually seems to me that most of the people in Hillsong London didn't really need inner transformation of any kind; these people seem to live from the sense of security that life at imparted to them. I'm not saying that these people are in perfect, they have their problems just like anyone else that, but it seemed to me that they were more interested in church life rather than seeking freedom. By the turn "church life" I mean social events, serving on team, conferences, visiting speakers, CDs and books.

From around the year 2005 God gave me an incredible urge to write. Based on the teachings of Kenneth E. Hagin, I started moving more into the area of Christ living his life in me, without me having to try to do things for God; without me having to follow principles and formulas. It was a year or so later that I finally came across the grace teaching of Joseph Prince, of New Creation Church in Singapore. Hillsong London is privileged to have a few visits from Joseph Prince each year. I would say that the preaching at Hillsong has become a lot more grace oriented ever since Joseph's first arrival at Hillsong in 2006. Up until that time I thought that I was going crazy because it seemed like no one seemed to agree or understand with the kind of revelation that I was receiving. I began to find that there were more grace preachers on the Internet and I downloaded as much of their messages as I could. I would say that my favourite grace preacher at the moment it is a man from South Africa called Bertie Brits who has a web church called Dynamic Love Ministries.

Perhaps you are a Christian and you are fed up with the following rules; perhaps you used to be a Christian and grew up in a religious family; may be you use The Sedona Method or The Work and have no intention of becoming a Christian. Wherever you may be at this moment in time spiritually speaking -- I would like to encourage you to check out the links to great preaching that I have on my Christian blog The Divine Nature, a lot of good grace teaching which is available for free download. Click on the label Grace Preachers List for a set of links to some great preaching.

Ever since I was at Kensington Temple around about 2002, I had bought a book by Liberty Savard called Shattering Your Strongholds. This book suggested that the struggles that the Christian faith in life which you to mental strongholds that existed in the mind. By praying what she termed "loosing and binding" prayers, one could destroy these strongholds. I did not make much headway with this new method until 2005 when I bought the second book in Liberty Savard's trilogy called Breaking the Power. I felt that this second book was much better than the first and for me it laid down in foundation for the case of praying prayers that deal with the accumulated thoughts, attitudes, beliefs, desires and motives of a person.