Shift Into Higher Gear: 4 Spiritual Shifts to Get Unstuck

Do you remember your first car?

My first car was a yellow 1963 Volkswagen Bug. Now, it wasn’t yellow to begin with. When my dad bought it in 1963, it was candy apple red.

It went through two of my older brothers and it needed new paint, so it became yellow. But it wasn’t bright yellow by the time it got to me. It was more of an oxidized yellow.

It was still bright candy apple red on the inside, and so I had to add my little take to it, right? I added light mint green shag carpet.

Yeah, it was pretty groovy.

I loved this car. I mean, you know, as a teenager, you get your first car. It’s freedom. It’s expression. I was able to go around town. I was able to do my own thing. It was fantastic.

Now, this car was not very sophisticated. It had a four-cylinder engine. It was a stick shift, and there was no computer.

It had an AM radio. There were very few things about it that you had to worry about.

The Four Tools That Kept My Volkswagen Running

But here’s the thing. If you’ve driven a car that old, a 1963 Volkswagen Bug, you know that occasionally it’s going to break down.

But here’s the good news about this wonderful car. There are only four things that you need to keep it running.

So you might want to write these down.

The first thing that you need is a wrench.

The second thing you need is a flat-headed screwdriver, a big one.

The third thing you need is a new drive belt. The drive belt put power to the engine fan and to the generator so that the battery would keep charging.

And the fourth thing that you needed was a spare set of points.

Now, you may not know what points are anymore because I don’t think there is such a thing. I think it’s all electronic now. But before, the points were a little mechanical device that opened and closed and sent electricity to each of the spark plugs.

That’s how the engine worked.

Every once in a while, those things would wear out, wear down, and they would break as I’m driving along the road. So you needed a spare set of points.

Now, with the spare set of points comes a very sophisticated piece of automotive technology that you needed because the points had to be a very specific gap.

That tool was a matchbook.

The matchbook cover was the perfect gap for a set of points for a 1963 Volkswagen Beetle. True story.

So those are the four things that you need as you’re driving along. Because every once in a while, you’re going to find yourself at the side of the road.

What Do You Do When Life Leaves You Stuck?

And when you’re at the side of the road, you have two choices.

One, I can stand there wondering. I didn’t have a cellphone at the time. I couldn’t call AAA. I couldn’t call my parents. I had to walk to the gas station.

So you can stand there wondering, or you can open the hood, take out the tools, because that’s where the tools are. The engine’s in the back.

You take the tools out, and then you go and figure out what’s wrong, and you solve the problem.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to push-start that car, but it would always get going, and I could always get it running again and get to my destination.

Sometimes life feels like that, doesn’t it?

Sometimes everything is moving beautifully. You’re cruising along, then all of a sudden something happens. A relationship changes. Something that you counted on for so many years is no longer there, no longer available.

You might be worried about the future. Something in the past might be holding onto you, might be keeping you. And suddenly, both spiritually and emotionally, we feel like we’re at the side of the road, that we’re stuck.

Spirituality Is a Practice

Now, this is where Unity comes in, and this is the great gift of Unity.

What I love about Unity or Science of Mind or New Thought teachings is that spirituality isn’t just something that we talk about.

It’s not just some quote that we read, but rather it’s a practice.

Spirituality is a practice. It’s life in action.

And Unity provides so many wonderful spiritual tools and practices to help us move through these situations, to help us move through this experience of life, whatever the circumstances are, so that life feels more light, more easy.

We can move through it, and life again becomes more groovy.

Here are four tools to help us shift into higher gear.

Shift #1: From Lack to Seeing the Good

The tool here is the screwdriver because the screwdriver is an adjustment tool.

It’s here to loosen things up, to tighten things, to shift things around. It’s something that we use to make fine-tune adjustments.

And this spiritual practice is that awareness that something out there might be a little amiss, but something in here needs adjusting.

Something in here can be fine-tuned in my consciousness so I can be in the situation and be present, and remember who I am, and remember how I can move through it.

And so this tool helps us to refine our vision for life, our vision for what we are experiencing. To see what’s around us, and then to really look for something that lies behind that situation.

Moving Beyond Negative Confirmation Bias

Because how quickly the mind goes to looking for everything else wrong.

Negative confirmation bias, we all know that we have it. That’s human nature and it serves a purpose, but it also tends to run our life.

That negative confirmation bias, whenever something triggers us, we’re always looking, “Okay, what else is wrong out there? Who can I blame? What’s going on?”

We’re always looking for what we don’t have, what’s missing, what didn’t work, who’s not showing up, what’s next.

Once we start looking through that lens of lack, we become remarkably good at finding evidence of lack.

We’re such good investigators.

One of the most practical spiritual disciplines then is to learn to consciously look for the good.

I’m not saying that every circumstance is good, but in any circumstance we can find evidence of Spirit at work.

In any circumstance we can look beyond the situation and look for the divine at work within us, around us.

It’s like focusing on something that is just out of our vision. Because we’re so focused over here, we just can’t see it.

I know fabulous photographers like Frank and Emily find a wonderful way of finding that key component of that photograph and making that the focus.

That’s what we need to do, is find ways to look for that Spirit moving through us, to consciously look for the good.

Think on These Things

The Apostle Paul gives us a beautiful practice in the letters to the Philippians:

“Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, think on these things.”

Let go of all the things that we’re holding onto, but think on the things that are pure and pleasing and commendable and just and honorable and true.

Think on the things where Spirit is living and moving and breathing in your life.

Think about those things.

Sometimes the problem isn’t what’s missing, it’s what needs to be adjusted.

We change our vision, we begin to see what’s possible. Those possibilities weren’t visible when we were living from that state of the problem.

Charles Fillmore wrote:

“We increase whatever we praise. The whole creation responds to praise and is glad.”

So whatever it is that you are looking for in life, find that one thing that you can give your heart to, that you can praise, that you can lift up, whatever is honorable and true within you.

Shift #2: From Fear to Faith

Now, my Volkswagen Bug had the drive belt.

The drive belt is the power. It creates the power. It regenerates the battery. It connects us to the power so we don’t get too hot. It gets us to where we need to go.

Fear has a way of disconnecting us from our awareness of our spiritual power.

It disconnects us from even knowing that we have this immense spiritual power within us, this divine essence that’s already there running, that engine that’s running.

We need to hook the belt up into it so that it delivers, so we’re able to deliver that power into our life.

The power hasn’t disappeared. We’ve just simply lost connection from it.

Faith Reconnects Us With Our Spiritual Power

Fear tells us, “You can’t handle this.”

Fear tells us there’s nothing we can do, that there’s not enough, that you’re on your own, something terrible is going to happen.

Faith, on the other hand, does not require us to deny that we feel fear or that we’re afraid.

Rather, faith asks us to remember something deeper than the fear.

You may be experiencing some fear in this moment, but faith asks you to remember that divine essence that’s always there, even if you can’t see it on the outside.

Faith reconnects us with the power that fear convinced us we had lost.

Charles Fillmore called faith the perceiving power of the mind, our ability to shape substance, for it’s with this energy within us that we create our experience.

We’re either focusing on all of the stuff going on, or we’re focusing on where good is, fine-tuning that vision.

Shift #3: From Clinging to the Past to Being Present

These old cars, they have these ignition points, and these points always wore out.

You can clean them, you can adjust them, you can coax them, you can get a little bit more out of them, but eventually they’re going to become weak. They’re going to fail.

And in life, things wear out.

Things have a shelf life.

Things in life can wear out, and that can be difficult for us because we become deeply attached.

We become deeply attached to the pattern that we’ve been living in our life.

We become deeply attached to the role that we used to play, to the status quo, to an identity.

We become attached to the way it used to work.

And just because it worked before doesn’t mean it’s what we need today. It doesn’t mean that this moment requires this again.

What New Thing Is Spirit Bringing Forth?

The prophet Isaiah says:

“Do not remember the former things or consider the things of old. I’m about to do a new thing. Now it springs forth. Do you not perceive it?”

Do you not perceive it?

Do you not perceive the movement of Spirit in your life?

Do you not perceive the energy that’s flowing in your life?

Do you not perceive the new awareness that’s trying to be birthed in you?

The new possibility, the new way of thinking, the new consciousness that is being developed in you.

What is springing forth for you in this moment that’s seeking greater expression?

Eckhart Tolle writes:

“Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have.”

Realize deeply that this present moment is all you ever have.

The past can teach us. It can bless us. It can help bring us here. It’s what brought us here, and yet we can’t live there.

Look Through the Windshield, Not the Rearview Mirror

Your windshield in your car is so much bigger than the rearview mirror, yes?

We glance backward through the rearview mirror, but we drive forward and we’re looking through that wonderful windshield, just noticing our past, just noticing what’s there, what might be coming up for us.

So instead of asking, “Why can’t these things be the way they used to be?” try asking:

What wants to emerge now?

What wants to emerge in my consciousness, in my experience?

What is this moment offering to me?

Shift #4: From Control to Conscious Choice

Now, the wrench is all about leverage.

You don’t have to overpower the bolt. You just have to know where to place the leverage.

Human beings spend an enormous amount of energy trying to apply leverage where we don’t actually need it or where we don’t actually have it.

Trying to control another person’s behavior, trying to control what someone else thinks about us, what someone chooses, what is unfolding within us.

Let Them. Let Me.

Last year, we had a wonderful fall enrichment program based on the Let Them Theory. Do you remember that?

We worked with a wonderful, simple idea: let them.

Your job is not to control them. Your job is to let them.

Let them think what they think.

Let them choose what they choose.

Let them respond the way they respond.

Let them have their experience.

And then comes the part that I love, that’s so powerful: let me.

Let me choose how I will respond.

Let me choose how I will decide where to put my attention, where I will establish healthy boundaries.

Let me decide what matters to me.

Let me choose the next faith-filled action.

That’s where my leverage lies, not in someone else, not in the world around me, but in my own consciousness.

Marcus Aurelius expressed a similar idea:

“You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”

We lose our strength, we lose our ability to hold ourselves simply because we’re misplacing that leverage outside of us.

You have power over your own mind, not outside events.

Realize this, and you will find your strength.

Four Spiritual Tools for Moving Forward

Four tools to help us shift into higher spiritual gear.

Number one: shifting from lack to finding the good, finding Spirit, adjusting your vision, creating clarity.

Number two: shifting from fear to faith. Reconnecting to your spiritual power.

Number three: shifting from clinging to the past to being open to the present moment. Realize what is worn out in your consciousness and establish that presence within you.

Number four: shift from control to choice.

Shift from leveraging what’s outside of you to leveraging your own mind, to use it wisely, to realign it with Source.

Affirmation for Faith, Presence, and Conscious Choice

Let’s move to our affirmation.

I’m going to read it once and then invite you to affirm it with me. And as I read it, just see what resonates with you.

See if you can open your consciousness enough so that it can take root, can be planted within you.

I see Spirit active in my life.

I have faith in the power within me.

I am fully present.

I choose with wisdom and love.

Would you affirm that with me? Together.

I see Spirit active in my life.

I have faith in the power within me.

I am fully present.

I choose with wisdom and love.

And so it is.

Let’s take this into our time of meditation and affirmative prayer.