The Shift Diaries

Yesterday, I felt very anxious, and to alleviate that feeling, I started packing. This action was somewhat distracting for a while, but as time passed, I noticed that I was generating unsettling signals of fear, anxiousness, and tension, over and over and over. I tried simply noticing, acknowledging, and accepting the fear, which did help to dissipate the signal in the moment, but it was like trying to mop up an oil spill without dealing with the source. Within moments, I’d feel that signal jangling through my body again.

By nighttime, I was getting tired of all this fear. I don’t want to go through the next month or so this way. But what to do about it?

I thought about how much of my anxiety comes from not being able to “predict the future” the way I seem to think I can if I have a big pile of money available. When I had money, it seemed that I could just buy my way out of challenges – hire people to help me, pay for interim solutions if things didn’t work exactly as I’d wanted them to, just buy whatever it seemed I needed. When I had money, I assumed I could do whatever it took to make things comfortable and workable without the pressure of having to magically manifest solutions out of thin air. I relaxed because I believed I could solve problems with money, but the fact is that I still created things the way I do, which is magically.

Having money available simply provided me with the perception of a safety net. I took the pressure off myself to predict the future. Money = perception I can comfortably handle any possible future needs.

So, what’s going on now is that I’m creating circumstances in relation to this move in a sort of last moment, seat-of-the-pants, out-of-thin-air fashion that seems to be my way, but I feel tense about it because I believe that having money is what makes this approach safe. Otherwise, it’s scary.

But with or without a big pile of money giving me the illusion of safety, the truth is (for me) that things just come to me in unusual ways. And while this approach, this magical approach, doesn’t seem like something I can count on (the way money does), the fact is, since this is how I do things, it would work better for me if I felt safe using this magical approach, rather than feeling unsafe just because I don’t have a pile of cash to create with if this approach “doesn’t work.”  I know feeling safe is always a choice, but when it seems that I’m walking this magical approach tightrope without a net, the idea that I could simply choose to feel safe seems incredibly challenging to practice.

But, the fact is, I don’t have to live out of (and in the fear triggered by) that belief equation: money = trust and safety. I could look at things differently. To do so, I need to find ways prove to myself the unfamiliar equation: trust = money and everything else I desire.

“The magical approach” is a Seth phrase, one I’ve always loved. I’ve had plenty of experiences to support my “belief” in it. But trying to RELY on it under pressure (pressure I create by believing that magic isn’t reliable) always seems tricky. Yet, I notice that this is how my life works. And the magical approach is what I’ve dedicated myself to understanding and trusting. So, why not focus on my preference for magical creating from a position of recognizing, acknowledging, and appreciating the way I make things happen, instead of from a position of doubt, discounting, and fear.

When I told a friend about connecting with someone who’s going to rent the house I’m now in, and how he’s offering to buy some of my stuff, and how he generously offered to help me out by paying for the whole place (his rent on the apartment and my rent on the house) for the month of June, and how he said I could leave all my stuff here and go to Santa Fe and get things figured out, and come back later for my stuff if that would help, she was amazed that this magical rabbit had suddenly come out of my hat. She wanted to hear the story of how I’d connected with him.

I told her this had come about from following an impulse to take a walk mid-morning one day (not my usual walking time), meeting a guy on the trail and talking with him (my usual approach to strangers – I just talk with anybody about my life and what I’m dealing with), and impulsively telling him I had an apartment to rent, and he knew someone who might be interested, which is how I met my magical rabbit. When I finished the story, my friend said, “This is exactly how you do things. This is how things always work for you.” For her, this was confirmation that my decision to move was a good one and was going to proceed magically.

And this magical connection with someone whose desires meshed perfectly with mine came about as a result of not forcing myself in directions prompted by my fears and doubts as the pressure to change things here continued to build.

I only put one ad in the local paper to rent the apartment, and I did that against my better judgment — against my inner sense that I didn’t need to do that. I didn’t like the results of that ad, so I didn’t do it again. And that choice was hard for me, because it seemed that I ought to try to rent the apartment — everyone who knew of my situation thought I ought to rent the apartment ASAP. Logically, renting the apartment immediately seemed a sensible direction to go for a person who wanted to manifest some cash. But I didn’t want to do it. And it wasn’t because of all my reasons for not wanting to deal with a tenant. It didn’t feel right to try to find a tenant by putting an ad in the paper. I wanted a perfectly suitable tenant to just come to me.

And during what seemed to be this sinking ship phase of my life here, I didn’t flog myself to go out and get a couple of weird little jobs to keep myself financially stable. I allowed time to pass “doing nothing” but expressing myself in the Shift Diaries and communicating via e-mail with my new Elias friend, Anne. And I made those choices despite the fact that I didn’t understand how things could work out without taking action to solve my dilemma. But it didn’t seem that I ought to frantically pursue work – I had no inclination in that direction that was not the result of fear. Of course, what I expected was that something would just come to me.

And a project that would have enabled me to quickly make enough money to move did come to me. It appeared out of nowhere and then disappeared, strangely seeming to save me and just as strangely, seeming to leave me stranded again. The preparation to do the project (technical stuff that I wasn’t completely familiar with – oooo, the unfamiliar is everywhere!) took considerable unpaid time, during which my attention was distracted from my financial worries (because I thought the project would solve them), and during which time I started the Shift Diaries. When the money I thought I was going to get from the project didn’t materialize due to the client’s  financial problems (more reflections, as always), even though I felt as though I was walking a high wire without a net at this point, I also had a faint sense that the “time passing” as a result was simply another link in a chain, another step on a path that I was magically creating.

Then a week or so ago I got the distinct impression that I was going to move. It felt like a prison door swinging open. I felt exhilarated, liberated, and confused. How was this going to happen? Where would I go? When would I go? Why can’t we collar that small voice and get more details? Another week or so passed in my usual state of Limbo, and then I followed some small impulses that led to things starting to come together for the move.

During the past few months, I’ve been practicing a lot of exposure (Elias highly recommends exposure — as in, “I find myself acceptable and have nothing to hide,” not as in “I reveal all to everyone, willy nilly.”), beginning with my communication with Anne K. that started three months ago. I’ve published the Shift Diaries. I’ve been open about my situation when I talk to people (I naturally tend to expose everything, rather willy nilly, because I discover what I’m doing by speaking about it to an audience). I finally felt much more accepting of where I am. And, just as Elias and all the rest of those dead guys promise, without forcing energy in response to my financial situation and my desire for things to change, simply by allowing, magically solutions began to emerge.

So, I sat in my bed last night and thought back over all the ways things have come to me “out of the blue,” so to speak. I said to myself, “You worry about the cats being a possible difficulty whenever you want to find a new rental, but the truth is the cats have never been a problem. You always create places where having the cats is not an issue. Either the people before have had animals, or it doesn’t come up at all, or the landlord is won over by your energy.”

I told myself, “You worry about how money is going to work out, but the truth is, ways to generate money just come to you.” And I went through a review of all the past strange connections and impulses that led to jobs and work.

I said to myself, “You worry about the actual logistics of moving and the difficulties of doing it by yourself, but the truth is, you always are helped when you move and things go smoothly.” And I reviewed all the strange and magical happenings that have allowed me to move fairly easily.

I told myself, “You worry about finding a place to live that will suit you, yet the truth is that you find wonderful houses on the first try that are the envy of everyone.” And I reviewed my magical manifestations in that area.

And as I did this review of the workings of the magical approach in my life, I stopped generating that signal of fear. And I kept saying “the truth is,” because this is what’s true for me. The way I do things doesn’t fit conventional “truths” about “correct ways” to accomplish desired ends, yet it seems to be my truth that the magical approach works for me. As usual, conflict arises for me in relation to using the magical approach when I compare how I do things with how I think I’m supposed to do things – with how it seems others do things, and when I feel a need to justify or defend my own unique approach, and when I question and doubt myself for doing things the way I naturally do them. And when I worry that the magical approach isn’t as reliable as a pocketful of credit cards.

Money = whatever you believe it does.

Trusting myself and the magical approach = things I desire magically come to me.

 Test

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 28th, 2006 at 5:10 pm and is filed under Sharing experiences. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Yesterday, I felt very anxious, and to alleviate that feeling, I started packing. This action was somewhat distracting for a while, but as time passed, I noticed that I was generating unsettling signals of fear, anxiousness, and tension, over and over and over. I tried simply noticing, acknowledging, and accepting the fear, which did help to dissipate the signal in the moment, but it was like trying to mop up an oil spill without dealing with the source. Within moments, I’d feel that signal jangling through my body again.

By nighttime, I was getting tired of all this fear. I don’t want to go through the next month or so this way. But what to do about it?

I thought about how much of my anxiety comes from not being able to “predict the future” the way I seem to think I can if I have a big pile of money available. When I had money, it seemed that I could just buy my way out of challenges – hire people to help me, pay for interim solutions if things didn’t work exactly as I’d wanted them to, just buy whatever it seemed I needed. When I had money, I assumed I could do whatever it took to make things comfortable and workable without the pressure of having to magically manifest solutions out of thin air. I relaxed because I believed I could solve problems with money, but the fact is that I still created things the way I do, which is magically.

Having money available simply provided me with the perception of a safety net. I took the pressure off myself to predict the future. Money = perception I can comfortably handle any possible future needs.

So, what’s going on now is that I’m creating circumstances in relation to this move in a sort of last moment, seat-of-the-pants, out-of-thin-air fashion that seems to be my way, but I feel tense about it because I believe that having money is what makes this approach safe. Otherwise, it’s scary.

But with or without a big pile of money giving me the illusion of safety, the truth is (for me) that things just come to me in unusual ways. And while this approach, this magical approach, doesn’t seem like something I can count on (the way money does), the fact is, since this is how I do things, it would work better for me if I felt safe using this magical approach, rather than feeling unsafe just because I don’t have a pile of cash to create with if this approach “doesn’t work.”  I know feeling safe is always a choice, but when it seems that I’m walking this magical approach tightrope without a net, the idea that I could simply choose to feel safe seems incredibly challenging to practice.

But, the fact is, I don’t have to live out of (and in the fear triggered by) that belief equation: money = trust and safety. I could look at things differently. To do so, I need to find ways prove to myself the unfamiliar equation: trust = money and everything else I desire.

“The magical approach” is a Seth phrase, one I’ve always loved. I’ve had plenty of experiences to support my “belief” in it. But trying to RELY on it under pressure (pressure I create by believing that magic isn’t reliable) always seems tricky. Yet, I notice that this is how my life works. And the magical approach is what I’ve dedicated myself to understanding and trusting. So, why not focus on my preference for magical creating from a position of recognizing, acknowledging, and appreciating the way I make things happen, instead of from a position of doubt, discounting, and fear.

When I told a friend about connecting with someone who’s going to rent the house I’m now in, and how he’s offering to buy some of my stuff, and how he generously offered to help me out by paying for the whole place (his rent on the apartment and my rent on the house) for the month of June, and how he said I could leave all my stuff here and go to Santa Fe and get things figured out, and come back later for my stuff if that would help, she was amazed that this magical rabbit had suddenly come out of my hat. She wanted to hear the story of how I’d connected with him.

I told her this had come about from following an impulse to take a walk mid-morning one day (not my usual walking time), meeting a guy on the trail and talking with him (my usual approach to strangers – I just talk with anybody about my life and what I’m dealing with), and impulsively telling him I had an apartment to rent, and he knew someone who might be interested, which is how I met my magical rabbit. When I finished the story, my friend said, “This is exactly how you do things. This is how things always work for you.” For her, this was confirmation that my decision to move was a good one and was going to proceed magically.

And this magical connection with someone whose desires meshed perfectly with mine came about as a result of not forcing myself in directions prompted by my fears and doubts as the pressure to change things here continued to build.

I only put one ad in the local paper to rent the apartment, and I did that against my better judgment — against my inner sense that I didn’t need to do that. I didn’t like the results of that ad, so I didn’t do it again. And that choice was hard for me, because it seemed that I ought to try to rent the apartment — everyone who knew of my situation thought I ought to rent the apartment ASAP. Logically, renting the apartment immediately seemed a sensible direction to go for a person who wanted to manifest some cash. But I didn’t want to do it. And it wasn’t because of all my reasons for not wanting to deal with a tenant. It didn’t feel right to try to find a tenant by putting an ad in the paper. I wanted a perfectly suitable tenant to just come to me.

And during what seemed to be this sinking ship phase of my life here, I didn’t flog myself to go out and get a couple of weird little jobs to keep myself financially stable. I allowed time to pass “doing nothing” but expressing myself in the Shift Diaries and communicating via e-mail with my new Elias friend, Anne. And I made those choices despite the fact that I didn’t understand how things could work out without taking action to solve my dilemma. But it didn’t seem that I ought to frantically pursue work – I had no inclination in that direction that was not the result of fear. Of course, what I expected was that something would just come to me.

And a project that would have enabled me to quickly make enough money to move did come to me. It appeared out of nowhere and then disappeared, strangely seeming to save me and just as strangely, seeming to leave me stranded again. The preparation to do the project (technical stuff that I wasn’t completely familiar with – oooo, the unfamiliar is everywhere!) took considerable unpaid time, during which my attention was distracted from my financial worries (because I thought the project would solve them), and during which time I started the Shift Diaries. When the money I thought I was going to get from the project didn’t materialize due to the client’s  financial problems (more reflections, as always), even though I felt as though I was walking a high wire without a net at this point, I also had a faint sense that the “time passing” as a result was simply another link in a chain, another step on a path that I was magically creating.

Then a week or so ago I got the distinct impression that I was going to move. It felt like a prison door swinging open. I felt exhilarated, liberated, and confused. How was this going to happen? Where would I go? When would I go? Why can’t we collar that small voice and get more details? Another week or so passed in my usual state of Limbo, and then I followed some small impulses that led to things starting to come together for the move.

During the past few months, I’ve been practicing a lot of exposure (Elias highly recommends exposure — as in, “I find myself acceptable and have nothing to hide,” not as in “I reveal all to everyone, willy nilly.”), beginning with my communication with Anne K. that started three months ago. I’ve published the Shift Diaries. I’ve been open about my situation when I talk to people (I naturally tend to expose everything, rather willy nilly, because I discover what I’m doing by speaking about it to an audience). I finally felt much more accepting of where I am. And, just as Elias and all the rest of those dead guys promise, without forcing energy in response to my financial situation and my desire for things to change, simply by allowing, magically solutions began to emerge.

So, I sat in my bed last night and thought back over all the ways things have come to me “out of the blue,” so to speak. I said to myself, “You worry about the cats being a possible difficulty whenever you want to find a new rental, but the truth is the cats have never been a problem. You always create places where having the cats is not an issue. Either the people before have had animals, or it doesn’t come up at all, or the landlord is won over by your energy.”

I told myself, “You worry about how money is going to work out, but the truth is, ways to generate money just come to you.” And I went through a review of all the past strange connections and impulses that led to jobs and work.

I said to myself, “You worry about the actual logistics of moving and the difficulties of doing it by yourself, but the truth is, you always are helped when you move and things go smoothly.” And I reviewed all the strange and magical happenings that have allowed me to move fairly easily.

I told myself, “You worry about finding a place to live that will suit you, yet the truth is that you find wonderful houses on the first try that are the envy of everyone.” And I reviewed my magical manifestations in that area.

And as I did this review of the workings of the magical approach in my life, I stopped generating that signal of fear. And I kept saying “the truth is,” because this is what’s true for me. The way I do things doesn’t fit conventional “truths” about “correct ways” to accomplish desired ends, yet it seems to be my truth that the magical approach works for me. As usual, conflict arises for me in relation to using the magical approach when I compare how I do things with how I think I’m supposed to do things – with how it seems others do things, and when I feel a need to justify or defend my own unique approach, and when I question and doubt myself for doing things the way I naturally do them. And when I worry that the magical approach isn’t as reliable as a pocketful of credit cards.

Money = whatever you believe it does.

Trusting myself and the magical approach = things I desire magically come to me.

 Test

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 28th, 2006 at 5:10 pm and is filed under Sharing experiences. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.