The Prickly Toy Analogy

Imagine you are handed a heavy, prickly toy. By itself, the toy is just a neutral object, but you are tightly squeezing it, which hurts your hand.

• The Toy (The Trigger): The specific situation you are reacting to (e.g., a friend leaves your text on "read"). Life constantly hands you prickly toys, but they only hurt based on how hard you squeeze them.
• The Pain (The Emotion): The negative feeling (anxiety, anger, sadness) caused by the squeeze.
• Suppression: Shoving the prickly toy in your pocket. You try to ignore it, but it still pokes you every time you move.
• Allowing (Stopping Resistance): Bringing the toy out of your pocket, opening your hand, and just looking at it. You feel its prickliness without fighting it, judging it, or trying to push it away.
• The "Want" (The Squeeze): The hidden reason why you choose to keep squeezing the toy instead of dropping it.

Even though it hurts, your brain tricked you into thinking you must hold it. The Sedona Method identifies three core reasons (wants) you ever squeeze the toy:

1. Wanting Control: "I have to make this toy do what I say!"
2. Wanting Approval: "If I hold this, people will think I'm good!"
3. Wanting Security: "If I drop this, something bad will happen!"

The 6 Steps to Releasing the Grip

To stop the pain, Lester Levenson (creator of the method) outlined six steps to train your brain to let go.

Step 1: Want freedom more than the toy. You must genuinely want to be free of the pain more than you want to be "right," get sympathy, or stay mad at the situation.

Step 2: Decide that you can drop it. Remind yourself that holding on is a subconscious choice. You are fully capable of opening your hand and letting it go.

Step 3: See the "Want" and ask the questions. When you feel pain, stop resisting it (Allowing). Ask yourself: "Why am I squeezing this? Is it for Control, Approval, or Security?" Once you spot the hidden want, ask yourself three simple questions to open your hand:

• Could I let go of wanting [control/approval/security]? (Yes or No. You are just checking if it is physically possible to drop it).
• Would I let go of wanting this? (Am I willing to drop it?)
• When? (Now).

Step 4: Make dropping toys a constant habit. Don't just do this for massive life crises. Make it a habit to drop the tiny prickly toys life hands you all day long (annoying traffic, a rude comment, a minor mistake).

Step 5: If you get stuck, let go of wanting to control being stuck. Sometimes your hand cramps and you can't drop the toy. Don't fight the cramp. Simply ask: "Could I let go of wanting to change the fact that I feel stuck right now?" Stop resisting the stuckness, and the grip will often release on its own.

Step 6: Notice how much lighter you feel. Every single time you let go of a want, you drop a heavy weight. The more you practice opening your hand, the lighter, happier, and more unbothered you become permanently.

Just wanted to drop a quick realization I had that has completely shifted how I practice releasing, and I think it might help anyone who feels like they are hitting a wall.

​Often, the reason we struggle to release is because we are actively suppressing the emotion. We push it down, and the subconscious mind plays the classic trick of: "I'll deal with this later."

​Because of this, when we ask the traditional question, "Could you let it go?", the mind can easily interpret "go" as "make it disappear," "banish it," or "push it away." This creates massive resistance and accidentally triggers more suppression.

​Lately, I’ve been changing the words slightly:

​Could you let it out?

​Would you let it out?

​When?

​Why this works (and the Feng connection):

​Switching "go" to "out" completely removes the pressure to make the emotion vanish. You aren't forcing the feeling to leave; you're just stopping the act of holding it inside. It transforms the process from an intellectual battle into a purely physical, open-ended release valve.

​This beautifully ties into the insights shared by Wind (Feng) in his deep-dives on Lester's work. Feng points out a massive distinction that people miss: Acceptance is just tolerating a feeling (which keeps you identified with it), but true release is allowing the energy to exit.

​Letting go starts with expression—not ego-driven emotional venting, but letting the energy move outward from your awareness instead of trapping it inside.

​When you ask "Could you let it out?", you are directly addressing the suppression. You give the energy permission to rise up, express its presence, and exit. Once it's allowed out, it naturally dissolves on its own.

1. As soon as you awaken in the morning, become aware of what you are feeling, trace the feeling down to the underlying want, and release.
2. Preview the day, and release. Have the Six Steps in front of you.
3. In addition to releasing on the go, set aside time for short releasing breaks during the day.
4. If you begin to get stirred up or stressed, notice this, and release.
5. Have some goals you're releasing on daily. Do attachments and aversions exercises on things and situations in your life.
6. Review the day and release. Have the Six Steps in front of you. Release on:
   1. Circumstances/events/situations
   2. People
   3. Resistance to circumstances/events/situations
   4. When was wanting control stirred up? Wanting approval? Wanting Security?
7. Determine where you could have been more aware today, and where you need to be more aware tomorrow, in order to keep your releasing going even more consistently.
8. Be aware of when you are resisting, and release the feeling of resistance.
9. Review the Six Steps daily. Determine where you were off, and what you need to do to get back on the track.
10. If you have trouble releasing, see where in the Six Steps you are off. Remember — there are NO EXCEPTIONS!

Disclaimer:
This is a personal interpretation of the method and might differ from other interpretations available online.

What is letting go?
Letting go is like looking away.
Example: There is an artistic bottle on my desk. I am just constantly looking at it because it's interesting to look at. A friend enters my room and says "Enough admiring dude, could you just let it go?" And you let the bottle be there and take your attention to something else.

How is this letting go beneficial to us?
When you apply this letting go phenomena to your emotions and wants, you experience a deep sense of peace, something that you have been looking for in the external world but never found it there. If you keep doing it, you will realize that it's not just an experience of peace but you are and always have been that peace.

How to let go?

1. Identify who you are, in this moment? Eg: Right now, I am someone who is frustrated by the work load of my office.
2. Shift your entire focus from the story (work load of office) to the feeling (frustration)
3. Remind yourself that it's just a feeling you are experiencing, separate from you. Eg: Few hours ago I was the same me, but that frustration feeling wasn't there.
4. Could you let it go? (Are you capable of letting it go?)
5. Would you let it go if you could? (Do you like that feeling or would you rather let it go?)
6. When would you let it go if you would?

Don't rush to answer, let it come from a place of knowing. Also remember both yes and no are acceptable answers. Just make sure it's a firm yes or firm no. If your answer is "maybe" or "in between", then you are in apathy. Just move up to courageousness and say out loud YES or NO. After answering each question, your job is done. You are not responsible for releasing.

Common trap:
Don't pick up the emotion or want that is already separate from you. Pick up only that feeling which you consider yourself to be as.
Eg: You are with a friend and he said something that made you angry. But you don't want to be angry because it might ruin your friendship. So you try to release the anger, but that's a trap. Here, you are not someone who is angry, you are actually someone who wants to save his friendship or control that anger. So here, the correct thing to release is "wanting to save that friendship" or "wanting to control the anger" and not the anger.

Tips for releasing wants:

1. Wants are easier to release and more efficient as compared to emotions.
2. Identify which of the 3 core wants it is by going deeper. Don't just guess.
3. Wants are subtler than thoughts and emotions. They are like the finest form of a thought, very vague.
4. Don't use the questions when releasing wants. Just become aware of the want and look at it for 1-2 seconds (keep your mind still and focus). It'll release on it's own.
5. If it doesn't releases, you have a deeper want. So look for that.

What is stuckness?
It's the stuck feeling you get when you're wanting to release and it's not happening.

Why do we get stuck?
When you have released enough to know that it works and has the ability to make you happy, you start wanting to release more than you want imperturbablity. You start looking at releasing like a drug that can make you blissful. But because Want = Lack, the more you want to release the harder it gets.

How to get unstuck?
Let go of wanting to release. But if you are releasing for a long time, you know that there is nothing better than it. You lack the motivation to let go of the "wanting to release".

Where can i get the motivation to let go of the "wanting to release"?
You must want imperturbability more than you want anything else. Don't confuse wanting imperturbability with wanting to release. It will become clear when you ask yourself this question:

1. Imagine never ever being able to release again, you'll be stuck for the rest of your life, but you'll be blissfully happy. What do you choose? Ready to barter your releasing for happiness?

Important pointer:
The one that's wanting to release and become free, can never release or get free. Because that character is not you. You are already free. Suffering is the result of believing that you are the character. The character along with the world comes and goes within you.

Additional tip:
Let the body be your anchor. Don't let your mind distract you with thoughts (fake feelings) to release on, instead of the acutally feeling in the body.

Methods given by Hale:

1. Decide to drop it (dropping the pen)
2. Welcoming (open arms gesture, settling with yourself)
3. Zoom into the feeling (notice space between atoms)
4. Notice both polarities at once (like-dislike)
5. Triple welcoming (notice the feeling, any resistance to it, and the sense of "I")

Methods given by Larry:

1. Open up a door in your feeling centre and let the energy pass through
2. Let go of dissaproving of yourself and give yourself approval
3. Say "Yes" to the feeling instead of saying "No"
4. Tell the ego "I am bigger than you. I don't need you anymore"
5. All feelings wants to leave. Ask it, and give it permission to leave
6. Let go of wanting to figure things out

Others methods that can lead to a release:

1. EFT tapping
2. The work (Byron Katie)
3. Ho'oponopono
4. 478 breathing

Very helpful tip when stuck:
Get in touch with your thoughts and stay in touch. What ever goes through your mind, negative, positive, nuetral, just experience it. Don't try to change or release it. Just stay in touch with your thoughts. Do it the whole time, all day. If you are doing something, don't plan or think how to do it. If you are in this state of mind everything will turn out to be the way you wanted it to be. - A commentator on Sedona method fb group