Today we are talking about how to use pivoting to help you stop sabotaging your own success by shifting big mental blocks and old programming. For those of you who follow my blog or the Vibe Shifting Facebook page, you know that I was flattened by full-blown pneumonia for four weeks (which is why it’s been a while since I lasted posted a new podcast episode).

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Now, when I was down with pneumonia, I had a LOT of enforced downtime where I just wasn’t capable of working. So I found myself doing a lot of thinking about the big things: was I still happy doing what I was doing? Was I accomplishing any of what I had wanted to? Was this still the direction I wanted to go? How the hell had an LOA expert managed to manifest a four-week long serious illness into her life like this? What the hell happened?

Deep thoughts, big insights

I realized that this particular illness was just another installment of a repeated cosmic lesson that I apparently still hadn’t learned over the years. In short, the idea is that if you don’t take the time to do the internal work of really listening to your own internal wisdom, of figuring out what it is that you truly want in life and of aligning yourself with that vision – if you don’t make it a point of choosing to do that work, then sooner or later the Universe will MAKE you take the time. Usually in the form of an illness or accident that puts you squarely out of commission until you make the vibrational shifts that you need to.

So, with my recent illness, I had a number of big insights into myself and what came up were some previously subconscious, and particularly unhelpful, mental programs that I was still running. These were big, paradigm-shifting realizations that I needed to understand and shift.

How to use pivoting

And that’s what I wanted to talk about today: I wanted to give you a method for making a vibrational shift when you’ve uncovered a big, negative mental block that you hadn’t previously realized that you even had. And this technique is called “pivoting”. It’s a technique that was introduced by Esther Hicks in one of her books – can’t remember which one at the moment, but all of the Abraham-Hicks material is great, so you can’t go wrong if you’re looking to pick up any of Esther’s stuff.

Back to pivoting. As I said, pivoting is a method for flipping your vibe around when you’re dealing with big, nasty, negative blocks that are keeping you from aligning yourself properly with whatever it is that you want to manifest in life.

The way I use it, there are only two steps to the practice of pivoting: first you get yourself really clear on what the specific nasty, negative block is, and then you flip it around and decide what it is that you want to experience instead.

Step 1: get clear on the block

So let’s take a closer look at this. When you realize that you have one of these big blocks, the first thing that you want to do is take a good amount of time to sit with it and really get to know and understand it. This is NOT an exercise that you do in two minutes. Take a good half an hour (at least!) with this and write it all down – don’t worry about grammar or spelling or anything like that, just write your thoughts as they flow.

Write down what your realization was, and take the time to explore every aspect of this block. Are there any related aspects to it that make that block even more extensive than you first realized? When you think about this realization of yours, what else comes to mind? Let the thoughts and memories come to the surface, and be very aware of whatever emotions and visceral body sensations come up as you think about and as you write all of this down. (Note that these emotions and sensations are NOT going to be fun – they’re going to be awful. Don’t fight it. Let yourself feel it all fully.)

As an example, one of the big insights that I had while I was sick is that I’m addicted to drama. With everything that I’ve been through in my life, I have become so used to struggle and to things going wrong, that I have become used to it – it’s my default “normal” setting now, so much so that it feels odd not to have to fight. So when things start to become easier for me, I end up sabotaging myself by looking for struggle; by subconsciously aligning myself with more of it, and therefore creating it where it hadn’t been before.

Down the rabbit hole

Now, as I wrote all of this stuff down and really tried to understand what this insight was about and what else might be tied up in it, more “stuff” came up, and I went deeper down that rabbit hole. I realized that mixed up with my drama addiction is a deeper expectation of failure; on some level, even with everything that I’ve achieved, I still have a long way to go to get to where I want to be. And I realized that I’m not sure that I can actually do it; on some level, I’m still afraid that it will never happen, that I’m not actually good enough at what I do to be able to achieve the kind of success that I want, and I’m afraid of the fallout that failing will bring. I’m very much afraid of what I believe will be the inevitable I told you so’s from people whom I think expect me – and want me – to fail.

And that realization led me to the even deeper understanding that, on some level, I expect that my life will be one big string of almost but not quite’s. I realized that this may be why there are so few people in my personal life who I’ve actually told about Vibe Shifting and what I’m trying to do with it. I’m afraid of really putting myself out there because those people might hear about it and that thought scares the crap out of me.

The emotional impact

So that was a lot of deep insights about a block that I hadn’t even realized that I had. And as I did this exercise of writing it all down and really sitting with it, as I read over my words, I felt awful. There was a sinking, knotted feeling in my stomach and I felt like crying. And I was dejected. With all the work that I’ve done over the decades, with all of my experience and expertise, my psychology background, all the research and the living of this stuff that I’ve done, how the hell could I still be dealing with this kind of mental block? And I got mad at myself.

Now, just as a side note here – the emotions you feel when you do this exercise are really important. You need to know and understand what they are before you can make the kind of vibrational shift you need to in order to dissolve the block, so don’t skip that part.

Step 2: shift your vibe

Once you’ve come to a really clear understanding of your insight and any related aspects, once you understand the emotional impact of it all, it’s time to move on to the second step. And that is the pivoting part.

You now have a snapshot of your current mental situation and what it’s costing you emotionally (in other words, you have a good grasp on where your current alignment stands). So what you do now is flip it around. Think about what you want to be experiencing instead of all this muck. Pivot from the current negative, to a positive. And again, write it all down and pay attention to how you feel as you do.

What do you want instead?

So to continue with my addicted to drama/expectation of failure example, what I did next was to take some time to think about what I’d rather be experiencing instead of drama, struggle, and fear. And what I realized was that I want things to be easy and fun for a change. But more importantly, what I want is to ENJOY them being easy and fun. I want to believe that I deserve to have things be fun and easy, and I want to know, in my core, that things are still worthwhile and good even when I haven’t had to fight for them. I want to feel that it’s OK not to have to fight anymore. I want to believe that not struggling is actually a good, virtuous, and wonderful thing. I want more laughter and joy and time spent with friends in my life. I want ease and abundance and a sense of things flowing.

Now we’re just going to pause a moment here and mention that as I was writing all of this out, more and more stuff started cropping up about how I wanted my life to look and feel – and when you do this exercise yourself, I want you to know that that is completely normal – that’s what you WANT to happen, you want to have that snowball effect of awesomeness kick in and start inundating you with wonderful visions and ideas about what it is that you really want, because when it does, it’s a sign that your vibration about this big negative realization/hidden issue that you’ve uncovered is starting to shift.

Harnessing the snowball effect

This is really important, so I’m going to say it again: as you do this second part of the pivoting exercise, you’ll start drawing more and more ideas into your conscious mind about what you truly want this situation you’re in to morph into, and when you do, you KNOW that your vibration – and therefore your alignment – has started to shift. So keep it going!

So as I kept going with my own exercise, I started to realize that what I want is to be so secure in myself that I no longer give a flying fig what other people think about me. I want the unshakeable, rock-solid self-confidence to be able to put my name and my business and my offerings out there in the world with joy and excitement and to be strong enough to not be brought down by any nastiness that comes my way.

Feel the shift

I realized that I want to draw only amazing, wonderful people into my life. I realized what kind of clients I most wanted to work with and how I wanted them to find me. I realized that what I want most is to be able to inspire and motivate people to become all that they are capable of becoming and to help them create and follow the concrete plans that will get them there. I realized that what I truly want in life is to use my very unique skillset and passion to make this world a better, happier place for everyone.

And as I continued writing all of these realizations and desires down, I could literally feel the shift happening within me. I went from feeling dejected, despondent, frustrated, and teary, to feeling energized, excited, inspired, and joyful.

Summing it up

So that’s how to use pivoting. And let’s just recap this simple but extremely powerful two-step technique: when you identify an issue, the first thing to do is get really clear on what that issue is, to let yourself feel all the emotions it brings up and to take a good look at all the associated, or extended issues that are tied in with it. The second thing to do is to flip it all around and focus yourself on what you want this issue to look and feel like; and again, you want to get really clear on what the ideal situation would be and to let yourself feel all the wonderful emotions that new vision brings up.

And this is how you shift those big issues; those big, negative mental programs that you’ve been running on automatic for years, if not decades. It takes time to do this kind of work – it took me about an hour to work through this process and make my alignment shift – and it can be very uncomfortable when you let yourself really feel everything that’s tied into the big stuff like this. But it’s definitely worth the effort to finally free yourself from the mental shackles that you suddenly realize have been holding you back from the kind of life experience you most want.

photo credit: pixabay.com cc (modified by me)

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