This is an introductory essay explaining how the practice of shifting your mind improves quality of life. More detailed information will be made available on the Dr C website, “ShiftingYourMind.org.” Sign up to be notified when new information is published.
The five ways shifting will improve your life are:
1. Healthier and more supportive relationships.
2. Decreased effects from stress.
3. Suffering less and enjoying life more.
4. Improved problem solving.
5. A richer spiritual life.
The practice of shifting can transform your life, but it must be lived, daily. This begins with understanding what it means to practice shifting every day.
Understanding the Practice of Shifting
The basic premise behind the practice of shifting is straight forward. Our minds automatically shift many times throughout the day. Most people are not aware of this and sometimes their brains, and thoughts, get hijacked. Their minds take over, reacting without thinking, and the consequences are often costly.
The practice of shifting offers the path of conscious shifting. Conscious shifting uses sustained focused attention to shift the mind into mental states which are growth promoting. Learning to do this daily results in decreasing the frequency of mind hijacking.
The details about shifting and how to practice will be published in Dr. C’s book “Shifting: Suffer Less and Enjoy Life More.”
Shifting mental states is something the brain is designed to do. We do it when we fall asleep and when we wake up. We do it when we feel threatened by entering the “fight or flight” state. We can also learn to shift into the meditative mental state through daily meditation practice.
Our minds already know how to shift. Our responsibility is to train our minds to be more aware and more efficient in the daily use of shifting.
Healthier and more supportive relationships
When Dr. C worked in a hospital emergency room, helping people who came in posing a threat of harm to themselves or others due to a mental health crisis, there was a consistent reason they were in crisis. Something had gone wrong with one or more relationships in their lives. Sometimes it was in the home. Sometimes it was with close friends. Sometimes it was with deeply respected mentors.
In almost 90% of mental health crisis situations there was a relationship breakdown, sometimes both current and with links to past relationship trauma. Old wounds continually shape our lives.
Deep relationship wounds, past and present, act as triggers for auto-shifting. Someone can say something that reminds us of past relationship pain and the switch is pulled. We automatically shift in into a defensive and protective mental state. Our ears are closed as we can hear only the need to be protected from harm. This auto-shifting can sometime include attacking the other person. The biggest problem – most of us do not recognize when this auto-shifting happens in our relationships.
When shifting becomes conscious and practiced daily auto-shifting becomes more easily detected. It can then be altered by choosing to shift in a different direction. Doing so decreases the negative impact of auto-shifting and thus improves the quality of your relationships.
The other benefit in relationships that comes with daily shifting practice is that it becomes easier to recognize when other people are being impacted by auto-shifting. Their actions become less hurtful and less personal. This awareness can lead to a better understanding of the other person.
Decreased effects from stress
It is estimated that 70% of people in America are experiencing shifts into stress. A life of chronic stress has serious consequences on physical health, mental health, and relationship health. The effects of chronic stress permeate our lives, draining resources that could be used, not only promote personal wellbeing, but also used to advance the health of society.
Experiencing stress stems from habitual actions and reactions. We develop patterns of response to whatever life throws at us. These patterns often include auto-shifting.
It’s a 30-minute highway drive from our home to the grocery store. On the way my partner slowed to let a driver enter the lane in front of us. The driver behind us laid on the horn. On the way home another driver passed us on the left nearly sliding off the highway as his tires kicked sand and dust onto our windshield. The few extra seconds these drivers might save on their trip is not a rationale for their behavior. Behind their actions is this habitual mental state of “hurry up and get it done faster.”
This essay is not the forum to discuss all the ways this faster way of life affects humanity. The point here is that it has become pervasive and it has resulted in chronic stress as a major health concern. The practice of shifting can change this and reduce the effects of stress in our lives.
Suffering less and enjoying life more
It is estimated that more than half the population lives with a chronic illness. What most do not realize is that chronic illness causes the mind to auto-shift more frequently as it seeks to find relief from the suffering. It is a natural response but if left unchecked, it leads to craving, grasping, and habitual habits of seeking anything to “feel better.”
It is possible to learn how to shift into feeling better, to suffer less and enjoy life more. Dr, C lives with a chronic illness that wreaks havoc on his physical and mental wellbeing several times a day, every day. He uses shifting to minimize the impact of chronic illness. From these experiences he wrote two books sharing tips on how to manage living with Parkinsons.
Using shifting practices to live better with a chronic illness is not easy, but it is possible. The rewards are worth the effort.
Improved problem solving
It might seem odd to proclaim that shifting helps problem solving. We normally think of needing more education or specialized skill training in a trade to improve our skills at problem solving. Such training helps with linear solutions. Linear solutions are when one brainstorms through all the possible solutions to a problem, evaluates costs versus benefits, and then chooses what seems like the best solution.
But sometimes a fresh new idea is needed: a creative approach that goes beyond current knowledge. This is where the practice of shifting helps.
There are many examples in the research into human creative problem solving. Sometimes new approaches are discovered after taking a nap, playing a game, meditating, or spending time helping others. Something happens when we shift out of the struggle to find a better solution, let it go, and then return with a fresh pair of eyes. This type of shifting can be learned. It can be practiced. It can be developed to improve creativity and thus improve problem solving.
A richer spiritual life
The spiritual world is interconnected to our physical and psychological world but often difficult to access. Those who do, people who practice spiritual traditions frequently, are healthier and live longer. Not talking about the zealot, but rather healthy respect for the sacred and its role in life. Listening to the sacred is enhanced by shifting to a mental state that matches the soul and its communication skills.
Dr. C writes about soul communication in his future book “Soul Matters.” The key point to make here is that a special type of sacred shifting helps promote soul communication. Skilled communication with our own soul and with the souls of others adds a rich quality to one’s spiritual life.
Get Up – Show Up – Don’t Give Up
The path to having an awakened mind is one that moves from ignorance to knowing, from knowing to doing and from doing to being. Now that you have read this introductory essay you have moved into knowing. Next, practice doing.
There is great resistance to the practice of shifting. Even after 30 years Dr. C still feels this resistance in himself, especially on those really tough chronic illness days. That’s when her pulls out his mantra: get up – show up – don’t give up. Learning to practice shifting daily is a challenge but the rewards, as described in this essay, are responses and rewards reflecting the success of the mantra. The book about shifting describes how to develop strong shifting skills. What is missing is what to do about getting lost, falling backwards into old habits.
Dr C’s future book, “Getting Lost on the Road to Enlightenment”, will describe what it means to experience being lost while you are practicing shifting skills. He describes getting lost as a normal part of the shifting skill learning process. It happens to everyone, but there is very little informed literature on the topic. So much is written about the bliss experience that can accompany shifting.
Dr. C cautions people when he points out the chasing bliss is just another detour, another getting lost experience. Developing wisdom about getting lost and finding your way back is an important part of becoming a skilled practitioner of shifting.
When you become a skilled practitioner of shifting then you begin to move from doing into being. This is when shifting becomes the first choice for thought and action. Instead of grasping for “feel goods” (usually consumer-based experiences like shopping, or eating when the body is not hungry), complaining about others, being depressed about one’s life or career situation, or being stressed and angry.
Replacing all that with shifting brings about what Dr. C calls “ordinary calmness.” This is not the soul shaking “peace that passes all understanding.” Such an experience, although often transformative and serving as a map, is not a reliable way to sit in as a part of living a sacred and growth promoting a full and satisfying life.
As an alternative, it is possible to shift into ordinary calmness and live in this state for hours each day. This is a surprisingly strong stable state into which we can shift as part of moving into fully realizing our being.