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Sedona Method - Getting Out of Touch & Dealing With Fear


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Sedona Method - Getting Out of Touch & Dealing With Fear

  #11 (permalink)
 
Lornz's Avatar
 Lornz 
Oslo, Norway
 
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cusp View Post
You'll need to go back and reread my criticism.

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



I agree with that. I have some difficulty accepting his religiosity, and it colors his work a bit too much, I think.

Bundeburg?

I've actually spent quite a bit of time in Agnes Water. It's becoming increasingly touristy, though. I liked it better before.

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  #12 (permalink)
 richtobey 
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cusp View Post
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.

I was not aware of these. See, sharing always comes back to you!

Cusp,
What is the main insight or addition of these that go beyond The Sedona Method?

Thanks. Rich

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  #13 (permalink)
cusp
Bundeburg
 
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I had hoped no-one would ask the hard question Rich. I will try to answer it though it will take a little time.


And to Lornz: a great place for rum. I spent a few days in Oslo this summer, lovely lovely City, and about just a week before the shootings. Such a wonderfully civilized society compared to most. Strange to have admired a building and then a little later someone tries to blow it up.

.

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  #14 (permalink)
 salisem 
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richtobey View Post
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.

I absolutely, fully agree that emotional clarity and objectivity are required to be a consistently profitable trader, regardless of the system they are using. I'm surprised you haven't found many others who share the same view, to me it has been plain as day that my emotional state is what prevents me from trading well. I have a terrible habit of forming an opinion about the market (it's going up, it's going down, it's stuck in a range from *here* to *here*), and then seeking information that supports that opinion and ignoring that which doesn't. I keep a little sign at my desk that says "This isn't about how you feel." It doesn't seem to be helping me reach that state of objectivity (if only it were that easy! ).

Thanks for the information about the Sedona training course and book. Sounds like the course is a good investment.

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  #15 (permalink)
cusp
Bundeburg
 
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I had to go back and scan my copy of "The Sedona Method" to make sure I had it right. So here is a very limited comparison of the three.

The Sedona Method uses the I Accept these feeling and then I Release them as its methodology for most everything. It's a good way of releasing pain after the fact to reduce its impact in future but its not very aggressive in terms of pre-practice and real time practice.

************

"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. This was developed by Schwartz from treating OCD based on Cognitive Behavioural Techniques and some unusual insights about our thoughts that come from looking at OCD patients. OCD patients are sane but plagued by thoughts that cause them to do things obsessively. The book extends the OCD work to cover other issues and also has some dodgy/messy pseudo-religious stuff in it. But the prescription is good and pretty relevant to trading issues.

It provides a set of skills to learn and a way of thinking about thoughts feelings and emotions that could be useful to traders. It also provides strategies for practicing outside of the trading arena so that you can speed up learning and brain pattern changing (the much promoted plasticity which does allow old dogs to learn new tricks) and an effective set of tools for dealing with problems in real time - OCD is a very real-time problem very similar to impulses, urges and fears in trading.

************

"The Happiness Trap" by Russ Harris which looks at a school that combines cognitive behavioural psychology with mindfulness, ACT. There are many similarities with the OCD approach but, the book is much easier to read and the approach uses mindfulness to deal with the upsetting thoughts, feelings and emotions before moving to useful action. So the big difference is that the first attacks them with reframing and cbt techniques while this one attacks them by not attacking them. In that sense its more similar to Sedona and probably more likely to be liked by people to whom Sedona appealed. Like YANYB its techniques are to be practiced before, during and after the problematic events.

The most useful thing that YANYB gave that THT didn't was a very strong view that your emotions and thoughts could be false. Simply wrong and not useful. This maps with the trading environment where networks of cells in our brains look for patterns at a below consciousness level and then let us know that they have found them by triggering emotional sensations. Traders then respond to the sensations with impulsive or revenge trades. The funny thing is that although YANYB emphasizes these issues I suspect that THT is better at dealing with them through its mindfulness exercises and the actions you take in response to them.

Of the three I would recommend The Happiness Trap most strongly for traders but as with everything else its a matter of finding what works for you as each individual is different.

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  #16 (permalink)
jgomez74
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Thank you Rich for this thread.

Some months ago, I got the Sedona Method home study course. I listened to the whole program and I did the excercises. However, it is still hard for me to release on emotions and limiting beliefs.

I guess I need practice, but I do not know if you could give me some advices on applying the method, especially when you are trading and being able to release the feelings and still being focused on the trade you are.

Another method to release is the EFT method, I do not know if you have used it and if so, which one you think works better.

Regards,

Jorge

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  #17 (permalink)
 richtobey 
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jgomez74 View Post
Thank you Rich for this thread.

Some months ago, I got the Sedona Method home study course. I listened to the whole program and I did the excercises. However, it is still hard for me to release on emotions and limiting beliefs.

I guess I need practice, but I do not know if you could give me some advices on applying the method, especially when you are trading and being able to release the feelings and still being focused on the trade you are.

Another method to release is the EFT method, I do not know if you have used it and if so, which one you think works better.

Regards,

Jorge

Jorge,

Try to alternate between these perspectives to notice the thoughts are not you:

I'm in long and I want it to go up.
I'm stalking and I want it to go down for a better long entry.
I'm in and I want to tighten my stop and protect my profits or get out.
I'm stalking and I want it to retrace so I can enter.
I wish I had gotten in at x price. I missed the move.
I followed my system and I missed the trade. There will be another entry.

Continue until you can notice these as thoughts and not as your personal identity. When you get stuck in one of them, try these:

Welcome the feeling and allow it to be.
Welcome any desire to get rid of it or keep it. Allow it to be.
Welcome any thought that this feeling is personal or "your story."
Ask yourself to let go of these things.

Rich

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  #18 (permalink)
jgomez74
Chihuahua, Mexico
 
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richtobey View Post
Jorge,

Try to alternate between these perspectives to notice the thoughts are not you:

I'm in long and I want it to go up.
I'm stalking and I want it to go down for a better long entry.
I'm in and I want to tighten my stop and protect my profits or get out.
I'm stalking and I want it to retrace so I can enter.
I wish I had gotten in at x price. I missed the move.
I followed my system and I missed the trade. There will be another entry.

Continue until you can notice these as thoughts and not as your personal identity. When you get stuck in one of them, try these:

Welcome the feeling and allow it to be.
Welcome any desire to get rid of it or keep it. Allow it to be.
Welcome any thought that this feeling is personal or "your story."
Ask yourself to let go of these things.

Rich

Thank you very much Rich.

In fact, we as traders become pro traders when we are able to let go wanting the market move into a certian direction, and just flow with it and follow it to wherever the market wants to move. We must let go of our desires and just accept the market moving as it wants to move.

Sometimes I have missed profits only because I set a target and the market hits it but does not fill me. I set my target and I want the market to go back and fill me, sometimes the market just move in the opposite direction and I finish with no profit only because I wanted the market to fill the specific target I set and that I thought the market should have filled. I know this may sound as nonsense, how can I let go a good profit only because the market did not fill my specific target, then I feel angry and frustrated.

I need to be more conscious about the Sedona Method when I am trading, because at a stressed moment I do not think about welcoming or accepting and then letting go, I just keep my focus on the charts asking the market to move into the direction I want.

Regards,

Jorge

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  #19 (permalink)
 richtobey 
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cusp View Post
I had hoped no-one would ask the hard question Rich. I will try to answer it though it will take a little time.


And to Lornz: a great place for rum. I spent a few days in Oslo this summer, lovely lovely City, and about just a week before the shootings. Such a wonderfully civilized society compared to most. Strange to have admired a building and then a little later someone tries to blow it up.

.

I read "You are not your brain." It was good. Thanks.

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  #20 (permalink)
 richtobey 
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I've been working on my trading plan a little and have updated the Sedona questions that I am going to use while trading. To expand just a little, the point of these questions is not to answer them, but to find the emotions behind them. Then to find the emotion behind the opposite question. By alternating between the two, you can eventually disconnect from the emotions of both questions and see those feelings objectively. When in this objective state, it's easier to execute good psychology in your trading. In this way, trading loses it's grip on us. The book suggested in this thread "You are not your brain," helped me understand more strongly the brain chemistry that forces loses when trading has it's grip on us. By understanding that you truly know what you are up against to be consistently profitable. Here is my updated list.

I'm long and I want price to go higher.
I'm stalking a long and I want price to go lower for a better entry.

I'm short and I want price to go lower.
I'm stalking a short and I want price to go higher for a better entry.

I'm in and I want to tighten my stop and protect my profits or get out.
I'm stalking and I want it to retrace so I can enter.

I wish I had gotten in at x price. I missed the move.
I followed my system and I missed the trade. There will be another entry.

If it goes a little lower, it will reach my target.
If it goes a little lower, I can get long.

If it goes a little higher, it will reach my target.
If it goes a little higher, I can get short.

It just missed my target and turned around.
It blew past my target and I left profit on the table.

It's not going to reach my target. I should get out to protect my profit.
I got out before my target and it reached my target.

I want to be profitable.
I want to have losses.

I want to be in the market.
I want to be out of the market.

To also summarize from "You are not your brain" here are my notes that I have put into the beginning of my trading plan.

Purpose:

It is my goal to be a consistently profitable day trader. To do this I have a plan and follow it. Because I'm in it for the success and not the enjoyment of it, I make trading decisions based upon who I am (core values, goals, and system rules) using my mind. On the other hand, my brain with its chemistry, generates faulty messages as thoughts, impulses, urges and desires that are inconsistent with who I am. They occur in everybody and I am not responsible for them. However, I am responsible for what choices I make when I experience them.

Faulty brain messages mask a discomfort which I naturally seek to alleviate by engaging without thought in unhealthy habits. These unhealthy habits are compulsions that feel good but are a deviation from my plan and consistently lead to losses. The underlying discomfort is created by a suppressed emotion that a part of me wishes to avoid.

With this plan as my pre-meditated guide, I am empowered to engage my Medial Pre-frontal Cortex, an area of my brain that is responsible for controlling automatic behavior, to avoid unhealthy habits by following the four steps shown below. With these tools, I act in a voluntary way, using all information available to me, and build healthy trading decision habits which are consistently profitable.

The four steps can be summarized as:

S1: Relabel the Negative Brain Message.
Identify a negative brain message and re-label it as what it is - a defective brain message.
S2: Reframing
Evaluate the content of a deceptive brain message and see it has a harmful message so you can counter and veto it. (i.e. engage your Wise Advocate). The deceptive brain message arises from your brain biology and not you.
S3: Refocus away from the message.
Focus on a physical act like swallowing - something different from the brain message. Keep going even when you feel like giving up. The power of this comes from a strong definition of who you are (goals, values, etc - What is your passion and long term goals? See this deceptive message in the context of this).
S4: Revalue
Clearly see the thoughts and urges as sensations caused by deceptive brain messages that have little value. Move on.

My goals with personal meaning which support step 3 above are:

List your goals, values, etc.

To process the underlying discomfort and its' suppressed emotion I explore my emotions and have discovered the following deceptive brain messages and their root source. When experiencing faulty brain messages, I engage in the healthy habit listed in the last column as part of the four steps above.

Deceptive Brain Message:
I shouldn't have taken that trade.
I should have gone the other direction.
I should have changed my stop.
I should have taken profit.
I should have stayed with that trade.
I should have gotten in earlier… I missed the move.
You are a loser at trading and will never be successful.
It looks like it is going to turn around. I should …
I'm jealous that person x already hit their weekly goal.

Uncomfortable sensations:
Self-doubt
Lack of confidence
Depression

Unhealthy habitual responses:
Miss the next opportunity
Take a trade based upon limited information.
Overly strong belief in a particular direction.

Healthy Habit
Welcome the feeling, then think about something else. Follow risk management plan. Keep target the same as initial setting. Take your medicine and stick with the plan.

I also process root source emotions and mitigate the affects of trading stress with 1) HeartMath heart rate variance (HRV) meditations and 2) Sedona Method emotion management. The HeartMath EmWave HRV monitor allows me to see real-time feed back of my body's stress response and to, through controlled breath, to guide my Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) into balance. When my ANS in balance, my "Uh Oh Center" which is made of the three components listed below, has less ability to create thoughts, urges and sensations, which when followed, lose money:

1) Hypothalamus--the part of the brain involved in hunger, thirst, sex, and other basic bodily drives, also called the Drive Center.
2) Amygdala - responsible for generating feeling of fear and physical sensations, such as rapid heartbeat, shortness of breath, and sweating. The amygdala also assesses threats and sends signals that indicate that "this is something to fear and/or to avoid" or "this is safe."
3) Insula -- responsible for generating "gut-level responses," such as dread or what many would describe as a "pit in my stomach," "gut wrenching pain," and similar sensations.

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