Releasing Emotional Blockages
This practice is relatively simple yet its advantages are phenomenal. What you will be doing is synergizing breath, feeling and intentional choices to accomplish releasing the blocks to your true freedom. Depending on what you uncover, it can work quickly or take some time. The results are guaranteed. Lester Levinson, the founder of the Sedona Institute, came to me shortly after his death as if to say... take it forward, please.
I have to be careful here because some of the terms I will use have been used by the Sedona Method group who, like so many purveyors of process, feel like they own it. So, in respect, I'll give them credit here. Quite frankly I came upon the process on my own without realizing it. I found out how similar the 'Sedona Method' was to my own process when offered the 'workshop' in lieu of an interview on the television show I was producing. The main term I would like to introduce is IMPERTURBABILITY. By definition, it means unaffected by anything, still, motionless in your emotions...clear. This may sound familiar... holding on nowhere... nothing affects your emotional nature.
So, recognizing that this is a really powerful place, how do we find it? Let's do an initial assessment. Imagine the feeling you have when confronted with unpleasant situations in your life. Do you remember what it was? Could you feel that feeling again if asked? Try to do it right now. Okay, now that you have felt the feeling again, could you let go of that feeling? Of course you could. You probably had forgotten about it until you were asked to remember it, right? That is the gist of the process. It is that simple. Essentially the process is getting in touch with your honest feeling, acknowledging the feeling and then consciously letting it go, which facilitates rising to a new level of freedom in your emotional being.
Now when you are dealing with really deep issues it becomes much more difficult because of our repetitive habits of holding on to the feeling. Sometimes we totally deny the feeling until someone is able to confront us gently. We don't necessarily search these people out, either. They tend to just show up. We all know that it is our own choice as to how we respond to a situation. Sometimes we want to make others responsible. It simply doesn't work that way. They are not in our body. They are not in our mind. We are the only resident in our body, mind, and heart. So we have to accept the responsibility that we are the one in charge, making the choices, and choose to change. Becoming change agents in our every day living is a result of the process.
Going back to the beginning now, you begin the process by finding your own buttons. These buttons usually stem from three main areas of concern: 1) ways we seek approval, 2) ways we try to control, and 3) ways we seek security. So the ability to release these wants is the essence of the practice. In some ways you begin to get your own internal feedback on your worst, your best, and what you need to do to improve. It is possible that you might want to use this technique in conjunction with the twelve views.
Six Steps - (from the Sedona Method)
1. You must want Imperturbability more than you want approval, control, and security.
2. Decide that you can be Imperturbable.
3. Recognize the three wants in all you do.
4. Release your wants as soon as you recognize them.
5. When stuck... let go of wanting to control the stuckness.
6. Recognize that each time you do the process of releasing, you feel much better.
Sometimes the stuckness gets to be unbearable. Its okay, we all go through it until we find the door out. What is key in moving through the chaos is to recognize what the advantage is of remaining in the same emotional position and weigh it against the disadvantages of holding on to the emotion. Here, it can become quite logical and clear as to the 'reasons' for letting go. However, the emotions are not always logical so we learn to process our experience to help us ascend to new awareness levels.
When your buttons get pressed (emotional triggers) the basic process goes like this:
Recognize the feeling. Be with it for a moment. Allow it to come forth in all its splendor, however ugly it may be. DO NOTHING, just acknowledge the feeling. The key is not to deny it. Accept it and allow it to be fully present in your emotional body for now. Do not judge, condemn, or criticize the fact that the feeling exists, no matter how much you want to change it (example of wanting control). If you have someone close to you that you can express it to, do that as well. Verbalizing, the act of becoming aware enough to articulate the feeling, is an integral part of the process.
Once you are allowing the fullness of the feeling to be present in all your being, you have the opportunity to choose to let it go. In order to make it easier we often use some imagery that helps us to engage the process. Imagine that you are gripping a Frisbee (flying disk) with all your might. Hold it at about solar plexus level. Now imagine that you are throwing it away from you into the void where it just disappears. Just before you release it, take a deep breath and exhale at the moment of release. The instruction on breath use is what was missing from the Sedona Method practice. It is the most important piece, in my opinion. In the release of the breath, you can feel a shift in your 'feeling' as though it has become 'lighter' and considerably less overwhelming. It might even tingle just a bit.
If you are used to some kind of emotional release process, this will be fairly comfortable and a bit more fun in the visualization. Play with it and find a visualization of your own if the Frisbee imagery doesn't work for you. The intention and action of the breath will make up for any lack of visualization you might have. Some people just aren't visual. Everybody breathes. Again, have fun with it. It is hard work if you have deep seated attachments to your want of approval, control, or security. You will experience just how powerful you are in changing your perceptions and releasing to a new living awareness, closer and closer to freedom and imperturbability. Please share your discoveries and this process whenever the opportunity arises... everybody wins!