I Should Not Have Sold my Apartment…Is It True? (Session One)

I Should Not Have Sold my Apartment is it True?

Yes I believe that it is true I shouldn't have sold my apartment. Selling my apartment has caused me to lose a lot of money.

But Can I Absolutely Say for Certain That is True -- That I Should Not Have Sold my Apartment?

No, I can't absolutely say for certain that that is true.

Who Am I When I Believe this Thought?

I feel terribly insecure. I feel as if my life is over. I feel decimated from a financial perspective. When I believe the thought that I should not have sold my apartment I am arguing with reality, because guess what? I did sell my apartment. When I sold my apartment I was feeling rather depressed and confused. I did not have a great deal of peace about what I was doing -- but to be really honest -- I didn't have peace about anything in my life because I was feeling so anxious about everything. My anxiety in the past has made it difficult for me to make any decisions and to know what to do next. But I’ll be honest and say that there wasn’t anything telling me that I shouldn’t sell it either.

I believe that if my mind would have been at rest and I would have had love in my life -- then I believe I would not have sold my apartment. My one bedroom apartment was just right for me at the time. I would have been able to get it paid off by now; I could have been living rent free; but now I’ve got to continue to pay rent every week – and it’s not cheap!

The lesson to be learned from this is that I should pursue peace above all other things in my life. When I am in a state of peace I am mentally present, I am sane, and I am in a position whereby God can lead me in the right direction.

I must learn to see that this thought, that I should not have sold my apartment, is just a thought. This is a thought that arises in my subconscious mind in reflection of something which I did in the past. No wonder regret is such a powerful force because it is founded upon solid facts. I cannot for the life of me refute the fact that I did sell my apartment and that it was more than likely not the best decision I could have made at that time.

With the thought that I should not have sold my apartment, I become a prisoner to the past; as if my entire life and livelihood depends on making perfect decisions all the time. I have become accustomed to dreading making decisions, even small decisions. After selling my apartment and losing money – I wonder if I’ll ever be fit to make big decisions, especially financial decisions, ever again.

But I think it helps to realise that no-one is perfect: everyone makes mistakes – even big mistakes. The fact that I made this particular mistake should not be a sign that I’m hopeless, doomed, cursed or whatever. I should just accept what has happened in my life thus far, and live my life from here. The more contracted I am around the past, the more the past enslaves me and prevents me from taking risks and just living my life. The more I try to analyse past events in order to distil principles from it so that I won’t make any more mistakes – the more confused and anxious I become.

Who Would I Be Without This Thought?

Without this thought I believe I would have peace. It is only when this thought comes to me that I feel a sense of regret, hurt, rejection, frustration, confusion and despair. Without that thought I would not experience these things. Without that thought I would not experience that awful cocktail of negative emotions. Without this thought I would experience a sense of freedom and liberty. I would be free to make decisions, to take risks – even if I end-up getting it wrong, it is still better than being paralysed with fear. I believe that eventually, I can be free of worry and be in a position in which I am less likely to get things wrong, as I did in the past.

God is not expecting me to come up all sorts of buzzwords, principles or clever faith formulas. When it comes to applying the Word of God in my life, all I really need to do is to reach a state of mental clarity and peace of mind in an assurance of God’s love for me.

When I have peace, which is an absence of my own anxious thoughts, God is allowed to flow freely in my life. The only thing that stops God from moving in my life is my anxious mind. Without those anxious thoughts, I would be able to pursue the life plan that God has for me.

God is not waiting for me to say the “magic word”. God is not waiting for me answer some sort of riddle -- as if God is a Sphinx or something like that. God is not waiting for me to say “Open Sesame” or something like that.

When it comes to the expression of faith: this is not something that is of the imagination, it is not something that I need to struggle with and conjure-up. Faith is a conviction of spirit that comes to me from God. Otherwise, faith would be something that is independent of God; it would just be nothing more than the product of imagination and human reasoning.

The Bible says that we have already been blessed with every spiritual blessing. The Bible says that we have already been given favour heaped upon favour blessing piled up on blessing. Without this thought that I should not have sold my apartment - I would experience lasting peace and a sense of hope that all will go well for me, as well as an unshakable trust in God. My life experiences might not match my own preferences and expectations – but they don’t have to – isn’t that what faith is all about? Without this anxious thought I would be able to experience God's plan for my life without the interference of my own worrying.

So Let's Turn it Around…

I should have sold my apartment. I should have sold my apartment because I did. Just because I sold it does not mean that God hates me. God loves me and He will meet all of my needs – including a home of my own.

My Computer Should Work…Is It True?

My Computer Should Work – is it true?

Yes. If I pay fifty pound for two sticks of RAM – I expect them to work! Now my computer won’t boot-up properly.

Can I know for certain that is true?

Errrrr…No.

Who am I, how do I react when I believe that thought?

I feel angry. I also feel guilty – as if it’s all my fault. I get anxious and confused, as I desperately try to figure out what went wrong and what I can possibly do about it. I also feel a sense of foreboding, a sense of dread, as I wonder what’s going to happen next. I slip into “victim mentality mode” as I think, “Oh no, not again – this always happens to me – why me?”

Ah! I think that’s it! That’s the worst part of it: the sense of “this always happens to me”. That thought is insidious – it makes me feel as if there is something wrong with me. It’s nothing more than guilt and fear, which comes to the surface in response to something unexpected or unwanted.

It’s worse if you’re a Christian because you over-spiritualise everything. If something bad happens to you – it’s because you didn’t follow the right principles, there is too much sin in your life or you didn’t pray enough. Then, if something good happens in your life – it’s because you prayed about it or because you read the right book or did some good deed in church or something. Of course, none of these things had anything to do with that thing happening.

I believe in prayer, of course, but it is simply a means of communicating with God: prayer is not a means of claiming the things we want or averting the things we don’t want. Prayer just keeps us in tune with God and re-connects the heart so that we can live life intuitively and confidently. Prayer is not a chore or ritual and it is not something that we add to our spiritual “to-do” list.

Who would I be without that thought?

I think I’ve got to allow things like my computer not working, to just happen – without attaching to it. Next time something like this happens, I can simply detach myself from it, in terms of emotions and thoughts, and just observe. I’m not talking about getting “spaced-out” as if I’m in a trance; neither am I talking about repressing my emotions and becoming like a zombie. No, I’m just talking about maintaining a state of inner peace, free from the typical “why me” thoughts. So, when something I don’t want happens in my life, such as missing the train or it starts to rain, I can simply allow it to happen without putting a great deal of mental and emotional energy into it.

If I did not think the thought, “my computer should work”, I could allow my computer not to work, without worrying about it. I could allow this unwanted occurrence to be just as it is – without feeling a sense of guilt, fear anger and self-pity; I could just experience peace. So what if I have to call the Technical Support line. Even if I make the call, have to wait twenty minutes and be answered by a totally unhelpful clod – so what?! Even if I’ve wasted my money and have to throw the memory sticks in the bin – it’s worth fifty quid just to have peace.

So from now on, I’ve just got to allow whatever happens to just happen. Even if I have to live like Rowan Atkinson’s hapless character Mr Bean for a while - so be it! I can come out of this anxiety – I really can! I’m just going to use inquiry whenever I feel stress – even it is in response to the most trivial thing.

Let’s turn it around

My computer should not work! Just for now, at least. How do I know this is true? Because it doesn’t work – that’s why!

Rating Progress

 

I have used a variety of self-help and spiritual methods over the years, and one of the things I find myself doing at a certain point with each method, is that I want to find some way of rating my progress. If you have used various self-help and spiritual methods and found that they have not yielded any tangible benefits in your life, you naturally find yourself becoming that shrewder when it comes to the next one. It can reach a point whereby you go from being rather naïve and wide-open to the most ridiculous fads, to wondering whether you’re being duped by the next popular method that comes your way.

One of the things that I’ve found to be characteristic with any methods that don’t work, it that I will tend to start off enthusiastically and then trail off into apathy. But those things that really work tend to be engaging and enduring. The thing I love about releasing and inquiry is that they both give you the impression that they are working because you can get tangible benefits from them immediately (with releasing) and almost immediately (with inquiry, after an inquiry has been completed). Take affirmations for example, you could start off enthusiastically, wooed by the promise of becoming substantially wealthy. But then after a while, you find that nothing is changing in your life and the method is becoming a frustrating chore. Eventually, you stop doing it altogether, until you pick-up a book or CD again and the achievements of the teacher and other people give you enough enthusiasm to give it another go, and thus the cycle repeats itself.

I find myself looking back over the previous two years or so that I’ve been using releasing and inquiry. I can’t really say that anything incredible has happened in my life. I would say that over the previous year or so I have been feeling more at peace and more content with my life. I would also say that my job, which has always been something of a struggle to me from day one, has gone significantly better and smoother than a few years ago. But I would not put this down to just releasing and inquiry: I would attribute this in part to listening to The God Journey and The Free Believers Network podcasts Christian podcasts. These podcasts have helped to set me free from years of stifling religious performance.

I recently went on a short holiday back to my parent’s house in the North West. When I returned back to work I remember feeling hit with the most awful depression. It wasn’t really accompanied by a lot of anxiety: it was just a gut-wrenching emptiness on the inside. Naturally, I wondered if there was something that I did or did not do to cause this profound sadness to come upon me. I instinctively used releasing to try to ease the situation; it seemed to help at first, but the depression just seemed to keep on coming back, so I don’t know if I can honestly say that it really helped.

When I got back home after work, I immediately got into inquiry. After the inquiry which lasted about twenty minutes, I began to feel better. I still struggled to fathom the source of the depression that day. I reasoned that if I was making progress with releasing and inquiry, such intensity of negative feelings should be a thing of the past. The unusual depression that day seemed to motivate me to be more fervent with inquiry and I managed to do another two sessions that evening. After this, I felt a great deal better. In fact, the contrast between the depression and the post-inquiry state was rather stark. Perhaps the message in all of this, if there really was a message, was that inquiry really does work and that I can find almost immediate relief from negative emotions and stress, if I can just persevere with it.

I have found myself struggling even more than usual with apathy recently. I feel that to a great degree I have cooled-off from my spiritual pursuits by the realisation that I can’t really grow spiritually by just studying someone else’s interpretation of spiritual truth. The message was reinforced in me today as I listened to the latest The Free Believers Network podcast entitled “Follow the Leader Syndrome” 11^th June 2010. In this podcast, the hosts related how they used to read the Bible and other Christian books over and over again, with the belief that they were growing spiritually through it. The also related how they were driven to levels of obsession in the pursuit of spiritual growth. As soon as you appoint someone else to be your spiritual leader or mentor, you run the risk of disconnecting your mind from your heart, which already knows the truth. The hosts also discussed the way in which you literally come to the end of these things when you realise what is happening and that these things can’t really change your life. All of a sudden you can find that you have a lot of time on your hands and that you don’t really know what to do with your time.

I always feel encouraged with inquiry because although it takes time to do, it always feels natural and instinctive: it is never a struggle and you are never robotically repeating affirmations or “buzz-words” that some spiritual guru tells you to repeat from a bestselling book. So actually doing inquiry seems to be no problem with it once I get started. But I think the problem is just getting started with it. I have found that my enthusiasm has waned because I don’t seem to see any significant evidence of it working. No self-help author has sold a lot of books by just telling people that he now feels more content and peaceful. No, it seems that the only thing that really catches people’s attention is something over-the-top, such as a million dollar contract or a miraculous healing. It seems that we are addicted to these “gains” and need them to motivate us to pursue a self-help method and to verify that it actually works.

In an ideal world I would experience a steady stream of “gains” and accomplished goals as I progress with releasing and inquiry. Unfortunately, it does not seem to be that way. What keeps me going with releasing and inquiry is that I can feel an immediate sense of relief when I release an emotion or want; or when I reach the turnaround during a session of The Work; I also find that both methods feel natural and instinctive, as opposed to awkward, tedious and robotic. These have been the only solid indicators that there really is something to all of this. If I was to go by my feelings, I would have had reason to seriously doubt the effectiveness of releasing and inquiry when I experienced that recent bout of depression. But the irony is that it was that very depression that caused me to do three inquiry sessions in one evening. Recently, I’ve found that I’ve averaged about one session of inquiry every other day. Byron Katie says that if you want to see results with inquiry, you should do this for thing for breakfast.

Despite the enticing testimonies of people who become millionaires overnight and so on, lasting peace and contentment has to be the ultimate goal, in fact, the only goal that motivates us in a spiritual or self-help practice. The thing I like about releasing and inquiry is that peace and contentment are the only goals; anything else such as prosperity becomes nothing more than a by-product. I think Byron Katie has one of the best perspectives on prosperity than any other self-help teacher that I know of. Katie says that if we have peace of mind, we cannot help but be prosperous. Peace of mind knows “how much”, “with whom” and”when”. It is only when we are confused, contracted around a thought, that we make poor decisions and fail to act upon opportunities. If you use something like the Goals Process in the Sedona Method, you should realise that you are only releasing on those goals as a means of finding freedom from the underlying wants – you are not releasing as a means of actually achieving those goals. Either the desire for those goals will fade or you might actually find that you are able to achieve those goals, once you have released on them.

The “system” I use now with inquiry is that I will identify certain areas where I am the most contracted and I encounter the most stress. I will start out with question one (is it true), as “yes” and question two (can you know for certain it is true), as “no”. I will then progress through inquiry, sometimes a week or a few weeks of persistent effort, until question one (is it true), is “no”. At that point, I know that I am clear on that belief, or at least, a lot clearer. There have been a few concepts that I’ve used inquiry on, which I thought to myself, “When I reach ‘no’ on the first question, when I’m finally clear on this belief, then I’ll be completely clear, my life will be better in every way and I won’t have to do inquiry anymore. Well, not for a long while at least.” Unfortunately, despite reaching “no” on question one on a few really tough beliefs – I’m still not “completely clear”.

I think we actually have to be rather careful when we try to ascertain our level of progress according to our experiences. Something could be really working for us, but because we don’t see any tangible benefits, we could be tempted to reject that method. Conversely, even though we might experience some good results that we attribute to our spiritual efforts, those experiences could have little or northing to do with our spiritual efforts. In fact, some rather misleading and harmful fads and practices have arisen out of people following a certain spiritual method, and attributing it to the positive circumstances they experienced during or after that time. I’ve read scores of Christian books in which a person said that they observed a certain principle or prayed a certain way, and then God did something totally amazing like healed them of a terminal illness or something. We can tend to run with these testimonies and turn them into formulas that just don’t work for people. It’s the same, of course, with releasing: a person could say that they released on “this” and then experienced “that”. How do you know that it was releasing that caused that thing to happen? I think when we’re desperate for results; we can grab at anything and use it as evidence that our spiritual efforts are yielding results. On the releasing forums, I sometimes read of people attributing the slightest bit of good fortune to releasing, such as when they find a coin on the pavement or something.

I truly feel as if I have exhausted every other spiritual practice that I’ve ever read about and used. I’m left with the Christian message of God’s unconditional love for us (the grace message), releasing and inquiry. I just have the inkling that at this stage, inquiry is going to be the thing that brings me the most peace and freedom. Sure, I believe that for me, the good news of God’s unconditional love of Christ is key to finding peace. But all the typical Christian formulas and principles, such as reading the Bible continuously, have not worked for me. A lot of wisdom can be gleaned from Byron Katie’s sessions of The Work. In fact, I find that the same things often come out of inquiry that Katie does all around the world. But inquiry is not a message, it is not even a set of concepts, it is just a framework within which you can question your own anxious thoughts and learn to trust your own heart and be led from there. Releasing is a set of methods or “tools” based around a simple concept of letting go of emotions and their underlying wants. Releasing and inquiry are not new religions, another set of principles to live by or a set of outlandish New Age theories.

But I need to overcome the apathy that often prevents me from getting started with The Work sometimes. One thing that works rather well is to release on apathy or release resisting doing the Work – that can be just enough sometimes to get me using inquiry when I would normally be unable to muster the effort to do so.

I cannot look to periodic “gains” or incremental boosts in my overall state of happiness, as a source of motivation when it comes to Christianity, releasing or inquiry. The day that releasing no longer gives me a sense of relief from stress, or the day that I no longer experience stress – is the day that I will no longer use releasing. Likewise, the day that inquiry becomes a chore and I feel as if I am repeating words parrot-fashion, or the day that I reach a turnaround and do not feel better for it, or the day in which I no longer experience stress – is the day that I will no longer use inquiry. To be honest, I feel so fed-up with spiritual formulas that I would probably stop using them altogether once I experience a significant shift towards positive thoughts and emotions.

So perhaps negative thoughts, wants or the contraction around them – are like the layers of an onion or like a set of Russian dolls: when you peel away one layer, there is another layer underneath it. Each layer is just as significant and stressful as the previous one.

I think the best analogy I can provide in relation to progress with releasing and inquiry is that of the game Kerplunk. The plastic cylinder could be likened to the mind. The plastic rods called straws are like the thoughts that criss-cross through our minds. The marbles are like the “orbs” of negative emotional energy, which are held in place in the mind by the web created by the complexes of negative thoughts in our minds. If you’ve ever played Kerplunk before, you will no doubt be aware of what makes the game so much fun: you could withdraw one of the straws, expecting everything to come tumbling down – but nothing happens! Conversely, you could expect nothing to happen when you pull out one of the straws – to find that a whole lot of marbles come tumbling down into one of the four trays at the bottom of the cylinder. You could work on a particular thought with the expectation that when you are done with it, your entire life will change – but nothing happens! You could reach the point of question one “no” – only to discover a profound shift in your mental and emotion state.

Perhaps that’s what all the shocks and trials of life are all about: providing us with the opportunity to inquire into them and be free – nothing more and nothing less. Byron Katie says that we should look forward to stressful thoughts as they bring us back into inquiry. If I did not experience stress, I would not need to use releasing and inquiry. So perhaps releasing and inquiry are methods that you use for just as season, until you have stripped away enough layers of selfishness and fear in order to truly enjoy life and allow God, the heart or the higher nature to take over? I don’t know the answer for sure as yet – but I’ll find out soon enough!

Picture Money courtesy of AMagill.

Picture CreativeTools.se - PackshotCreator - Russian matryoshka dolls courtesy of Creative Tools.

Kerplunk image derived from the photo P1020279 courtesy of Jeff Sandquist.

Rediscovering Hope

As a Christian who is recovering from religious excesses and disappointment with various mainstream spiritual and self-help practices, I am rediscovering hope through inquiry, also known as The Work.

What is Hope?

The modern-day meaning for the word “hope” veers towards wishing for a certain outcome: I hope my team wins on Saturday, for instance. The more archaic and Biblical use of the word “hope” is in the context of an expectation of good. Hope is the opposite to a sense of dread and a sense of despair.

The Bible talks about the hope of salvation in 1 Thess. 5:8. I believe that the Christian salvation experience is meant to bring a sense of hope: a freedom from worry and fear – an expectation of good. Hope is referred to throughout the Bible and it is one of the “three graces” together with love and faith, as found in 1 Cor. 13:13.

A Sense of Security

My many years of pursuing spiritual and self-help practices have led me to the realisation of some fundamental truths. One of these truths has been the realisation that the development of a sense of security is the key to enjoying freedom, happiness and success in this life. It is little wonder that I make mention of this fundamental concept throughout my writings.

I have spent a great deal of time and energy trying to attract, claim, suppress, resist, control and change things; but not of my efforts have really worked. But the more I observe other people with a view to discovering what brings true happiness and success, I have come the realisation that truly happy people do not spend a lot of time and effort attracting things and claiming things. Such people simply live from the position of who they are on the inside – it is this which attracts all the good things that they experience in life. This observation has led many spiritual and self-help gurus to attempt to create a formula out of this concept, so that all one has to do is to think positively and make an effort to do the right things, and success and happiness will be theirs. But it’s not as simple as that.

A sense of security comes when we have an expectation of good. An expectation of good comes when we are free from the sense of dread and despair that result from our attachment to certain beliefs.

The Gospel

I don’t mean to brag and I don’t purport to know everything, but I feel that I have taken Christianity to its fullest conclusion. I can’t see anywhere else to go with it. I’ve been through the charismatic phase with deliverance, spiritual warfare, faith for finances and healing – right the way through to the message of grace which majors on righteousness and no condemnation in Christ. I mean, there is nowhere else to go with this.

What I have discovered is that the Gospel is a short message and it is not meant to be complicated. However, the institutional church has taken this message of grace and turned it into a business. The church has presented a system of “do-good-get-good-do-bad-get-bad”. However, nothing could be further from the truth, because it is not about how good you are – it is about how good Christ was on your behalf.

A sense of guilt can really rob a person of a sense of hope. When a person comes to believe that there is a God, it can soon lead to a sense of guilt, because it all becomes about pleasing God with your efforts. Guilt is the ultimate sense of inadequacy when you realise that your best efforts are never good enough.

Thankfully, we can find a sense of hope in knowing that it is all about what we believe, as opposed to what we do. For this reason, Christianity in its purest form, apart from the warped performance-based message presented by the institutional church, is actually one of the best antidotes to a sense of guilt. There is something freeing in knowing that there is a God who loves you, that you were created for a purpose and that you have right-standing with this God and that you are not judged according to what you do or don’t do.

As a Christian recovering from religious abuse and excesses, I find myself seeking to know the truth, to find balance and to learn what works and what does not work. I find myself revaluating the mainstays of Christianity, such as prayer, fellowship, worship and so forth. There always seems to be a never-ending demand for Christians to have more faith, love, hope and to pray and read the Bible more. However, I believe that maintaining a sense of hope, with and without the Bible, is the best thing that we can do.

A Question of Right or Wrong Motives

I would always make an enthusiastic start whenever I would come across the latest spiritual or self-help fad: be it affirmations, visualisation, prayer or whatever. But I feel that these efforts were always short lived and unproductive, because of my wrong motives. Whenever I tried to claim or attract wealth – it was always with the motive of alleviating a sense of inadequacy and a sense of dread of what may or may not happen in the future.

But rather than seeking peace through attempting to control circumstances – I should have sought after some means of maintaining a sense of hope, which is an expectation of good. This approach is akin to maintaining a sense of security, as opposed to feeling insecure.

I have learned that I can’t always know what is going to happen in the future and I certainly can’t do a lot to change it. But what I can do is to change my perspective in the present movement from something negative to something positive.

I now find that what I can do in this moment is to work with my expressions of anxiety, which is dread and despair, which arise from the subconscious mind. Rather than trying to affirm these anxious thoughts down or trying to change them through positive thinking – I can use this simple process of inquiry in order to move from a condition of despair to a condition of hope. In this way, I ensure that my motives are always pure; I’m not assuming that I know what is best for me, or how other people should live their lives or what should or should not happen in my environment.

Hope through Inquiry

I find that inquiry works every time because it reconnects my mind with that source of wisdom and hope that is within me all of the time. I have worked with various practices over the years and most of them have not endured – the main reason probably being wrong motive. But if I make my motive the maintenance of a sense of hope – I move closer to ensuring that my motives and pure and that the wisdom I receive from the heart is also going to be pure.

I am convinced that the only thing that keeps a person from being all that they were created to be – is contraction around a thought, in other words, fear. Through inquiry, fear loses its power because the framework of inquiry is so designed to loosen the contraction around a thought that we experience as fear. There is a wellspring of hope inside all of us that is waiting to be tapped into. But instead, we just tend to hold onto our fears and try to avert them through logical deduction, aspirations and hasty actions. Maintaining hope is the best thing, and the only thing, we can do in order to ensure a good quality of life for ourselves: that means we can be the best father, mother, brother, sister, friend or work-colleague to someone else.

When we use inquiry, we don’t demand that things change to be the way we want them to be; we don’t demand answers as to why a certain thing happened in the past and how we can avoid it again, and so on. Through inquiry we rediscover hope which lifts us out of a sense of despair – in this position we are more able to live life at an optimum level – without the need to change things, demand things, control things, attract things and claim things. This leaves us open to the element of surprise as we wait with anticipation what life has in store for us.

Thankfully, inquiry does not demand a great deal of spiritual knowledge for it to work for us. All that we need with inquiry is an earnest desire to know truth and experience freedom than we want to uphold our own beliefs, to be right and to get our own way. In order to experience the sense of hope and freedom that inquiry can help us attain – we need to put in the time and effort to inquire into anxious thoughts as they arise, or as soon as possible thereafter.

I’m Depressed…Is It True?

I’m depressed – is it true?

Yes.

Can I know for certain that is true?

No.

Who am I, how do I react when I believe that thought?

I put myself into a category; I label myself, “I am a…” I then give myself an excuse to behave, think and feel a certain way. I think, “I feel sad, because I have depression.” As if I give myself good reason to feel sad. I then follow the distinctive, familiar patterns of a depressed person, including the anxiety, lethargy and apathy that go with it. There is also the tendency to fall into the trap of feeling like a victim of an unfair world. “I’m depressed and it’s other people’s fault. If the world was not so unfair – maybe I wouldn’t have depression.”

The world is how it is; my emotions are the way they are. When I think the thought, “I’m depressed”, it is as if I am limiting myself to the thoughts, feelings and actions of a particular group of people. Why don’t I allow myself to feel the way I feel, without judging myself, categorising things and blaming other people?

Releasing through the Sedona Method or Release Technique works by allowing and welcoming your thoughts, feelings and desires; allowing yourself to be just the way are in this moment. The understanding is that as soon as you allow your thoughts, desires and feelings to be the way they are without attaching to them with the mind – those very things just dissolve.

Can I allow myself to be the way I am right now, without giving it a name or category? As soon as I identify with a particular state of being, I consign myself to it right there and then. When I declare myself to be in a state of depression – I act, think and feel just like a typical depressed person. Why don’t I just take the labels off myself and see how I go from there? If I’m going to feel like crap for the next couple of hours, so be it – but do I have to give it a name? It’s like looking at the sky every morning and feeling compelled to say, “Oh look, it is a blue sky. This sky is definitely blue in colour.” The sky is what it is without me having to identify with it, analyse it and categorise it.

Who would I be without that thought?

I would just be who I am – without attachment to thoughts and feelings; without labels and categories. Perhaps that feeling of sadness would just lift off me when I stop looking at it, thinking about it and resisting it. Well, that wouldn’t be very like a depressed person if I only felt depressed for a couple of minutes – would it? Well, who said I was depressed? I did – but why? Do I achieve anything by calling myself such a name? No, I don’t.

If I did not think the thought, “I’m depressed”, every time I feel a sense of melancholia, I would be free to experience my emotions without the constraints of labels; I would be free to be as sad or happy as I am. I believe that when I resist a thought or feeling – it holds it in place. So if I did not think the thought, “I’m depressed”, perhaps those feelings would just melt away and I would be left feeling a sense of peace.

I can certainly say that labelling me as “depressed” certainly does nothing to make me feel happier – so I might as well live my life without that label, without those thoughts. I believe my life would be better for it.

Let’s turn it around…

I am not depressed. I am who I am – I don’t need to label or categorise that. My feelings are what they are.

Right and Wrong Thinking

I recently listened to The Free Believers Network podcast episode entitled “The People Revelation”, May 22^nd 2010. In this podcast episode, the hosts discussed how people tend to not see the other person and truly appreciate them, if they hold onto a particular concept about that person. In other words, when we make our lives about what is right and what is wrong, we totally miss the heart, the essence of other people. It’s as if for some people, the concept of what is right or what is wrong is actually more important than the true value of the other person. When we learn to associate with another person, to connect with them on a heart level and be prepared to see things from their perspective – everything changes. Rather than judging another person for what they do, say, think and believe – we can move to a place beyond that were all of that does not matter and we choose to really love that person.

Christianity can be a belief and practice that is riddled with contradictions, such as, “You’re saved and set free from sin…but make sure you keep the rules, otherwise, you’re sinning.” These contradictions make no sense! Likewise, whether you are Christian or not, trying to love people when you hold onto a concept about that person, being either right or wrong, it causes us to miss the essence of what love really is. When we hold onto labels, such as, “He’s gay”, or, “She’s fat,” we put obstacles in the way of our seeing the light in a person’s life; because it all becomes about some aspect of what they do, believe or have. The biggest contradiction about Christianity is trying to love other people, and yet, holding onto concepts of what is good, bad, right or wrong. There is a desperate need, for Christians and non-Christians alike, to re-connect with the heart.

The use of labels is a sure-fire way of causing enmity and division with other people. I will admit that relationships on all levels have been a struggle with me since day one. I have encountered a lot of rejection and even verbal abuse from people. I believe what causes this is the beliefs and attitudes of a person. When you contract around concepts of right and wrong, even with the best of intentions, you inevitably fall into the trap of judging others.

When you judge other people, I believe it sends out a signal to other people, especially those particularly affected, that they can feel. This concept is not necessarily New Age, not that there is anything good or bad about New Age, but this is something that is rather commonsense and matter of fact. Don’t take my word for it, test it out in your own life, think about some of the relationships you have and your attitude towards those people. We are immersed in an invisible world that only comes alive when we decide to “tune-in” to those things. This concept works with television and radio; this also works on a human level, just search the internet on “kirlean photography”. Even if you don’t believe in humans sending out waves of thought and emotion – there is ample evidence about body language which works on a subtle, physical and psychological level. It is impossible to hold onto judgements and bitterness towards another person, and for them to not feel affected by those thoughts in one way or another. That judgementalism is bound to rebound on you in some way. I love the way The Message Bible puts it:

¹ "Don't pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults - unless, of course, you want the same treatment.

² That critical spirit has a way of boomeranging.

Matthew 7:1-2 MSG

I liked what Aimee Dassele said in the podcast episode “The People Revelation”; Aimee said that she had come to the conclusion that instead of considering what is right and wrong and making blanket judgements from there – it is better to consider whether something brings you life or not. Living life by a set of rules, as some people do, inevitably leads to making judgements about a person that are not true. Even if your judgements towards a person are indeed true, a person might drink excessively, a person might have an anger problem, but those things should not affect the way that you see them and interact with them. Our whole perspective on life, and other people, changes when we consider whether something brings us life and peace, or death, emptiness and frustration. What is right for one person may not be right for us, and vice-versa. The problem with blanket judgements and rules is that there is little or no flexibility for movement. We are all different people with different lives, goals, preferences, upbringings, strengths and weaknesses. When we consider if something brings us life, we re-connect the heart and see what is right for us. We can also connect to the heart of the other person and see things from their perspective – it is also known as compassion.

Releasing and inquiry provides the framework and tools that are conducive to re-connecting to the heart. Releasing and inquiry is not about rules or principles, what is right or wrong, but about welcoming “what is”, embracing reality, allowing other people and yourself to be the way they are, and living from that place. Everything originates from a thought and we can question those thoughts which are stressful to see if they bring us life and peace or frustration and emptiness. We cannot control other people; we cannot control our own thoughts; but by re-connecting to the heart in the framework of releasing and inquiry, we allow ourselves to let go of the contraction around a thought, want or emotion in order to find freedom from it. Only in the freedom from the contraction around beliefs and concepts, can we truly love ourselves, others and life.

Why Affirmations Don’t Work

Affirmations are flawed because they are more-often-than-not motivated out of selfishness and fear and are not a genuine expression of what you believe, and perhaps, what you even need. Affirmations do nothing to deal with the underlying beliefs that are causing the stress and dysfunction in a person’s life. It is rather like placing a plaster or band-aid on a festering sore and expecting it to heal.

Apparently, our beliefs are established early on in life. Some experts say that the first six years of our lives are the most formative years of our lives. Little do some people realise that many of the issues they fact in adult life today, have their roots in something that they thought or experienced when they were just a child. Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy seems to have a decent track record in dealing with these issues – but it is expensive and can take a long time to complete. Also, a person is ill equipped to perform Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy on their own life, without years of relevant training.

The use of affirmations can also be compared to piling positive thoughts on top of layers of negative beliefs. I remember reading in a book on self-hypnosis over 15 years ago that the use of self-hypnotic suggestions was like pressing the record button on a tape-recorder and overriding the existing message. This sounds convincing, but unfortunately, it is not true.

Another problem with affirmations is that their appeal lies in the promise if being able to have what you most desire – all through changing what you believe in the subconscious mind. However, even if you believe that you can have, be or do a certain thing – there is no guarantee that you will attract it or that it will happen to you. I believe in making myself receptive to something, certainly, but affirmations can become a fantasy to many people as they dream of making certain things happen, such as the accumulation of wealth, the adoration of others and so forth.

Releasing and inquiry do not attempt to try to make things happen or to try to influence other people by the creation of beliefs. In fact, releasing and inquiry highlights the dangers of creating beliefs. It seems that the creation of beliefs is what causes problems in a person’s life. It is as if beliefs become hot-spots for the focus of anxiety. Beliefs equate to expectations – when we hold on to expectations, we are inviting anxiety because expectations often argue with reality or “what is”.

Byron Katie often says, “If you want to suffer on purpose – get a plan.” This concept is also conveyed throughout Eckhart Tolle’s powerful book, The Power of Now. Tolle teaches that as soon as our minds are allowed to drift unnecessarily into the past or the future, it causes anxiety and all manner of struggle for us. Keeping our mind on the present is by far the best means of alleviating anxiety and the confusion it brings. But affirmations become an invitation to examine what is wrong with us and what we believe we should do, be or have. Affirmations work hand-in-hand with the refusal to accept yourself as you are. Affirmations take the mind into the past or the future, as you try to make up for past failures and attempt to build an ideal future.

The Sedona Method identifies the want for approval as one of the core wants that controls our lives. Affirmations are often an attempt to make the changes to your life that you see as fundamental in attracting the approval of others. A person who is considered voluptuous could consider herself to be overweight when compared to the universally accepted concept of beauty in the form of stick-thin models, which adorn the front cover of fashion magazines. Who is to say what is beautiful and what is not? Culture, upbringing, experiences and I would say destiny – all contribute towards a person’s personal preferences and what is right for them. So why would a person want to change an aspect of their life in order to conform to another person’s sense of perfection?

Affirmations also become an expression of a want for security, as you attempt to get those things into your life that you feel will make you more secure: money, power and possessions. There is something powerful and freeing in accepting yourself as you are and being content with what you have right now. In the acceptance of self comes peace of mind and a sense of security in which you trust in yourself, life, God, the Universe or others to meet your needs, as and when they arise. The need to “feather ones nest” and build for the future now, is an expression of insecurity.

Lastly, the want for control is compounded by the promises of various self-help methods and the use of affirmations, as you attempt to change yourself, others and circumstances in a desperate attempt to control your life. There is something liberating in being able to accept circumstances as they arise, knowing that whatever does happen, you will be able to face it and deal with it. I think one of the biggest reasons we want to control circumstances is because of the pain that occurs when something happens that it contrary to what we expected. But rather than attempting to find the latest self-help and spiritual methods that we can use to control our lives and bring added comfort and peace through that, we simply embrace everything that we have experienced thus far and we accept whatever is happening in our lives right now.

Byron Katie often states that the only suffering that we experience is the contraction around a belief. Most people struggle with this concept and seek to refute it, as if it is condoning wrong-doing. However, when you perform inquiry for yourself, you eventually come to see that this statement is absolutely true.

So it would seem that there is a need to move away from creating new beliefs, towards the approach of letting go of existing wrong beliefs. But what is a wrong belief? How do we know if a belief is good or not? Byron Katie asserts that there are no good beliefs. It is not simply a matter of determining what beliefs are good, bad, right or wrong. It is more a matter of knowing that it is not the belief itself that causes problems, but the contraction around a belief. When we use releasing we are letting go of our attachment to a want for emotion.

Lester Levenson, the creator of releasing, advocates releasing on even the most positive emotions! This is proof that it is not the emotions that cause problems or pain, as such, but our attempt to control them by holding onto them or resisting them. If emotions or wants are simply allowed “to be”, to exist as they are, they will eventually dissipate by themselves, without our need to control them. As soon as we grapple with beliefs, desires, thoughts, wants and emotions – we have the effect of holding them in place. Affirmations do the opposite of what we want them to do for us, a lot of the time, in that they become expressions of our anxiety. That is the reason they feel so empty and mechanical a lot of the time, because when we say them we don’t believe we actually have them.

I also feel rather dubious about visualisation, which is like affirmations but instead of speaking out what we desire, you try to picture the end result in your mind. I cannot help but feel that for some people, visualisations simply coalesce with the fantasies of neurotics.

What about those people who make positive affirmations and they experience something wonderful as a result?

Firstly, how can we be certain that their experience was a direct result of the affirmations or other spiritual practices they performed? I have come to the conclusion that many things happen in life without our intervention. Despite this, we seem keen to attribute such things, whether good or bad, to something that we did. I have reached the conclusion that peace of mind and a sense of security are by far the best ways to experience happiness and success in this life. The people, who sing the praises of their self-help and spiritual beliefs, are often naturally secure-minded and confident people who live their life from that positive-mindedness. I believe in a lot of cases that their adherence to a certain self-help or spiritual practice actually does little or nothing to affect their emotions, success and personal experiences.

Secondly, I believe that a person can make positive expressions based on what they truly believe in their heart to be true in that moment. When you are facing a traumatic incident, the spontaneous outbursts that you come out with are expressions of what is true for you at that moment. This concept has been reversed-engineered by advocates of positive thinking, who assert that if you make yourself say positive things, then you will eventually believe it those things will become a reality in your life. This is a misnomer.

So it would seem that working with the attachment to a thought is by far the best means of affecting real, lasting change in a person’s life. This transformation is not something that can be consciously controlled towards a certain set of beliefs, goals and expectations. Our only goal in releasing and inquire is the attainment of inner peace, free of the turmoil that is created when we attach to beliefs. We cannot always control what does or does not happen in our lives, we cannot always dictate how successful and prosperous we will be, but if we are clear minded, that is the best condition we can be in, in order to live life to the full and experience true, lasting peace, fulfilment and even success in this life.

“If we want to know the truth about who we are, all we have to do is let go of our attachment to thoughts and feelings. In silence, who or what we are makes itself known.”

- Lester Levenson.