I completely agree with this. I was really into EFT and the release technique a couple of years ago, and it seems that I got much worse. On the plus side, I became much more sensitive to energy and got to know myself a lot better, but on the other hand it kept me stuck in focusing on the negative rather than the positive. The more I looked for things to release, the more would pop up. It only started getting better when I started looking for the positive and enlarging it instead.

I'm still experimenting a bit with releasing. I've recently started doing EFT again. But this time, I'm trying to merge releasing with re-inforcing the positive. So for example, I'd pick a topic I am not happy about, do EFT for about 10 minutes, and then spend at least 15 minutes envisioning how I want to feel instead. I feel that this works a lot better. BUT, I still find it very tempting to want to release negativity when I am in the envisioning positivity stage, so I have to keep reminding myself.

It also depends on your personality. I have always naturally tended to look at what was wrong or what was missing, so energy clearing has re-inforced this. But I do think energy clearing can be extremely beneficial if done in the right way.

Oh, and, I personally wouldn't recommend digging up the past when doing energy clearing. if it comes up, it comes up and you clear it, but going looking for it is just asking for trouble in my opinion!

Rather than seeing questions as negative or positive, provoking negative or positive response, try focusing on the purpose of asking those questions. For questions are designed to give us answers. If you want to let your past go, you need to use those questions to find and learn the lessons which are deciphered in the events of your past. If you don't learn, your past will always be around. But then it is like learning from any other person in the world.

Furthermore, 'Cleaning up' your past assumes that you still relate to it. Give it a new spin and live for a while as if your past didn't relate to your present state of being. I sometimes feel disconnected from my past state of being in such way I feel no need to apologize nor take responsibility for actions of that someone else. Something seemingly unusual for most of the people I know to understand. But it is only myself who define on which terms will my life be understood. The past does not exists, nor does the future. And so the pleasures of the future, nor the heartbreaking events of the past shall have no effect on my present physical, emotional, mental or spiritual state of being.

But that's the real freedom of mind, you can bend or break the rule, or you can accept them and live by them, or free yourself of them and they will stop to exist for you at once. And so it is also with negative and positive questions. Those questions are negative and positive only because you accept these terms, and you consequently accept the effects of their answers onto you. In factual reality negativity or positivity don't exist. They are the same thing, just as love and hate are the same thing of a different degree.

And so you are free to deprive everything of its meaning as you know it and assign it a new one of your own liking. Or you can leave it meaningless if you please. Choose wisely.

These are the possibilities, how do you actually go about it in the real world where so many people are stuck up in their own realities and it seems to be vital to have one as well in order to live amongst them is a different story.

As you can see from @Satori 's comment I had a similar question a little while back and both the link with an answer from Stingray (and all other answers in that post) and the answer from Benjamin where helpful.

I almost completely stopped digging in the past just for the sake of looking for some bad stuff to clear. The only things from the past I've been clearing come from past relationships (family, friends, etc), and it's only because I've been dreaming about those persons with no apparent reason and discovered that there's some lingering negative energy that I'm still carrying.

Even though engaging in a "seek and destroy" mission keeps you focused on those negative things, I must say that it's what I needed at that time, as @cassiopeia said, I got to know myself better, I'm much more sensitive to my feelings and what's best, I don't get to lock them in a vault somewhere because I know that I can welcome them and release them in the moment.

Touching a little bit on what @CalonLan said, here are 2 great Bashar videos I found a couple of days ago:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtRQXOcn7oI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_OJR7PSWOs&feature=share

When we "dig up" in the past and search for negative beliefs, not only are we again and again focusing on it (and therefore keeping them active), we also put ourselves in the "is it finally gone?" trap. When I used to try and get rid of beliefs, I was always wondering if the beliefs were still stored in my mind, so again and again I would return to the belief.

When you shift from focusing on negative beliefs from the past, to focusing on what you feel NOW, everything is clear. You know what you are creating, there are no questions of "did I do this right?" or "has my mind finally cleared?". You feel right now where you are, in this moment. Everything you need is now, everything you are attracting is now.

That's a fabulous question, FP.

I entertained the idea of 'clearing up the house' at the start of my journey and soon realised it wasn't serving me, focussing on the unwanted.

I started to get good results focussing on what I really wanted but something just seemed to hold me back. I just had that feeling. I can't ignore it and I won't dwell on what's not happening so I would just be quiet and let the answers come to me. They may be in the form of 'you're holding yourself like this' so then I would just pivot and see myself how I want to be.

If I hadn't been quiet, laid myself open, then the limiting beliefs would continue to hold me back, I reckon. You don't need to go digging for skeletons, I totally agree, very damaging!