Secrets of Shamanism

146 SECRETS OF SHAMANISM

to get the jobs you really want, and you've always felt unsuc-

cessful, then solving this problem will most likely take some

time and many journeys. There also may be other people

involved, as well as your upbringing and various other com-

ponents. To solve this problem will surely require a great

deal of change in your beliefs and personal patterns.

Change

For the purposes of our discussion, we will define change

as a process wherein a situation is transformed from an un-

wanted one to a wanted one. In order for this change to

occur, the situation you no longer want must be clearly iden-

tified and the steps to transforming it mapped out. Thus the

change wanted becomes the goal, and the obstacles that need

to be overcome to reach that goal become the problems to be

solved.

There are four main ingredients for successful change—

commitment, agreement, surrender, and action.

COMMITMENT

Without commitment, there can be no lasting change.
Many people go through life with "if onlys" and visions of
"someday maybe things will change." Their goals are luke-
warm in the sense that they don't really believe change will
happen because it never has before. So when they do think
about change, often the thoughts are "It's too much work,"
"I wouldn't know where to begin," or "Things could be
worse so I'll just leave them the way they are."
Shamans would say that to want change without a com-
mitment is like walking down a road in winter with only one
shoe on when you said you wanted warmer feet. Let's say
that you made a goal to have warmer feet, and you acquired
a pair of shoes for that purpose. Only, let's say you have one
shoe stolen at night by a wandering coyote. Since your action
steps included walking on the road with your shoes on, you
went ahead with your plan even though you had only one
shoe left. The shamans would say that it was the part of you
that was uncommitted that drew to itself the new obstacle to
realizing your goal. Therefore your first step is to ask your-
self: Do I truly want this situation to change? Am I willing to
do everything it takes to change?

Once you make the commitment to change your situation,
two things happen: your energetic or spirity body shifts, al-