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Sedona Method - Getting Out of Touch & Dealing With Fear
I've been out of commission for a week almost. I find when I get out of touch for an extended period there is usually some fear there that keeps me from diving back in.
I'm trying to tune into my fear. As I improve my skills in Supply and Demand I'm very aware of my fear. I wake up every morning (when I'm trading) and sit for 15 to 20 minutes before I look at a chart, trying to sense my fear and come to terms with it.
Is anybody familiar with the Sedona Method? Van Tharp (from Market Wizards) recommends it to his Super Trader program participants. I've been using it for about a year and a half. It was very difficult at first. I have some notes I took from the internet but I can't find the original source. If somebody knows, let me know and I'll add it to the post.
I sit and visualize my trades from yesterday with the below. I find the fear and then get to the point where I let go of it. If anybody else does this and is a nut like I am, feel free to reach out to me.
Here they the notes:
The Sedona Method is a self improvement tool. It is designed to help you let go of your limitations, unwanted feelings and inner blocks. The core behind the Sedona Method comes from the experiences of Lester Levenson.
The basic idea is that we are already whole, complete and perfect as we are. What the method does is to allow yourself to remove the layers of limitations preventing you from being in that state. Now it may sound counter-intuitive that you are already perfect and complete, but while we may have imperfections within our body-mind, know that this body is not who you really are.
If you ever heard about concepts like the soul, the self or the higher self, this is what the method allows you to dive into. When we keep holding on to any emotions, they end up feeling quite familiar. Ultimately, this holding on and suppressing of emotions can cause various diseases. The truth about emotions and feelings is that they all can be released. The more you let go, the more you get out of it.
And as you let go you create space for new energy and opportunities to come up within yourself.
What I like about the Sedona Method is that there are many ways to release. Currently there are 5 ways to let go. Here they are:
#1. Choosing to let go.
Here you simply focus on your feelings and make the choice to let them go. First, you welcome the emotion and see from which want it comes from. With the Sedona Method, there are 5 different types of wants. Those are wanting approval, control, security, separation and oneness.
You then ask yourself if you could let it go. Note that you are only letting go of the want (i.e. the lack). There’s nothing wrong in being in control or having approval. The problems come from wanting them and looking for them outside of yourself. When you release you often feel lighter and much more at peace with yourself and everyone else.
So here’s how you could use it to release a simple feeling. We won’t focus on the wants now since this is a little more advanced. So let’s say you’re feeling some stress that you would like to let go.
First you simply invite the stress up or welcome it rather than trying to fight it. Then ask yourself these questions:
Could I let this feeling go?
Would I let this feeling go? (In other words, am I willing to let it go)
When?
And then notice how you feel. Do the same process again until you feel free of the feeling. The more you do this, the more you release each time. This is the Sedona Method at its most basic form. You can use similar processes to drop limiting beliefs, achieve goals, letting go of fears, addictions and much more.
#2. Welcoming
The second way to let go with the Sedona Method is welcoming. We get used so much to hold on and suppress our emotions that by doing so, we create barriers of limitations. Here we simply invite the unwanted emotion to come up. What’s amazing is that simply by welcoming it, you find out that the emotion dissolves itself. The welcoming process is the best one to use in action. You don’t have to ask yourself any questions, you just allow yourself to welcome whatever feeling is here.
You can go deeper and use the process called triple welcoming. First, you welcome the feeling as well as the pictures or sounds related to it. Secondly, you welcome any attachment to it and/or any aversion. This means any wanting to do anything with the emotion like wanting to hold on to it or getting rid of it. Therefore you simply allow the emotion or the feeling to be, period. Finally, you welcome any thought or feeling that this problem is personal and only yours. That this is your story.
As you welcome all those wants and feelings you find out that they naturally dissolve. If they’re still there after welcoming them you can simply ask yourself to let them go. You can also allow yourself to be open to new possibilities of any kind.
This welcoming process is very well shown and explained in the Letting Go movie. For those interested, I also created a complete Letting Go movie review.
#3. Diving in
The third way is called “diving in”. To give you a basic explanation of the process, picture yourself a soap bubble. If you burst the soap bubble you will be left out with virtually nothing. The same goes with your emotions. With the method, you allow yourself to dive right into the core of you’re unwanted feeling. Once you think you’re there, you try to continue to dive even deeper.
What you realize is that once you go beyond the emotion and beyond the sensations, the unwanted emotions bursts and all that’s left is the true essence of who you really are.
#4. Holistic release
This is one of my favorite ways of releasing and it is very powerful. With the holistic release, you simply welcome both polarities of your problem. You repeat the process several times and what you find out is that they both dissolve each other.
For example, if you often feel very stressed out, try going through the following statements several times back and forth and notice what happens:
Could you feel as stressed as you are in this moment
Could you allow yourself to feel as relaxed as you are in this moment
Here’s another one I sometimes use when going to sleep:
Could I resist and worry as much I do
Could I relax and let go as best I can
I go through both statements a few times. What happens then is that my mind calms down in a big way and my body relaxes deeply. The next thing I know (or not) is that I’ve fallen asleep.
Now I can hear some positive thinkers saying “you put attention on negative feelings, so you will only create more of the same”. Please understand that it’s not the case. Here, you simply invite the unwanted energy that is already there so that you can release it.
Notice that in the “negative” statements, there is always “as much you do” or “as much you are” in this moment. So you simply bring your awareness to what’s already inside you. By inviting it up instead of ignoring it or suppressing it, you release it naturally.
#5. The 5th way
This one is simply called “the 5th way”. Its main purpose is to find who we really are. It is designed to burst through the illusion of separation. It’s a more advanced way of releasing.
You first check to whom you think belongs the feeling or thought you are experiencing. If the answer is anything but “me” or “mine” you are fine. Otherwise, if you think this is your problem, you go through some additional questions to release the illusion of separation.
It might sound complicated but once you get the hang of it, it’s very effective to release big chunks of attachment and suffering. There is even a glimpse of it at the end of the triple welcoming process explained above. That’s when you welcome any sense that your problem is personal or about you. This is a hint to this 5th way of releasing.
Thanks for sharing. Last night I was researching the Sedona method for insomnia, and lo and behold when I logged in to futures.io (formerly BMT) this morning, this post was the featured article on the front page.
Have you taken any of the Sedona Method courses, or read one of Levinson or Dwoskin's books? It seems like there's so many options to learning, I wasn't sure which would be most worthwhile.
I would recommend getting the Sedona Method book and working with it. It's the most effective way I have found in processing one's issues (...and I looked into just about everything in the past 20 years).
Sedona Method has become a constant practice for me. It runs in the back of my mind much of the day. I look at all of my emotions in the context of the Sedona Method. I really liked the Eckhart Tolle stuff but could not put it into practice until I had worked with the Sedona Method for about six months.
In looking back, I realize now that it's a muscle. The more you do it, the more objective you get with your emotions. I used to have a problem staying with trades. I was a very short term trading and basically, I felt that by making decisions I could control the trade, rather than just allow it to play out. But the reality was I almost never got the big time upside. The market always gives you a reason to doubt yourself and your entry. With Sedona, I replay trades over and over. When I make a mental mistake I keep working with it to reprogram it and realize that whether the trade succeeds or fails is not me but rather an outcome in a distribution. I'm now in trades much longer and review all my trades daily with my trading buddy.
When I lose money, there is almost always an issue there to be learned from. If nothing else, there is one from the perspective of how I felt about losing money.
If I am bored while the market is flat, I work with that. It's an emotion that represents disconnection. That disconnection almost always leads to a bad decision (loss of funds).
If I have anxiety and want to get out of a trade, I work with that. If I am in a loss and want to stay in longer than my stop, I work with that. If I get upset at a loss, I work with that. I do this in search of emotional clarity so that I can align myself with the market.
If I feel yucky or am not aware of what I am feeling, I think of it like a dirty film on a window that clouds my view of what the market is telling me. It literally restricts my vision and especially in the heat of the moment when I am trying to make a trade decision. I know this because when I review trades, I often think ... "How stupid am I?" But then I realize I had an emotion or charge which prevented me from seeing what was right in from of me. The brain and emotions are very tricky.
Basically, if I'm not feeling an internal connection then there is something to work with. I start with "what am I feeling?" Often I am unaware of what it is. Then I work to realize that that emotion is not me. That the feeling is an emotion separate from me. When I can get to a place of being centered and with a clear mind and emotions, I have a much better view of the charts. Trading seems almost effortless during those times. I watch the chart and get into touch with it. The best entries are a setup you see and you watch it play out and fail. This is the very first indication of a move in the other direction. Not confirmation in the direction I want to go. But rather, the failure of an expected movement at a key location. Confirmation comes a little later and then the masses start piling on. But I can only do this with confidence when I have a very clear mind and am clear of emotions. This is what it means to me to align yourself with the market. I was unable to do this before I really started to deeply work with the Sedona Method.
There are other ways. Certainly I know it's not the only way. But of the truly profitable traders that are consistent, all of them that I know have this emotional clarity and objectivity. They may have gotten to this place a totally different way or with different terminology. Please agree or disagree and share your thoughts. I would be very surprised if there are many consistently profitable traders that would not have some of the above ring very true from them. If you are modest about this, send me a private message. I'd love to hear what people say about this. I feel very alone in the above viewpoint. It seems like everyone wants to focus on a new system or method in an eternal search. They do this because it's painful and yucky to look at yourself. But when you work through it and get to the other side, you feel invincible after a great trade.
Please understand, I do fail at these things. It is an eternal struggle. To me it's a muscle that you develop. We each have our tolerances. For me it's been particularly difficult because my ability to observe my emotions was much less than average when I started. I had a lot of anger issues at one point and that really interfered with my trading. But I'm getting stronger and stronger everyday and my trading gets better and better.
I read his book and took the online financial freedom course. After a point, it is all the same and you can just start applying it in your life and trading. The book is ok, but he has realized that he loses people with it. There is too much detail before he gets to the point and purpose. In the financial freedom and other courses, he now starts with a 2 hour intro which explains that whole thing up front. This is much easier than reading for days before it all really clicks and falls into place.
It is a few years since I read The Sedona Method but at the time I embraced it strongly (just noticed that my mobile phone still says "Accept - Release" - it might be time to change it).
I think that there are now approaches available from mainstream psychology that can take one beyond TSM. If you like TSM but find that TSM isn't taking you quite far enough or doesn't seem relevant enough to trading, perhaps seems a little light and fluffy then here are a couple of references for your further investigation.
"The Happiness Trap" by Russ Harris which looks at a school that combines cognitive behavioural psychology with mindfulness, ACT.
"You Are Not Your Brain: The 4-Step Solution for Changing Bad Habits, Ending Unhealthy Thinking, and Taking Control of Your Life" by Schwartz and Gladding.
Of course, if TSM is giving you everything you need and you feel it's assisting your trading success then please ignore my divergent view and my suggestions.
The prescription and his work is excellent. I am not so certain about his division of emotions and emotional sensations but believe it works (and thus is "good" or "true" for our purposes). His leap into questionable science not quite so admirable
