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Let’s take a long deep breath.
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Come into the present moment fully.
It helps to invite your attention in, as you get started on a deep dive into the present moment.
Notice how your body feels.
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Notice that subtle change you can often pick up when you come initially into the presence intentionally.
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Feel that?
When you dedicate all your attention to looking and hearing, listening, feeling.
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Relax your entire body.
Another deep breath as your body melts into wherever you're sitting, or lying, or walking.
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Melt into life.
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Life takes place within you.
Your inner life — where you process everything about your experience, and where you feel your experience — occurs within.
Your life occurs inside you.
I often talk about your inner life being the world inside your brain — inside your body.
And your outer life being what's occurring outside your brain your body.
It's helpful to remember that your inner life is your life.
When you come into presence in your body repeatedly, as we did at the beginning today — by noticing how your body changes, how it feels differently inside you when you come into presence intentionally, and then as you deepen into presence in silence — you start to recognize that presence obliterates fear.
It melts fear.
It subsumes fear.
Because it helps to make you recognize that your life is an inner journey.
The peace of your inner life comes from removing your idea that the outer life should be able to determine your level of peace.
Your inner life is yours.
So let's do a deep dive into silence and presence together.
Let's come into presence and just sit and feel your body.
Feel how your body experience changes over the course of a minute, when you focus all your attention on just listening to life.
Ready?
Listen.
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—
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Perfect.
How do you feel?
Do you have a deeper recognition that your inner life is your experience of life?
If you're feeling chaotic or fearful inside, it's being driven by the thoughts that are arising in your mind in this moment.
So notice the thoughts.
Allow them to fade away.
Commit to the priority of presence now.
Commit to presence for the rest of your day.
Have a great one.
I'll talk to you soon.
Sean
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Hello there, how are you?
Hope you're having a good one so far.
Let’s spend a few minutes in presence together.
Come fully into the present moment intentionally.
—
Bring all your attention here — into this moment.
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Looking around your space, as you listen to life.
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All your attention focused on observing your environment.
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Listening to life.
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Can you feel that little bit of a shift that always comes into your body immediately when you drop fully into now — into the present moment?
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When you bring your attention fully into the present moment, you shift into a different mind state.
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Can you feel it?
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Let’s set an intention to remain in silence now, to deepen your connection to silence over the next few minutes.
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Feel your intention being set inside your body.
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Nice.
Let’s think a little bit about what mind states are, and why it's important to recognize which mind state you're in, at any given moment.
One way to think about mind states is to think about the filter through which you're perceiving life.
What’s the filter through which you're thinking about whatever you're thinking about in this moment?
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Is there anger in the filter?
If there is, then you have a mind state tinted with anger.
Is there tiredness?
Is there joy?
What are the filters through which you're processing life in this moment?
How is your filter particularly colored in this moment?
Answering that for yourself is a clean way to think about what a mind state is.
It's also an good way to recognize the current mind state that you're in.
Can you distinguish when you're in particular mind states — or identify subtle changes to your mind states?
By intentionally noticing the different mind states you experience, you'll also start noticing more subtle shades and colors that make up your mind states.
Then, you’ll notice shifts to your mind state as they occur automatically throughout your day more naturally.
You'll also get better at shifting intentionally whenever you identify that you're in — or tinted by — a particular state of mind.
Noticing a mind state filter, as opposed to continuing to live through that filter, can trigger you to set an intention to make a shift.
Let’s do that.
What's your mind state like right now?
How would you characterize it, if you wanted to give it a couple adjectives?
Mine feels a bit tired.
It's fairly late here, and I didn't sleep great last night.
When I get tired, I can get frustrated a bit more easily.
My tolerance for stress goes down.
So those qualities are coloring my mind state right now.
What’s coloring your mind state?
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Now that we've identified some of the colors influencing our inner worlds, let's drop more deeply into presence and feel our unwanted mind states falling away.
To drop more deeply into the present moment, close your eyes — and put all your attention into noticing your body — the buzzing life of you.
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Let go of all thoughts with me for a while.
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Just feel the miracle — the buzzing life of you.
Knowing you don't need to do anything right now.
Your body's taking care of all of it.
Keeping you alive.
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Rejuvenating.
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Buzzing.
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Taking in oxygen.
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Feeding itself.
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Allow that process to happen on its own, naturally.
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Just be with your body.
Be with yourself, listening and feeling for a minute.
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Feel that tingling amplifying in your hands and your arms now.
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Feel it throughout the rest of your body too now.
Your body buzz will get even more noticeable as you drop deeply into presence.
Feel your body buzz growing.
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If you get distracted, just bring your attention back to noticing your body buzz.
Let whatever mind state you noticed and identified earlier merge into presence.
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Melt into life.
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Perfect.
Do you feel any different?
Has your mind state shifted at all?
Do you feel more at peace?
Notice.
Keep feeling your body buzz as long as you want to.
Stay present for the rest of your day or night too.
I'm gonna sign off.
Have a great one.
I'll talk to you soon.
Sean
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Hey there, how are you?
I hope you're doing all right.
I'm reaching out to say hello and spend some time in presence, largely because I was inspired by a conversation I had earlier.
It brought me back.
It was a gentleman who grew up near where I did, around Boston.
We were talking about how we might work together, but first we were just connecting — getting to know each other.
It was great.
He told me something that I thought was just brilliant — about how he perceived OnePerfect.
If he wants credit for this, he can he can tell me.
He was talking about how he was going to travel this summer.
He is going to France.
He's American and he’s excited about his trip.
Although he considers himself a very poor linguist in general, he decided that he wanted to learn French before going on this trip.
Before we continue, why don’t we take a minute to drop into presence together for a little bit.
Then, I'll share what my new friend shared with me.
I think his idea is so helpful to support the objective of learning to shift your state of mind effectively.
It’s a great way to frame that intention for yourself as you engage with the challenge of getting better at shifting your mind.
Before we get to that, let’s take a long, deep breath.
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All of our attention right here.
Listening.
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I feel jazzed up today because it's beautiful out.
So I'm going to keep my eyes open.
I'm just going to notice something I've never noticed before about the beauty of our environment.
What do you see in your outer world that you've never noticed before?
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Noticing something new brings you into the present moment.
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It’s the painters eye — as I think of it sometimes.
I have a friend who's a great painter.
If you watch a painter, they just look, and they look, and they study.
And then they see what they want to see, or what they need to see.
They see what that next step is for them to see in order to paint the perfect piece of art for this moment.
So let's just look at life for another 10 seconds.
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If you want to become a painter, you're going to have to look for a lot longer than 10 seconds.
But 10 seconds is all it takes to come fully into the present moment.
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Nice.
It can be easier to sit in silence for a bit when you know that you have something to look forward to afterwards.
Do you notice that sensation inside you as you listen?
That anticipation of what’s coming next.
It can pull you out of presence, but it can also keep yourself in presence — to know you have something coming next.
I'm looking forward to flushing out this idea with you.
The basic idea is that learning a language — a new language from scratch — requires you to learn words.
You learn words and then clusters of related words.
You learn words in a certain order.
Before you know it, you have a little bit of knowledge.
From that knowledge you can build in some grammar, and you can build in some sentences.
Before you know it again, you’re stringing sentences together.
Not to make it sound easier than it is, because it could take a while.
But suffice it to say, there is a process to that learning experience.
When you follow the right process, you're going to learn a lot faster because you're going to learn the words that you need to learn first, to learn the language.
And eventually, you're speaking French, or whatever it is.
This new friend was pointing out to me the analogy between learning a language and learning to shift your state of mind effectively — learning the skills necessary, the words and the language necessary, to know how to make shifts to your mind, to your life — to your wellness.
Once you have some of the basics down, you can go on to other things and learn more.
Or, you can just be completely satisfied with the core skill of be able to shift your state of mind into peace anytime.
I so appreciated the brilliance of that observation — the parallel between learning a language and learning to shift your state of mind — learning for wellness, learning for mental health, learning how to connect to life in the way that you want to, so that you feel at peace consistently, even in moments when you’re not shifting.
It's all about living in the present moment.
And living in the present moment is all about remembering to reconnect to the present moment whenever you get disconnected.
That's what Shifts are all about.
That's why I record these Shifts all the time.
That’s why I complete Shifts every day.
And it’s why I believe in sharing Shifts.
When you get something that works for you, share it.
But I also recognize that the same thing doesn't work every day.
Because you’re different every day.
You're in a different place each day.
You've changed — maybe learned something new and you want to build on that.
So ideally, you want to be connected with from a place that enables you to take the right next step on your path.
And that's not the same place as it was for any of us today as it was yesterday.
That's another thing that I love about Shifts in the OnePerfect app — they meet you where you are.
I want to encourage you to try the OnePerfect app to learn faster.
Within the app you can truly personalize your experience.
You can actually record your own voice, your own Shifts, or parts of a Shift.
And you can blend your recordings into your Shift experiences.
You can learn how to do that in a way that makes you a faster learner by getting targeted in terms of what you want to focus on during your Shifts.
There are great ways to focus on all of that in the app.
So just a little pitch for the app there because I'm seeing how much people love the Shifts on the email program from OnePerfect Shift.
The Shift Starter Program is coming soon too — it’s beloved in testing now.
But to me, the app is a very well conceived approach to learning how to shift your state of mind at any moment, because it meets you where you are right now.
So take advantage of it.
I’ll drop app links below.
Check it out.
Thank you to my new friend for sharing that analogy that I passed on today.
Before we tie up, let’s spend a little more time in silence and in presence together.
Another long deep breath.
What do you want to do this time?
Do you want to close your eyes and be at peace?
Let's feel our body buzz for a while.
Close your eyes.
Take all your attention and place it into any body part you choose.
Feet and hands are great choices.
Let's do that this time.
Feel both of your feet and both your hands at the same time.
Notice that tingling buzzing life.
The miracle of you that's buzzing — that’s intersecting with life.
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Feel that?
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Once you feel that sensation in your hands and feet, spread the sensation from the outside in, to fill your whole body buzzing with life.
Ready?
Feel.
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Feel it in your head too.
Don't forget the buzzing of your head.
Let's feel together for a while longer.
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Do you feel that body buzz?
It’s the miracle of 30 trillion cells buzzing as one, totally outside your control.
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You are miraculous.
Perfect.
Keep going if you want.
I'm going to sign off by suggesting we set the intention to be in presence as much as we can for the rest of the day.
Have a great one.
Sean
Personalize your next Shift in the app anytime.
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If you like Shifts, give them to a team you love.
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Hello there, hello from the ocean.
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Let’s listen and take a long deep breath.
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Come fully into presence.
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Allowing your shoulders and your neck to relax.
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Settle into your space.
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Allow your arms to fall toward the ground.
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Bring all your attention into this moment — the present moment.
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Let’s intend to be ALL here for the next few minutes.
100% of our attention, right here.
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Nice.
Here's a psychology tip related to ego.
Ego develops as a conditioning happens to each of us as we grow up.
We begin to increasingly associate our thoughts with our self.
Initially, your thoughts largely derived from the context that you grew up in — your culture, cultural conditions, and the thoughts and beliefs that those conditions provoked inside you.
So your history plays a huge role in creating your ego.
Soon enough, your ego becomes what you consider to be you yourself — what you consider to be you.
Over time, people increasingly tend to come to believe their thoughts are truth, objective truth, some objective reality and some piece of themselves — as opposed to just being our best tool for navigating life.
By the way, your ego doesn't need to be understood as a negative thing.
It can be perfectly positive.
It's just that to really understand it, it's helpful to know that it's built upon stories you were told, and then stories you tell.
And those stories are artifact of your history.
Let's take another long deep breath.
Settle further into the space you're sitting in, or lying in, or walking in.
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Come back intentionally and fully into presence.
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And let that psychology tip sink in a little bit.
What does it mean for you that your ego is conditioned by your past?
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Each time you have a thought that you become aware of, and you recognize that thought was created unconsciously based on your history, based on your old conditioning, knowing that and seeing that helps you see behind the thoughts.
It helps you put your thoughts into perspective.
So let's do that now by connecting to the unchanging space, the silence, the stillness, out of which your thoughts arise into the landscape of your inner world.
Your thoughts often arise into your mind unconsciously.
You can see that as you observe them consciously.
Listening in silence gets you in touch with your thoughts from the perspective of the unchanging space of silence.
So you can observe and see the truth out of which, and into which, your ego arises.
This is a place that's far more sustaining and real than the ego stories.
This is the silence of your inner world out of which, and into which, every experience you have flows.
So with your eyes closed now if you like, just look a few feet out in front of you.
Look into that silent darkness in your inner world with soft closed eyes.
And notice the specks of light that you'll usually see against the darkness.
Notice the lights within stillness.
Stillness, the place where you can come to rest and rejuvenate and reconnect with your true self.
Settle into the vastness on the shores of stillness for a little while.
Just looking at the lights within stillness.
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Being and looking.
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Choose one light now, if you can — and follow it for a little while.
You may lose it.
If you do, just pick another light and keep following it as long as you can.
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Good.
Now turn your attention to feeling stillness in your body
Keep stillness close.
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Good.
Now that we’ve quieted down, let’s observe any thoughts that arise.
As a thought arises into the stillness of your inner world, just notice it.
Then, let it go.
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Can you notice how your unconscious thoughts arise automatically, even without any intention from you?
Just notice each one, and then let it go.
Let’s sit still in silence — in stillness together for a while, listening.
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You have the ability to observe what arises in your mind, and to let it go whenever you choose to.
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You can be objective about the reality that your history of thoughts that rise in a re-arise in your mind come from long ago in your life oftentimes.
They may or may not be valid for you now.
It's only when you can see them, look at them, and observe them objectively that you can make that decision.
Let’s sit in silence listening to thoughts for a little longer.
Just watch and listen.
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Good.
Life flows through you always, each moment.
Your option is to free yourself — free your concerns — by being one with life.
Or, resist life by wanting something else in this moment.
When you let go of resistance and just listen, you let go of stress.
Life immediately looks and feels so different.
And when you open your eyes again you can see and feel life teeming all around you.
So let’s open our eyes now, and feel life flowing through you.
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Let’s invite life to flow through us for the rest of the day too.
Set the intention to be fully present to life for the rest of your day.
Can you feel that intention being set inside you?
Got it?
All right.
Have a great one.
I’ll talk to you soon.
Sean
This post is public so feel free to share it.
Personalize your next Shift in the app anytime.
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It takes ~1 minute to request a team trial.
Hello, friend.
Let's take a long deep breath.
—
Come fully into the present moment.
—
It helps to invite your attention in as you get started on a deep dive into the present moment.
Set a little time aside.
Notice how your body feels.
—
Notice that subtle change you can often pick up when you come initially into presence intentionally.
—
Feel that shift that happens when you dedicate all your attention to looking and hearing, and listening, and feeling.
—
Relax your entire body.
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Take another deep breath as your body melts into wherever you're sitting, or lying, or walking.
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Melt into life.
—
Nice.
Your inner life — where you process everything about your experience, and where you feel your experience — occurs within.
Your experience of life is being driven by the thoughts that are arising in your mind in this moment.
So notice your thoughts as often as you can.
And then allow them to fade away when you want to connect to peace.
Your life occurs inside you.
Your inner life being the world inside your brain and inside your body.
And your outer life is what's occurring outside your brain and your body.
It's helpful to remember that your inner life drives your life experience.
What's happening in your inner world is determining how you’re experiencing your life.
When you come into explicit awareness of that reality, it can be helpful for shedding stresses — like FOMO, fear of missing out.
When you attend to your inner world as primary, you can get a real handle on what's actually driving you to have fears of missing out, or stresses, or fears about anything else.
When you come into presence as we did at the beginning today, you can notice how it feels different inside when you come into presence intentionally.
You can see how easy it is to shift your inner life.
And then you continue to shift and deepen into presence, into silence.
You’ll see that your fears of missing out, and anything else, diminish.
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And as you settle into it you recognize that silence, presence, obliterates fear.
Presence melts fear.
It subsumes fear.
The peace of your inner life can remove the idea that the outer life should be able to determine your level of peace at all.
Your life is yours when your inner life is yours.
So let's do a deep dive into our inner lives together and release stress.
Come into presence by sitting still and feeling your body with all your attention.
Notice how your experience changes over the course of a full minute when you focus all your attention on just listening to life and feeling your body.
Ready?
Listen.
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Allow stress to fade away.
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Allow any fears of missing out to fade away.
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Be at peace.
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Perfect.
How do you feel?
Has your stress shifted?
Let’s set an intention to be present for now, and for the rest of your day.
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Feel it.
Nice.
Have a great one.
I'll talk to you soon.
Sean
This post is public so feel free to share it.
Personalize your next Shift in the app anytime.
iPhone | Android
If you like Shifts, give them to a team you love.
It takes ~1 minute to request a team trial.
Hello, friend.
Take a long deep breath.
Come into the present moment.
Listen to life with all your attention.
—
100% of your attention.
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It's beautiful today.
What a cool thing to do during the course of your day — turn your mind toward taking a deeper look at whether you're in the space you want to be in right now.
:)
Let's take another deep breath.
Intend to be 100% here right now.
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Spend just a moment with all our attention in silence.
Listening.
Completely listening.
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Nice.
I've been thinking about the definition of emotional progress.
It's an interesting one.
You can answer it from a lot of different perspectives, right?
What do you think of the idea of your emotional progress relating to your repetition of particular stories in your head?
In other words, when you have less repetition of a story in order to move back into peace than you used to have, that's emotional progress — because you're not being repetitively distracted by an old conditioned story as much.
You're more free, to be present.
To live in the present moment.
That idea holds nicely for whether you're really engaged deeply in something — maybe you're on a project at work that you're interested in so you've decided, ‘This is how I want to spend my time for now.’ — and so you're able to be completely in it, when you're in it.
Or, on the other hand, it also applies when you're at leisure completely and you are able to just enjoy being quiet, being still.
Having a loving mind.
Alternatively, you’re repeating old stories — churning them in your mind.
As you reduce that repeating activity, you reduce the resistance in your life — the resistance inside your inner world.
That psychological resistance that adds a touch of stress to everything you're doing.
Or perhaps, you’re adding more than a touch of stress, depending on the circumstance.
If you can remove some of that experience from your days, you're making emotional progress, I would say.
Removing inner noise ushers in inner peace.
Inner silence can connect you to a sense of purpose that flows out of the silence when you listen to it deeply, without distraction…
Let’s get deep into silence and listen, for 30 seconds.
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Feel that?
Nice.
When you really are undisturbed by cycles of thought — concerns or thoughts about the past, or thoughts or fears about the future — you can let it all go, as much as possible for a while.
When you're quiet enough you become present.
And you can feel for that next step in your life.
You can feel life flowing through you.
And if you don't resist it — if you listen — you hear it, and you feel it.
Then you can walk it.
You can walk the pace of your miracle, as I like to call it.
So the removal, or reduction, of cycling thoughts and concerns — at least the ones that are interfering with your connection to presence, and purpose — that is emotional progress.
What do you think of that?
Let's come into presence for 30 more seconds together.
And see how that feels before we say goodbye for now.
All right, 100% of your attention again right here.
Just listening with me.
Eyes open or closed.
What's flowing through you?
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Nice.
That's perfect.
Stay present.
Have a great day.
Sean
This post is public so feel free to share it.
Personalize your next Shift in the app anytime.
iPhone | Android
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It takes ~1 minute to request a team trial.
Let's take a long deep breath.
—
And another.
—
Nice.
Come fully into this moment.
All of our attention right here.
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Listening, looking, seeing, being, feeling.
Noticing all the details.
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Perfect.
Let's set that intention to shift into a state of mind that you want to be in for the day.
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Did you set the intention?
Can you feel that intention to shift bubbling up inside you?
It’s part of the Shift — it’s how you get started.
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One reason that I often reflect on about why it's so useful to start my day with shifting into a better state of mind when I wake up — I shift fully into presence, usually by talking through a Shift like this — is that:
The state of mind that you are in at any moment precedes the nature of the inner experience that you'll have in any moment.
A big part of your inner experience is the thoughts that your mind and body produce.
So the key to remember is that the thoughts that you will produce occur within a state of mind and body that enables those particular thoughts.
So when you bring yourself into a state of mind and a state of body that feels light, that feels present, that feels alive, that feels engaged, that feels right here and right now, fully present — as opposed to ruminating about the past, or fearfully projecting the future, the thoughts that flow through you will take you into that next step of your day with the least amount of resistance.
Certain states of mind and body allow you to feel like you want to connect with the people you love — like you want to connect with life.
Depending on your state, how you connect and love is going to be completely changed — completely different.
Intentionally shifting into the state of mind you want to be in —which begins with shifting into presence — is so incredibly powerful.
That fact is something we often overlook.
Often, when we’re having a negative sequence of thoughts we will try to think our way out of that situation — think our way out of that sequence of thoughts — rather than first shifting our mind and body intentionally into a better state of mind, before we review what thoughts are emerging and how we want to shift them.
When you shift into a better emotional state first, you have a much better opportunity to address whatever it is that you might have been struggling with — whatever those thoughts are that you want to shift when your state was lower, and heavier, and less present.
So let’s take another deep breath and come fully into this moment.
Come fully into presence.
Let’s sit together in silence for a little while.
Observing and appreciating life.
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Listen to life going by for a while.
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Feel it.
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Feel that shift?
Now ask yourself, what are you grateful for in your life?
So often for me, it’s as simple as the sun shining through the window.
The sun is such a cue to connecting to the miraculousness of the life that we each get to engage with — that we each get to live, every moment, every day.
You notice it if you’re present.
Does connecting with that make you feel grateful and connected too?
What else is it for you?
What's the smallest thing that triggers you to shift into a state of presence?
What's that tiniest cue that you can take away from today knowing that you can always turn to it as a trigger into presence?
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What presence cue can you take with you today?
—
Got it?
Perfect.
Have your unwanted thoughts shifted at all?
I hope so.
I wish you a present rest of your day.
Talk to you soon.
Have a good one.
Sean
Personalize your next Shift in the app anytime.
iPhone | Android
If you like Shifts, give them to a team you love.
It takes ~1 minute to request a team trial.
Hello there.
Let's take a long deep breath.
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And shift out of bad news.
I really like this idea.
It's so relevant for all of us at so many different moments of our lives.
Let's dig into it.
Beginning with listening for a little while.
Intending all of our attention into the present moment by looking, and feeling, and breathing deeply.
—
Relaxing.
I'm gonna step outside.
Let's just listen to life.
Let's listen to waves together for a few seconds, before we dig into a deep shift out of bad news.
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Hear the waves?
Listen.
—
Perfect.
Now let's get to it.
If you're feeling like you just got some bad news you probably want to shift fully out of it right away — rather than just making a quick mini-shift.
But with shifting out of bad news, it can help to first think through how you're receiving this bad news and how you might prefer to receive it.
Before we continue though…
I want to acknowledge that the range of bad news is endless, so it is tricky to offer a single Shift for all ‘bad news.’
As you listen or read, please know that my heart is with you.
I never mean any disrespect or to minimize the intense pain, or the senselessness of some experiences.
And if you need to get more support to get through it, please reach out for support.
Please do that.
People care.
I'll leave some helpful resources at the end of this Shift so we all have easy access to it, whenever we might need it.
Okay?
Let's get back to shifting out of bad news — as much as we can for now.
Hearing about bad news always reminds me of an old parable.
You might have heard about the farmer whose son fell off a horse and broke his leg.
The neighbors came over and said to the old man, “We're so sorry. Nobody can help you take care of the farm now. It's such bad news.”
And the old man responded by saying, “Maybe, maybe not. We'll see. Who knows.”
The next day, the son couldn't be conscripted to the war that had just broken out.
And again, the neighbors came to the father and said, “Wow, that was lucky. Breaking his leg wasn't bad news for you after all. It turned out to be good news.”
And again, the father said, “Maybe. We'll see. Who knows.”
The idea that's deeply embedded in the wisdom of the old man is that we don't ever know what tomorrow will bring.
We don't even know what the next moment will bring.
And we certainly don't have enough control over the events in our lives to always predict what is good news and what will turn out to be bad news.
In fact, if we want to use our powers of reason and deduction, and our strategies for controlling our experience — and if we look back into the history of our own lives, and certainly in the history of difficulties that have surrounded us over time — we’ll find that often times the most difficult periods, those periods that got categorized automatically as ‘bad news’ initially, were the catalysts for the greatest changes in our lives.
Unfortunately, that doesn't mean that your bad news isn't gonna sting — or hurt you deeply, possibly.
You have a certain momentum and a trajectory planned for your life.
You have expectations and attachments, (i.e., you love people, and animals, and many other things perhaps).
The story of your life is laid out in your mind and body in a certain way.
So when you hit an obstacle you feel it as ‘bad news.’
But the more quickly you can see that you don't really know the deep meaning of the event that you're framing as bad news, the better.
Time will flush that out.
Meanwhile, the way that you can support it being flushed out most quickly is to shift.
Shift your mind into a recognition that while this seems and feels right now like it's bad news, no matter how tragic it seems, and feels, it still has the potential to be a seed, a spark — of new life, new story, a new trajectory.
Maybe it has the potential to spark you to drop some old story completely for a while and listen to life.
So let’s listen for the lessons of this experience — this bad news.
Listen so deeply in presence that you can hear that next step along your path.
That next step can sometimes be a step back, a step into quiet, a step into silence — a step into listening and watching life for a while, to see what emerges next.
So let's do that together.
Come into full silence.
Let the bad news go for now, as much as you possibly can — whatever it is.
Know that tomorrow's another day.
And the sting of this bad news will transform with time.
If you're able to embrace the idea that you don't know definitively what bad news is, or what good news is, you may be able to cope with the sting by coming into presence for a while.
Drop into silence and feel towards stillness and peace.
You will emerge with a new perspective.
A shifted state of mind and body.
Try that with me now for a minute or two.
Just let it go.
And listen to life.
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Relax into your space even deeper now.
Allow your whole body to fall towards the ground.
A deep breath in.
Feel the seat against yourself.
Connect to the world.
Feel gravity holding you on this earth.
Always there.
You're a part of life — no matter what happens.
You're an aspect of the miracle.
Let go of any pain that may be emerging.
Let go of the bad news for now.
Accept life as it is right now.
Resist nothing.
—
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Perfect.
The feelings associated with what you characterize as bad news may return.
They likely will.
That may be inevitable.
Even though I wish you peace always, sometimes the best we can offer each other during difficult times is a different perspective.
While also recognizing that you're allowed to have feelings that are negative as you move through the pain — it’s human.
The idea of a Shift though, is to shift yourself to the broader perspective — the perspective that's always true, even when the smaller perspective of good news and bad news shakes you up.
That broader perspective is the awareness that you are connected to life.
You are life.
You are on a completely unique journey that can only flow through your unique body and into your unique life.
And these moments — these hiccups, these obstacles, these losses, these pains that feel like bad news — they are each part of that journey.
And that journey is your gift — your opportunity to live the unfathomable miracle of uniqueness that is you.
If it helps, keep coming back and completing Shifts every day.
It's a hard time right now.
Come shift when you need to release pain, anytime.
You are always welcome here.
Let’s take another 20 seconds in silence together before I say goodbye for now.
Just listening.
Let go of everything.
—
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Nice.
Feel better.
Feel presence.
Have a great day if you can.
Talk to you soon.
Sean
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If you think you may need psychological help, please reach out to contact a therapist.
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* Everyone can also explore and connect with a range of support at WannaTalkAboutIt.
Hello there, how are you?
Hope today is going all right for you so far.
Shall we settle into presence together?
Let’s take long deep breath.
And notice the sunlight shining through and onto you — and onto the space that you're in right now.
Notice how the light falls around you — even if the light is not sunlight.
And then, notice the shading.
Relax into this moment.
All your attention right here.
Notice those details that you don't usually notice — how the fabric flows and falls against whatever it's being worn by.
100% of your focus right here.
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There's a concept that I think is so useful for connecting yourself to presence, dropping into the present moment, dropping into peace, dropping into a recognition of the enormity of what each of us is —> of who you are.
And that is, a remembering that our minds automatically produce models of the world.
In fact, when you are looking at your environment what you are seeing is a synthesis and reproduction of the data that comes into your mind and body through your looking.
That data gets translated through models that your mind has created to represent the world to you in a way that makes sense.
And those mental models that you are automatically creating are applied to all sorts of different things inside you.
When you observe that one of the things your models apply to is your model of yourself — of what your boundaries are, of who you are — then you can recognize that model as a story.
It's a narrative that is defining you in a particular way within this world.
When you recognize that, you can take a long deep breath and drop into this moment.
—
And very intentionally let go of that mental model.
—
Sometimes it helps to close your eyes and say, ‘Thank you model for getting me through the day. But right now, I'm dropping into peace, and presence, and quiet, and stillness.’
And rather than the model that is built of the idea that we are separate from life, and that we need to maintain a container of separation in order to move through life — in order to communicate with life — when we're in presence, feeling silence, we can let go of the model.
Breathe life in.
Know yourself as one — as life without models.
Just being.
Feel that.
Let's feel together for a little while.
Just be.
Be at one with me.
—
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How's it going?
Anytime a thought comes into your mind — or an interruption (like this one) — recognize that as an experience of your mental model returning within you.
So let’s let it go again.
Another deep breath.
And recognize yourself as one with life.
Recognize yourself as life.
Blend into the miracle.
Let's blend into the miracle together for another 30 seconds.
Feel peace.
—
—
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That's perfect.
Have a great rest of your day.
Remember that your models are defining your experience.
And when you can notice your models — the rules that you have for yourself — you can make shifts to them and open more to your potential, to broaden your experience of your life.
Whenever you want to, you can shift into presence.
You can shift into peace by dropping your models for a while and being fed by the oneness that we share.
Alright, I'll talk to you soon.
Sean
Personalize your next Shift in the app anytime.
iPhone | Android
If you like Shifts, give them to a team you love.
It takes ~1 minute to request a team trial.
Take a long deep breath.
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Feel presence.
Be presence.
—
Feel your body relax.
—
One of the things I love about Shifts is that they bring us into a deeper intimacy with ourselves.
That leads to a deeper intimacy with each other.
When we can be honest, and personal, and of quiet mind and body with ourselves, we can observe more closely what's going on — and then we can do that same thing with the people in our lives.
We can share presence.
There seems to be a need for that, and a movement toward that — and often times over the last many years, a dearth of that.
For me, that's what the activity of shifting has brought into my life.
It speaks to a level of quietness that enables us to hear our personal internal discussion of development through our lives — the progression of our lives.
After all, the conversation you're having with yourself is determining the next step on your journey.
Each next word is influencing the following.
Each word is a step into your future.
The way to have the most awareness and impact on that future is from the present.
The present moment is the only one that exists.
When you pay full attention to it, you have the most opportunity to follow it in a way that aligns with what you want, what you feel — what your purpose is.
Rarely do we go deeply inside, and feel in a very honest way, and leave that experience feeling like we are less on track in our lives.
Rarely does that happen when you sink into a Shift.
What happens is that you come into alignment with your truth.
You come into alignment with the truth of what's unique about you.
And the truth of what this moment is here to teach you.
You feel and see what your next step is.
So let's do that.
Let's come fully into the present moment together.
Set the intention to be here for the next few minutes.
Listening for the next step on your journey.
Listening for that inner dialogue.
Allowing it to quiet.
And just being with it.
Drop into a state of body, and mind, and presence that you feel most authentic in.
And see what arises from that.
Ready?
Feel your authenticity.
Feel your being.
Feel nothing but the truth inside you.
Listen.
Close your eyes if you want.
Relax your neck and your shoulders.
Your head can fall back.
Just settle into a deep chill as you listen to yourself.
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If you ever notice that you feel rushed, or like you need to get to the next thing — that often happens, so be aware that it’s normal — and just recognize that reaction is an aspect of your inner dialogue proceeding, pulling you forward.
That is your inner conversation defining your life.
Notice the feeling that is pulling you out of the present moment.
Then allow it to fade away.
And come back fully into listening and being.
Let's sit together for a whole minute now.
Just feeling — and returning back to that intention to listen to whatever arises inside you if you get distracted.
Ready?
Listen.
—
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Perfect.
Wow, it's amazing what a minute can do.
It's amazing what setting the intention to make a shift over the course of a few minutes — and really intending yourself into it — can do.
Notice how different your body feels.
Notice how much more presence you're going to bring into the rest of your day.
I wish you a great rest of your day.
I'll talk to you soon.
Sean
Personalize your next Shift in the app anytime.
iPhone | Android
If you like Shifts, give them to a team you love.
It takes ~1 minute to request a team trial.
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