The Shift Diaries
Adventures in Expanding My Awareness
>>>> Go straight to the Shift Dairies blog.<<<<
06/20/06: I"m moving to Santa Fe 06/22, and will be off-line for about a week while in transit. Feel free to e-mail me if you like. I'll get back to you as soon as I'm reconnected. Blogging will resume then, too.
>>>>Using appreciation to alter my reality<<<<
Why I'm sharing my experiences
It is not the situation that you are creating this shift in consciousness to be allowing yourselves new abilities or to be creating new abilities, or abilities that you have not held previously. You already hold all of these abilities and are already exercising them! You merely do not allow yourself to be noticing or to be objectively aware of what you are already creating.
Elias -- transcript 506 *
I was 28 in the mid-seventies when I read Jane Robert's Seth book, The Nature of Personal Reality, which remains the most pivotal book of my life. Since my first exposure to the concept that we create our own reality, I've avidly studied and tried to apply Seth's information. Although it would seem that decades of practicing would make me proficient at deliberately directing the creation of a desirable reality, by the turn of the last century, my life began to come apart in ways that I found extremely difficult and painful. I couldn't seem to make the concepts I loved and resonated with "work" when I most needed them.
Somewhere during this painful period, I discovered Seth-related information that appealed to me coming from two other "channeled" beings, Elias and Abraham. Did these new slants on Seth's concepts suddenly allow me to get my life back in order? Not even slightly! I continued to spiral further into misery and a disorienting sense of floundering that went on for years.
Hindsight now reveals that as liberating and inspiring as I found the Seth material and the information provided by Elias and Abraham, I often misunderstood the concepts or failed to understand them completely--or failed to apply them in ways that would allow them to work as I intended. Therefore, I often used the information to feed my negative tendencies. And one of my habitual negative tendencies is to judge myself harshly when I feel that I can't make things work. While I now see that this discounting of myself exacerbated my struggles to understand and apply "you create your own reality," at the time I was caught up in a self-perpetuating circle: The more my reality pained me, the worse I felt about having generated such a crappy reality, and the more I created stuff that pained me.
I'm sharing my experiences because I know I'm not the only one who struggles to understand and apply this information. I find it useful to read transcripts of Elias sessions or listen to people talking to Abraham about the PRACTICAL APPLICATION of these ideas. It is most useful to me when someone demonstrates--or struggles with trying to demonstrate--the movements so many of us are trying to understand, like going from fear to trusting themselves. And it is especially useful to me to recognize the most common ways I can trip myself up when I misinterpret this information.
And after reading a transcript of a session with Elias or listening to someone talk to Abraham, I often want to know more. Sometimes I'd like more back-story about someone's challenges. Other times I'd like to hear about outcomes. What happened next? How did the person apply the information? What made it hard to apply the information? Did they apply the information? I want real life examples of trying to put these ideas to work because that's what allows me to turn the concepts into experience for myself.
So, I'm offering myself and my experiences as an example that may be helpful to others working with these ideas. I've eventually realized that I misunderstood concepts I was SURE I understood--and if that seems contradictory, read around in these Diaries for my insights in that area. I've come to alter some fundamental misperceptions about these concepts--misperceptions that kept me repeating painful manifestations. I've had to learn to stop complicating this very simple information--and to recognize when I am complicating it. And automatic responses--don't even get me started on the trouble I've seen in that arena! In short, I know about a zillion ways to get this information "wrong," and I'm sharing my difficulties--and triumphs--for the benefit (and solace) of anyone who may find my experiences useful.
Exposure issues
I've got big exposure issues, although you wouldn't know it to see me. I seem way out there, hiding nothing. But exposure is a big issue for me, as it is for so many. I'll be talking about it in more detail in the Shift Diaries. Suffice to say, for now, that deciding to launch this web site was one of the triggers that led to me bringing my world down around my ears.
The actual launch of the web site (way before the Shift Diaries were added) happened in July of 2001, and, although I didn't know it at the time, I was only beginning the onslaught of pain and losses that marked this period of my life. Or, as Elias would say, this was when I was offering myself lots of "information." At the time, all that "information" produced an effect like living in a war zone. I was at war with myself, urging myself forward rather desperately to create a new business (forcing energy, as Elias would say), while putting innumerable sticks in my wheels because of my fears and judgments about myself.
One of my core influencing beliefs regards the importance of knowing and following "the rules." This often translates to, "Do things right or bad things will happen." The limiting effects of this belief were particularly triggered by choosing to put myself and these Shifty ideas before the public. My decision to start a new career as a mind-body health expert (Shift concepts in scientific clothing) and launching a website that put me and my ideas on the international stage via the Internet triggered my exposure issues in a major way. I was not only exposing my alliance to a perspective that wasn't accepted by conventional reality, but I felt I had to be ready to defend myself from the conventionally approved scientific point of view.
Despite my trepidation, I forced myself to design and develop the website, write numerous articles for it, and put it out there for all the world to see. I even followed my impulses to announce my site to established entities like Utne Reader, and got positive international attention several times within the first couple months of launching the site. Any entrepreneur would have been thrilled. I was kind of thrilled, but more overwhelmed by the pressure I was putting on myself to produce a book about mind-body health to use as a credential for my new career. A book that I couldn't seem to get myself to write.
Can I let myself enjoy writing the Shift Diaries?
I notice I'm also struggling to write this introduction to the Shift Diaries. I feel the words coming easier as I acknowledge this. My struggle to express myself easily comes from requirements to write "well." Oh, let's not mince words! I feel a need to write perfectly, whatever that means. To me that means I have to say things clearly, express myself in some elusively perfect way, communicate succinctly and eloquently, punctuate properly, use excellent grammar, and be witty, wise, and brilliant, to boot. Oh, and catch every typo. In short, I turn this into a chore. Instead, I want it to be fun and freeing, something I enjoy doing because I get to express myself freely--as much fun as a conversation with a close friend who shares my interests.
So, let me issue this disclaimer and proclamation: I'm dedicating myself to relaxing and enjoying the creation of the Shift Diaries. I can guarantee the writing won't be "perfect." I guarantee typos and mistakes. I'll likely repeat myself (I'm Sumafi, after all) because I won't edit carefully. And I'm not trying to save the world or any individual in it. I'm not trying to convince anyone that I'm wise or wonderful. I'm not out to prove any point of view. I am simply offering a perspective that I would find useful during difficult times, or during the times I feel stuck, or during times when I want some practical examples of how to apply the concepts of deliberate reality creation. Or maybe during times when I simply ought to lighten up a little.
A conversation with like-minded people
In February of 2006, after the publication of a session of mine on the Elias Forum website, I received an e-mail invitation to begin communicating with Anne K., who is also working with Elias information. That made writing easy (easier, that is) for me because it seemed more like a conversation than preparing something for publication. Therefore, I'm starting the Shift Diaries by publishing my side of this e-mail communication, and I'm also including a little treatise I sent Bobbi Houle, the Elias transcript wrangler, on how I used appreciation to shift my reality.
If you're interested in talking to me about anything in the Shift Diaries
that sparks your interest, e-mail me at
wendy (at) changingyourmind.com.
Because I've had a website up for years, I get vast quantities of spam, so you
might want to put something about Shift Diaries in the subject line to alert me
so I don't delete your e-mail as I purge my inbox of spam.
The SHIFT DIARIES blog
>>>> Here's the link to the Shift Dairies blog.<<<<
Organization of the Shift Diaries
Diaries are usually chronological, and some of this content may end up in chronological order. All I can assure you at the moment is that things are in a state of evolution, so fasten your seatbelts.
Shift Dairy Resources
Contact Publishing: The Shift: A Time of Change
The Shift Diaries began with my e-mail correspondence with Anne K.,
owner of Contact Publishing, and publisher of The Shift: A Time of Change,
a collection of Elias material compiled by David Tate.
Follow this link to purchase a copy:
www.contact-publishing.co.uk./contact_publishing_titles_catalogue.html#The_SHIFT
Elias and Mary Ennis
* All Elias quotations are from transcripts on the Elias Forum website: eliasforum.org. The Elias Transcripts are held in © copyright by Mary Ennis. Contact Mary Ennis for a personal session with Elias: eliasforum.org/speak_elias.html
Abraham and Jerry and Esther Hicks
** All Abraham quotations are held in copyright by Abraham-Hicks publications: www.abraham-hicks.com. For the calendar of workshops with Abraham or to purchase their materials, visit: www.abraham-seminars.com/