On today's episode of Mindful Impact, Justin speaks with Hale Dwoskin, teacher of The Sedona Method, about the process of letting go of the feelings, thoughts, and beliefs that are holding you back. Listeners can learn more and sign up for a course at www.sedona.com/mindfulimpact.
Episode Highlights:
- Hale Dwoskin has shared and taught The Sedona Method for over 4 decades and is the NYTimes bestselling author of the book The Sedona Method. He was also featured in the movie The Secret.
- Hale and his wife don't have any children, but they've been together for 30 years.
- He introduced his wife to The Sedona Method when they were dating, after Hale's mentor inspired it after he nearly died from a coronary and began a process of self-inquiry.
- Hale of course still reacts to things, but they are less intense and less frequent, and he is now able to return to a resting state of happiness.
- The Sedona Method lets you let go of not just the feelings, but the thoughts and beliefs that lead to those feelings.
- We tend to identify ourselves by our thoughts and feelings, so if we identify as angry, sad, lonely, etc., then you are going to be emotionally attached to those thoughts and feelings that reinforce that identity.
- When you say "I am angry," or "I feel angry," you are equating yourself as a person with that feeling of anger, instead of seeing the anger as simply a feeling that your mind and body are experiencing.
- We typically say "I am" in connection to person, place, or thing, or thoughts and feelings, but actually it's the source of all of those things.
- Your mind tends to misdirect you by creating a problem and then working to solve it.
- Pick up an object to represent your unwanted thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and ideas about yourself. Your hand represents your gut or awareness. If you grip the object for a long time, it will begin to feel uncomfortable but also familiar. When you open you hand, you find that the object is not attached to you.
- What you're letting go of are the things that you're clinging to, and it is a choice that we often forget we have.
- Young children do this naturally—they can be incredibly upset about something and then drop it and move on like it was nothing, while the adults are still emotionally responding to it hours later.
- Children will fall down, and then look around at the adults to check if they're "supposed" to be upset.
- Children also refer to themselves in the third person early on, until they develop an identity around their bodies.
- Try an exercise where you identify something you want to change or improve on in your life, and try to just be present with that feeling, and allow it.
- You don't need to understand why you're having a thought or feeling in order to let it go.
- After you ask yourself if you can let it go, ask yourself if you would let it go. Then, ask yourself when? This is an invitation to let it go now.
- We've been brainwashed to believe that letting go is hard.
- Justin offers the example of witnessing a situation where you want to help somebody, you see somebody in trouble and you emotionally react to that. How can letting go be helpful here?
- Hale points out that we often involve ourselves in a situation where we're trying to help but we only make it worse; by letting go, you'll be able to see more clearly if you are needed and what action you should take.
- Letting go is necessary to forgiveness.
- Most of us expend most of our energy thinking about what you would change in the past, and fighting against the natural flow of your life.
- Non-duality is about discovering the interconnectedness that runs between all people, living organisms, and even inanimate objects, and realizing that there are no limits.
- Fear is releasable.
- It sounds like hypnosis to start thinking this way, but really the hypnosis we're all under is believing that we are limited and can't do something or are stuck.
- Whatever you focus on expands in your experience.
- Things like pandemic fatigue come from us living from a place of resistance instead of acceptance.
- Resistance is just a feeling that you can let go of.
- If Hale could give his 18 year old self any piece of advice, it would be to follow his heart.
- Feelings are just feelings, not facts, and they are not who you are.
- Who and what you are at your core is already whole and enough as it is.
- Everything that you want in life can be found by you, naturally, by letting go and tuning in to your wholeness.
3 Key Points:
- Your feelings and thoughts do not define you.
- Young children naturally understand the concept of letting go, but we lose that skill along the way as we mature.
- Letting go is necessary to forgive, to stop resisting the flow of your life, and to discover your natural, innate wholeness.
Tweetable Quotes:
- "We think we are what we think or feel. We identify as the angry person or the sad person or the hurt person or the misunderstood person or the lonely person, or the person who's a failure [or] a success. And we never examine whether or not we're a person at all." –Hale Dwoskin
- "The mind is a wonderful tool, but it's an awful master." –Hale Dwoskin
- "Emotion and reason often run at cross purposes." –Hale Dwoskin
- "Forgiveness is natural when you let go. And trying to forgive without letting go is impossible." –Hale Dwoskin
- "When we approach any situation based on the way it was, we miss the way it is." –Hale Dwoskin
Resources Mentioned:
