Tapping your inner powerhouse of creativity, succeeding professionally and attaining a sense of profound peace: These are but a few of the wide range of benefits promised by the Sedona method, now being taught in Tokyo by psychotherapist Stewart Wyndham.

Wyndam says that the method helps people release disturbing emotions and stress by teaching them how to let go of limiting ideas and feelings and move out of their emotional "comfort zone."

"It's like a bank account," explains Wyndham. "Let's say you always have between 100,000 yen and 300,000 yen in your account. This range is your comfort zone. If you have less, you panic; if you have more, you start spending until you get it down to that amount. It's like that with everything in our lives. Very often we feel comfortable with our negative feelings simply because we are used to them; they are known. This method allows us to expand our comfort zones so that what we become capable of tolerating expands. As a result, we experience more and more acceptance and peace."

The Sedona method evolved out of the insights of Lester Levenson, a successful engineer and physicist, who at the age of 42 found himself face to face with death after suffering two heart attacks. Levenson became acutely aware that despite his knowledge and worldly success, he had not found happiness.

He began a very intense search to discover what happiness was, and within three months came to place of "unshakeable peace and imperturbability." Not only had he found understanding but all the ailments in his physical body had miraculously corrected themselves; he lived on for another 42 years.

Born in Scotland, Wyndham, 53, has been working in Tokyo since 1994 as a holistic counselor and therapist. His studies include family therapy and Transactional Analysis, Gestalt and Jungian approaches, hypnotherapy and polarity therapy.