Dangers of Shifting
 

I started to read about Rational Recovery's AVRT Shifting. It seems dangerous. Can anyone give me tips, advice, experiences with shifting. I think I understand the core value.

The value is to realize you have complete control over your AV and therefore your actions. It just seems such an odd exercise though.

Last night my husband and I went to dinner. A table in the distance had a bottle of red wine. The old me would have thought, wow 1 bottle 4 people - somebody is going without! LOL.

Instead, I tried shifting and thought about a nice bottle of wine on our table. I tried to let my AV out and relish the thought of a glass or two of wine with my sea bass. The odd thing is, I just didn't want the wine. I didn't even want or feel the need for the accompanying pleasurable buzz.

Now is this my AV playing games with me or me playing games with my AV? If my AV knows I am setting "it" up - maybe it doesn't want to play along. Smile.





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Hi Tammy. Great question.

Okay. First things first...

When we shift, we make a sincere attempt to experience the ongoing moments from the Beasts perspective. When we shift back, we are once again experiencing from our own perspective. So, we are simply shifting perspectives, and not identities.

So, you can see how your quoted words above are confusing, and are allowing for AV to dominate, which is not the same as shifting into the Beasts perspective.

When I shift, my use of "I" simply stops. The Beast is addictive desire, and has no true "I" of it's own for me to shift into. It "harvests" from me by using my normal thoughts and images from my mind. The Beast does not have a "mind" for me to shift into... so my use of "I" will cause the shift to fail.

Shifting is done wrong when one simply starts to think "I want that nice wonderful drink and all that party fun too." All this is just more AV. While shifting, I of course still will never drink and will never change my mind. When we shift, we don't suspend our Big Plan, lol.

Shifting gives me a rush of physical addictive desire and emotions and feelings, and my mind is then flooded with AV. It is important to clearly remember that AV is still AV while shifting.

Shifting is useful to prepare for the situations and scenarios which may present while being abstinent. Say like if one went to a party, just how strongly would my Beast desire me to drink? How powerful would my AV become? Shifting gives me some ideas of what is what with me personally, and what may be expected to happen.

To tell you the truth, shifting is not something I do anymore. After a few early years in with my Beast howling uselessly for that drink which will never come, I'm intimately familiar with addictive desire, and the AV which goes with it for all situations and scenarios imaginable, lol. For me to shift nowadays, would just be me more or less baiting myself...

Shifting was useful to help me experience the full measure of my Beast. I learned first hand from its perspective that all my Beast can ever accomplish is nothing more than having extreme addictive desires. Thats it. Nothing more. So, that understanding, from experience, helped me to appreciate how ridiculous was the sole purpose for the existence of my Beast.

I hope my share has helped, Tammy.

As you can see, when shifting is done correctly, we have nothing to fear, and no danger exists. :)

That was helpful, RobbyRobot. I will have to think about it some more, but, yes, helpful. It is kind of like role playing before an event (e.g. job interview, public speaking, etc.). In this case, a potential drinking situation where your AV just might pick a bit more than normal.

One thing you said though confuses me.
Bait you for what?




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Actually, the shifting must be done while in real time events. So, I can shift while physically attending a party, but I can't shift while still at home thinking about a party. Again, we shift into the perspective of the Beast, and so this requires real life events to accomplish the shift. Using imagination with role playing is actually just more AV.

As for your question, I would be baiting myself to go beyond shifting and into actually drinking to be able to gather more useful information about my Beast perspective. Like I mentioned, I already know the full measure of my Beast's addictive desire... so the only thing left would be to satisfy that same known desire... which means taking that drink, lol.

Even shifting has limits to what it can offer is what I have learned in my experience. :)

It has been some time since my OP and I have learned to shift. At one point, I didn't think there was a use for it. I think the more of an experienced AVRT user one is, shifting becomes a valuable tool. As are many concepts, it is more about timing and readiness.

I havent got my head around shifting either. It seems to me like waving a red flag at a bull, when I'd rather keep the bull coralled.