Welcome To Shifting!

An Introduction to the Shift Starter Program

Hello friend,

It’s my privilege to share shifting with you!

Strategically shifting your state of being – whether emotional or physical - raises your emotional intelligence and makes life feel a whole lot more relaxed and purposeful.

  • Shift #1 in the Shift Starter Program is linked at the end of this post.

  • Begin the program whenever you’re ready.

  • Complete each of the four (4) Starter Shifts to complete the Shift Starter Program.

Once you’ve gone through each Starter Shift you’ll have completed the program and be able to shift into a better state of mind and body anytime, in just a few minutes.

That’s my Starter Program intention for you.

Subscribe now to get a new Shift from me delivered to your email inbox every week.

Tap here to learn more about what ‘shifting’ is and how it works.

Here’s a new finding that can help you complete the Shift Starter Program…

People who listen to Shifts at 1.5x audio speed (or faster) are reporting the largest mindset shifting improvements.

That said, completing Shifts is what actually produces improvements to your shifting ability.

So your best strategy is to begin listening to each Shift at regular speed (i.e., 1.0x).

You can read the Shift as you listen to it too, if you like to do that.

Increase the Shift audio speed only if that helps you complete a Shift anytime.

Make sense? Good!

Let’s begin the Shift Starter Program…


The Shift Starter Program

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Shifting = strategically regulating your physical and emotional state.

Shifting is the skill I value most.

I use shifting to fall asleep peacefully every night.

I use shifting first thing every day to reconnect to presence and purpose.

I use shifting during the day to boost my energy and motivation and to increase focus at challenging moments.

I also use shifting to deepen my connection to life and the people I love.

Shifting is beautiful and endless.

It only takes a few minutes and can be used anytime to help you relax, get motivated, feel more confident and focused, enhance creativity, be a better teammate, or leader — or just shift to feel more present more consistently.

You can use a shifting technique during a break to reduce your stress or anger, to dissolve your cravings, or to shift away from feeling annoyed with someone or with yourself.

Shifting is a way to get yourself focused on whatever’s up next for you, day or night.

With practice, I believe that anyone can learn to shift into a state of mind and body that lets you feel more connected to the people you love, the communities you care about — to a life you feel deeply inspired by.

When you learn to shift your state of mind, you’ll find managing your emotions and syncing with your life’s priorities much easier.

You can also learn how to create personalized Shifts tailored to your specific life challenges and aspirations. That’s how I created your first Starter Shift below — I’ll talk more about that as we go.

We’ll start with an example of shifting out of a highly stressful experience though — a recurring nightmare of mine.

You’ll learn an important initial shifting strategy by experiencing how I dealt with my nightmare challenges.

Like so many people, I’ve had issues with sleep over the years.

Whether it’s difficult falling, staying asleep, or falling back to sleep — if you’re struggling with it, it gets in the way of feeling like you’re living a full life.

For me, negative self-judgment and feelings of helplessness haunted my sleep whenever I felt overly stressed and vulnerable.

In my recurring nightmare, I sense that I have done something wrong, but only vaguely know what it is.

I start thinking that I deserve whatever pain and terror are waiting for me.

It feels so real, and its effect IS real.

Stress is coursing through my body.

I’m captured by negativity.

I feel like a failure, and I feel lazy — as though I’ve reached some point of unsurmountable regret.

Unless I wake up, my nightmare continues to loom larger.

Old pains surge inside me.

Memories twist into horrors happening around me or to me.

I wake up to my mind spiraling and my heart racing.

It’s terrifying.

Fear lingers as I lie awake.

In the past I was unable to quickly identify the nightmare for what it was — bad fiction and reruns of the past that are artifact of a fear-based mindset.

And that made my nightmares more powerful.

So, they impacted my day and other parts of my life too.

I clearly had to learn to deal with my nightmares.

brown wooden panel door beside gray concrete wall
Photo by SHTTEFAN on Unsplash

Nightmares are a vivid expression of a process we each constantly experience throughout our lives.

They blend psychological history with current emotional state.

They arise when you sense social or physical danger, historical feelings of fear, vulnerability, stress, anger, or shame.

Whether you’re experiencing a reality-based fear or the blended fear of a nightmare, your mind perceives an elevated threat.

As your life starts feeling more dangerous, your dreams do too.

Once you’re headed in a stressful direction, the momentum can be difficult to turn around — whether you’re awake or asleep — unless you know how to shift.

My recurring nightmare forced me to figure out how to notice moments of stress or cycling fear emerging — and then to shift my state of mind and body into peace in real time.

Until I began to shift intentionally, my mind was amplifying those negative feelings and bringing them into my dream life.

Now that I know how to shift out of them, nightmares are fascinating to me.

In our first Starter Shift, we’ll explore how your mind can melt your feelings into presence, whenever you choose.

Shifting out of nightmares taught me that the moment you notice fear emerging is the best moment to begin a Shift.

The moment that fear emerges is a critical inflection point in your mental and emotional life.

If you can notice fear emerging and then shift away on demand, you’ll be able to learn to shift to and from any emotional state.

That’s why we’re beginning the Shift Starter Program with confronting ‘the fear response’ together.

Together, we’ll complete The Presence Shift I personally use to get myself back to peace when nightmare fear visits.

It works very well.

As soon as I began using this particular Shift strategy, the frequency of my recurring nightmare diminished significantly.

That’s because when you have less fear, your stories and projections (i.e., your nightmare’s food) have less stress to feed on — and to feed back to you.

When I stopped fearing the nightmare, the nightmare stopped showing up.

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Photo by Sigmund on Unsplash

Mostly…

I got sick recently, and a bit stressed and worn-down.

The nightmare returned for a one-night performance — a reprisal.

When the nightmare woke me, I immediately shifted into a peaceful, present state of mind while recording our first Starter Shift — The Presence Shift — from bed.

My voice is a bit raw and slow because I recorded it while laying on my back at 3:00 AM, but shifting through fear together — using The Presence Shift recorded during my genuinely stressful life experience — is an ideal way to begin.

Whenever you’re ready, we’ll walk through The Presence Shift together deliberately.

We’ll cover each detail along the path of shifting from fear to presence.

The Presence Shift audio is about 11 minutes long.

Because of the nature of the content, I recommend listening to The Presence Shift any night this week as you’re getting ready to go to sleep.

You can choose to read The Presence Shift, but I recommend that – in this case – you close your eyes and listen as you explore your inner world.

Take your time with The Presence Shift.

It is not meant to be entertainment.

It’s meant to help you develop your mastery of your inner world.

Be patient with the process, with yourself, and with me, as we navigate our inner world’s together.

You may want to set an intentional mood in your space before you begin your Shift.

  • Make yourself a warm drink.

  • Light a few candles if that relaxes you.

  • Settle into a comfortable couch, or a favorite seat, or your bed.

Prepare yourself to explore your inner world and shift your mind and body into a deeply peaceful state.



Ready to set your Shift Starter Program intention?

Your expectation during the Shift Starter Program should be to learn to shift into a better state of mind anytime you choose to, within a few minutes.

It may be difficult to believe, but I believe you can do it.

The truth is that shifting your mind is not that hard to do.

The hardest part is getting yourself to take the time to do it.

Shifts help solve that problem by building your ability to identify moments when you want (or need) to shift into a better state of mind.

If you set a clear intention to learn how to shift into a better state of mind anytime, you’ll be able to substantially improve your ability to shift.

Set a clear intention now.

Start by taking a long, deep breath, and then say the following words to yourself with conviction.

“I’m going to learn to strategically shift my state of mind and body whenever I choose to.”

Good.

Now do it again, but this time don’t just say the words — feel the words settling into your body as you say them.

“I’m going to learn to strategically shift my state of mind and body whenever I choose to.”

Feel that intention being set inside your body now.

Feel the intention?

Nice.

I’m thrilled we’re in this together.

You’ll find a link to The Presence Shift below.

Whenever you’re ready, let’s Shift.

Sean


Introduction to The Presence Shift

The Presence Shift guides you into a state of mind and body commonly called “presence.”

The more you come into a present state of mind and body, the more you’ll feel at peace in the current moment.

You’ll know The Presence Shift is working when you feel yourself shifting toward peace during the Shift.

  • You can use The Presence Shift whenever you’re feeling excessive stress or other negative emotions and you want to feel more at peace. I often use the technique to start my day in peace, and to fall back asleep anytime I wake up in the middle of the night.

  • You can also use The Presence Shift to begin shifting from a neutral or positive state of mind into a different state of mind — to increase your motivation, or to prepare yourself for an event.

Today, we’ll dissolve nightmare fear and shift into peace with...

The Presence Shift

Authors
Dr. Sean Sullivan