Jan Engels-Smith promotes self-healing, empowerment, better communities, a healthy world and conducts workshops in shamanism & journeying. Her book, Becoming Yourself is at http://www.LightSong.net . She is the founder of LightSong School of Shamanic Studies, a Chemical Dependency Specialist, and Marriage Therapist. Jan has posted an article on spirit helpers and the shamanic journey at http://www.lightsong.net . OR go to her radio program http://www.IAMHEALTHYRADIO.com and listen to the information.
I say this expression all the time. I put it in advertisements. I use it in conversations. Being "in the box" means having an extremely limited perception of what is real. It means the person depends on his or her personal experiences of visual reality to shape their choices.
You've probably also heard the term "I'll believe it when I see it". This declaration is probably one of the most limiting belief statements that a person can make. The visual reality of a human being is extremely small. Just think of how many people you know that have poor eyesight. They need glasses or contacts; they can't read without glasses or see far away. Sight is a really poor sense for most humans. Yet many base their entire reality upon it. "I'll believe it when I see it" IS being in the box.
Getting out of the box starts with opening up to different possibilities of reality. Getting out of the box is also based in the belief that we are incredible beings of creative energy; that we create through our thoughts. We CAN have the desires of our heart, by learning how to think and believe differently.
The ancient ways still work in major respects. Yet our needs of understanding are different. In today's world we want personal empowerment. We want our wellness. We want our dreams to come true! We want quicker results.
In Shamanism, learning how to think and believe differently to attain these intentions starts with learning how to journey. Journeying is a method of making contact with non-ordinary reality. Although there are actually many methods that people can use to make this contact with the non-physical, the reason that I like journeying so much is because it requires an active mind.
Another place that humans have limited themselves is through the loss of focus. Their "minds" have control instead of the greater part of self, the true self, the "god self" having the control. The journey style takes this active mind and puts it to good use. The journey teaches the mind how to rise out of the density of the Earth and all of its hardship into the places of the god self.
A person can usually learn how to journey rather quickly. This quickness is appealing to the average person. The shamanic journey opens the doors quickly, allows you enter into non-ordinary reality, and offers a technique to explore this vast, creative, and healing space.
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