The Butt Technique

October 15, 2007 by Adam Rafferty 2 Comments

Greetings friends! I am so happy….Fall finally feels like Fall here in NY.

I can’t say what an exciting time this is in my life….we truly do go through cycles. And I am actually very excited about how I am able to reach so any new fans & friends via onlie efforts (blog, youtube, etc).

I had an interesting conversation last night with a new friend “Ian” at my best friends birthday gathering…of course it was interesting to me becasue he is a new fan of my music 🙂 Seriously though, it brought up some interesting points that I’d like to share with you.

But first…..

As you know I am a fan of the Release Technique / Sedona Method and refer to it when I need to. (There are so many great personal developement aproaches out there, I find it hard to stick with one and exclude others).

You may never have heard of it – and I am not here to preach or sell anything. It’s all about letting go of limitations and allowing oneself to be, do or have anything.

I can give you an example. For years I thought it was wrong and unjazzlike to use effects pedals. Me, “Mr. Jazzboy” – with archtop endorsements, using pedals? How could I? Worse off – I imagined the double scoops of dissaproval I’d get from peers, jazz icons of yester-year, my teacher and how I’d be undoing the career I’d spent years paving.

Pretty dramatic, huh?

This may seem trivial – but at the time was my reality. (Take a second to appreciate that many of us do this all the time – maybe even you!) One day, (actually it took a lot of gumption) I got the effects out and started playing. People loved it and saw I was having fun. It just felt real,honest and fun – as if a tightness in my chest was let go.

The long and short of it was this – I dropped the limitation. Get it?

It involved “letting go” or “releasing” on the need for anyone’s approval. And, releasing on the “survival” aspect of my career.

Ironically, organist Dr. Lonnnie Smith loves what I do with the pedals. Who would have thought? Releasing actually led to one of the hippest gigs I’ve done.

I hate to use such a trite example, but can you see that our lives, our worlds are constructed out of these psychological houses of cards? It’s insane!!!!

Lester Levenson, the spiritual genius that taught many about this “letting go” concept, (Sedona & Release Technique) said that the highest level of achieving anything is “releasing” the limitations. I love this – he calls it the butt technique. Sit on your butt, release, and watch it come to you.

Whoa! Sounds good, but it is a little hard to believe!

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Back to the conversation I had at the party.

Ian, my bud, loved the new acoustic tracks and vids on you tube that I had put up and is also a Tommy Emmanuel fan (my new favorite guitarist, and the worlds fave as well).

He kept asking me “so you are here and Tommy is there. What are you going to do to get over there where he is?”

It sounded to me as if he was asking, “what will you do” or “what’s the plan” or “who will you call” to get from where I am to where I want to be.

I started to give an answer like, “well I hope I get there someday maybe people will check out the CD…” but he persisted, which I thank him for.

Finally I said to him “It’s not any one thing I need to do, as much as it is a place I need to be in my psyche and soul. When I am in that place, good things happen – people will like the music, doors will open unexpectedly.”

“And whether the doors open or not, the money and recognition comes or not – the being in that special place where the music lives, where I communicate to others, where I am free of hangups, – that is the place of spiritual success before outer success comes…that’s the place.”

“Oh and by the way – you can’t be in that place becasue you want the success. It is truly the zone of ‘the destination is the journey itself.'”

“So, if I want to be ‘there’ where he is – guess what – there is no ‘there’ where he is and ‘here’ where I am. The place to be is the zone of enjoyment and thanks, and then one is like a magnet puling in all good things.”

“I need do nothing except be in that place.” And then I realized – the butt technique was what I was describing.

And then Ian said “that was the answer I wanted to hear”.