On The Move with Leslie
01 December 2001SEDONA METHOD In the process of researching Age Power - to be published at the end of August 2002 by Random House UK - I have been exploring a number of human growth tools, techniques and information that can be helpful to people in becoming more truly who they are. For I see health as a process of growth, by which each one of us becomes more and more able to live out the unique, divine spark of creativity that is our true nature in our lives. You will find hundreds of various techniques, training programs, books, tapes and gurus on the market. Each has something to sell that is supposed to make us richer, better or more creative and to help us lead a more satisfying life. Few fulfill their promises. The Sedona Method is different. It is a simple technique by which you can let go of negative thoughts and feelings literally in seconds. Using Sedona emotional release techniques over a period of time can remove many of the obstacles that prevent us from living out the truth of who we are and help us achieve our goals. On a practical level, the Sedona Method helps people tap their potential for health, rich and fulfilling relationships, joy, creativity and energy. It can help you make better decisions and perform well, even under the heaviest stress. But the method goes far beyond. It acts like a 'detoxification instrument' - not so much for the body as for the mind. So that, bit by bit, the burden that each one of us carries from unresolved emotional material and the belief systems that limit us and behavior patterns which interfere with our living, our authenticity and truth, get cleared. One of the other things I like about the Sedona Method is that it respects the individual. It does not ask you to take on any set of beliefs or buy into any philosophy or psychology. To describe what it is like to work with the Sedona Method is difficult because it is so absolutely non-linear and highly experiential in nature. Sedona is one of those things you have to experience for yourself in order to know the rich gifts it can bring. The brainchild of American physicist, Lester Levinson, the Sedona Method consists of a series of simple questions to make you aware of what you are feeling right now in this particular moment. It asks how you feel about what you are feeling and then whether you are willing to let go of what you feel right now. There is no right answer. If you are not willing to let go, it works just as well as if you are. It also asks other questions which allow us not only to become conscious of the fact that so many limitations in our lives come from feelings, ideas and limiting beliefs that we are usually not aware of, but also that these things do not belong to us. Ever shifting experiences, these are things which can change quite literally in an instant, with no effort. The Sedona Method is available in the form of tapes as well as in live workshops, taught a few times a year by a superb trainer named Chris Payne. Chris is also Managing Director of LifeTools - the UK company which imports and sells the best consciousness expanding self-development tools in the UK. Chris himself is a living example of the kind of freedom and simple joy that working with the Sedona Method can bring. In Chris, large intelligence is married to the playfulness of a child - all in one human being. Workshops run for two and a half days. The next one is scheduled for the beginning of February. LifeTools sell the Sedona Method Course, which consists of ten tapes and a workbook they can take you through the whole process of learning the technique. Once you have learned it, you don't need the tapes any more. When you find yourself in a position of fatigue, anxiety, depression or uncertainty, simply use the technique silently to yourself, wherever you happen to be. The releasing process clears whatever it is that is disturbing your equilibrium. Most people who learn Sedona Method, do it because they want a specific payoff. They want to clear stress, for instance or they want to be more effective and joyous in their lives. But it has many, many other benefits too, which cannot be so easily described: A sense of being free to be who you are. A sense of lightness. A sense of clarity. The feeling that you have shed the burdens that you have been carrying for so long that you may even have come to identify with them and believe they are a part of you. There have been a couple of interesting studies which validate the effectiveness of the Sedona Method. One was carried out by Dr Richard J Davidson, together with Dr David McClelland of Harvard University in the US. They tested three groups of twenty people - 60 people all tolled. To one group they taught the Sedona Method. To another group they taught Jacobson progressive relaxation (a well tested means of decreasing stress and increasing energy). The third group wasn't taught any stress reduction techniques at all. Researchers subjected everyone in the experiment to a film that involved some pretty horrific visual incidents - before the training, two weeks after the training had begun, and three and a half months after the training had finished. They then measured various parameters such as heart rate, blood pressure and muscle tension. The results were remarkable. When it came to a decrease in heart rate, the control group had a reduction of five percent during the third viewing of the film, the progressive relaxation group had a ten percent reduction in heart rate, but the Sedona Method group, over the same three and a half months period, had a reduction of twenty-three percent. Blood pressure results and muscle tension were similar. Researches concluded that the Sedona Method 'stands out far above the rest for its simplicity, efficiency, absence of questionable concepts and rapidity of observable results'. Dr Elliott Grumner says, 'The Sedona Method is different from anything I have ever done before. It works on a feeling level and allows people to eliminate negative emotions and thoughts. The Sedona Method is so fast and effective because it goes directly to the heart of the problem. It is a short cut for everyone who uses it'. Many do. The Sedona Method is widely used by some organizations in the US including Meryll Lynch, ATT and Chase Manhattan Bank. Lestor Levinson, father of the Sedona Method, was a successful physicist and businessman in New York. He suffered badly from a power-driven type A personality. As a result he developed serious illness, including two heart attacks, jaundice and stomach ulcers. So bad was Levinson that his physician told him he had two weeks to live. It was then that he began to examine the relationships in his life. He decided to 'square all with love'. By this Levinson meant to go back to all of his interactions with people and putting right whatever was not right. As a result of him exploring this process (knowing he was going to die within a fortnight anyway) he discovered some remarkable things about himself and life. Within three to six months, all of the frustration and anger that he had carried for so long, was gone. What replaced it was a state of peace and bliss. Levinson lived another forty years to become enormously healthy and even more successful. Before long he gave away the money that he had earned and went to live in the desert in Sedona in the US. That was in the 1960's where there was literally nothing in Sedona but dirt tracks. There he remained virtually "in a state of grace", as he describes it, for six to ten years, living in a trailer. Later on he realized that the gift of peace and bliss which had been given to him through his experiments really needed to be offered to others. When he met troubled people it was not enough simply to smile at them from his own place of peace. At that point he began to develop the release technique that later became the Sedona Method. Levinson died in 1994, passing on the technique to two main people in the US. One of them was Hale Dwoskin, whose voice is found on the Sedona Method course tapes. It would be hard to overstate the potential the Sedona Method has to change people's lives. The tapes are available from www.lifetools.com or you can telephone LifeTools on 01189 483444 (from outside the UK: +44 1189 483444). Office hours are 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday and they have live operators taking orders and messages outside these hours. Fax 01189 462505 (from outside the UK: +44 1189 462505). LifeTools
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