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.