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.
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