How Do We Let Go of Our Negative Emotions?
The method to the madness
I used to suppress all my negative feelings. It wasn’t that I thought it was a good idea. It was just that I didn’t know what else to do with them. My immediate impulse to any negative emotion was to try to get rid of it, any way I could. This meant pushing it away, stuffing it down, pretending it wasn’t there, or delaying the experience of it by escaping into some activity.
Whenever I was confronted with a painful feeling, I had absolutely no answer for it, no solution, no remedy. Running away seemed like the only option. Then, as I began to delve deeper into the world of spirituality, I encountered a recurring theme — letting go.
The idea is that our feelings want to be released. And the only reason that we stay stuck feeling the way we do, is because we resist them. Letting go of feelings is accomplished by allowing ourselves to fully feel them, without resisting them in any way or trying to escape from them. The promise is that if we don’t push against our own painful feelings, they will pass, leave forever.
This sounded counterintuitive to me since I was in the habit of resisting or denying the way I felt. But I was willing to try it since so many of my favourite spiritual teachers were talking about it, each in their own way.
Echkart Tolle teaches it as being present with our feelings and becoming aware of our ‘pain-body’.
Michael A. Singer calls it “relaxing and releasing,” a technique derived from ancient teachings of yoga and buddhism.
Dr. David R. Hawkins wrote a whole book about it called, Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender.
And then there is the Sedona Institute, an organization devoted to teaching people how to let go. And they have a whole curriculum on it called The Sedona Method.
It was a little strange to discover that there is an organization that holds weekend seminars to teach people how to let go. Then again, it is perhaps more strange that I and so many people need to learn this entirely natural process, that occurs on its own when we are not blocking ourselves.
“Peace is non-resistance, complete acceptance, identification with all, everyone, everything.” — Lester Levenson
The Sedona Method
The Sedona Method was developed by a man named Lester Levenson, who discovered from his own experience, and then taught, that it is our own subconscious feelings that block us from the freedom we want in our lives.
“You have set up in your subconscious mind all the things you will not look at, and they have culminated as inhibiting and compulsive feelings. It is necessary that you release all the inhibiting and compulsive feelings. You are now run by them, you are a victim of them. By releasing them, your mind quiets, and you become free.” — Lester Levenson
The Sedona Method teaches letting go by asking us different series of questions that are designed to initiate the process of releasing our negative feelings. They have many different games and exercises that involve various questions to get the participant to allow themselves to let go of their feelings.
The Questions
In its most basic form there are three questions to ask when we notice a negative feeling. The first is,“Could I let it go?”
This question may seem simplistic and obvious, but don’t underestimate it. It all starts with contemplating the possibility of letting go.
“Could I really just let it go? Could I just drop this feeling?”
It is a yes or no question. And it doesn’t matter which answer we give. The goal is really to place our awareness on the feeling and to get ourselves to consider releasing it. The question that follows is,
“If I could let it go, would I?”
This question asks us to consider our willingness to let go of the negative feeling.
“If I could let go of this feeling, would I be willing to?”
Again, this is a yes or no question, and either answer is acceptable. The third question is a simple,
“When?”
It, like the first two, is meant to be a contemplative one. We’ve asked ourselves whether we could let it go. We’ve then asked ourselves whether we would let it go.
Now we are inviting ourselves to let it go right now.
The Roots of Our Negative Emotions
Lester Levenson taught that our negative feeling stem from three different causes. When we feel a resistant emotion, we are either:
- Wanting approval
- Wanting to control
- Wanting safety/security
Wanting approval is a needy sort of feeling. This can look like wanting someone’s praise or acknowledgement. It could be a feeling of needing permission from someone. It could be the desire to prove ourselves right or getting others to like us. Feeling hurt by criticism and wanting to defend ourselves also falls in this category.
Wanting control is a fearful attempt to manipulate people, situations and events so that we get the outcomes we desire and avoid the outcomes we fear. It can be demanding others behave the way we want them to, trying to control them or manipulating them with guilt.
Then there is wanting safety or security. This a feeling of being threatened. It’s a sense of impending danger. One might experience this as guardedness, distrust, suspiciousness.
In studying the Sedona Method, I quickly discovered that I was constantly seeking everybody’s approval. I was also trying to control absolutely everything in my life. And underneath it all were the feelings of fear and uncertainty.
When we feel a negative, resistant emotion, it is helpful to ask ourselves where it’s coming from.
“Am I wanting approval? Am I trying to control? Or am I wanting safety and security?”
Recognizing the cause of the negative emotion can often be enough to begin releasing it.
Why We Hold On to Our Negative Feelings
“Feelings only lie. They tell us we are going to get, from letting go of them, what we already have from holding on to them.” — Hale Dwoskin, Sedona Method teacher
The reason we often hold on to our negative feelings is because we believe we need them to accomplish some goal, and that if we let go of them we will lose something.
“If I don’t worry about this problem, it will not get solved. If I don’t stay angry at this person, they will hurt me again. If I don’t stay guarded against this experience, it will happen to me again.”
We believe that our negative feelings protect us from negative outcomes and help us to ensure positive outcomes. This is the paradigm of the ego, our self imposed limitations.
“All unhappiness is caused by our trying to be limited, to be an ego. The more we are our Self, the happier we are. We will never be completely happy until we are completely being our Self.” — Lester Levenson
One of the things that the Sedona Method teaches is that it is safe to let go of negative feelings. The negative resistant feelings that we cling to are actually what’s keeping us from living more of the experiences we want in life. And the things we fear are often illusions.
“There is more pain from holding on to the thought of pain than there is in the situation itself. If you let the world strike you, it will do so less cruelly than your own imagination.” — Lester Levenson
Allowing Our Feelings to Be
Another question that the Sedona Method invites us to ask whenever we experience a negative feeling is,
“Could I allow this feeling to be here?”
On the surface it may look like the opposite of the earlier question, “Could I let it go?” In reality, however, they are one and the same.
When we ask ourselves if we could let go of a feeling, we are really asking if we can stop holding on to it, to release our mental resistance to it. This is the same as allowing the feeling to be there and letting it pass.
It can take a little getting used to. It is impressive to discover how many suppressed feelings we have trapped in our subconscious. And the progress in releasing them can appear to be slow going.
But that’s how it seems to work with letting go. The more you let go, the more you realize how much you’re holding on. Still, I’ve found that it leads to positive results and more mental and emotional freedom.