Frameshifting E-Book

David K. Banner

• Herausgeber: Loving Healing Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2008

Seitenzahl: 226

Beschreibung

Ever wonder why certain events allow you to expand your consciousness or alter who you think you are beyond what you normally experience?
Through the power of Frameshifting, I'll show you how you can have access to this experience at any time, without adopting, changing, or fixing your beliefs! Along the way, I share with you personal experiences I've had that triggered this shift in me. With the tools provided in this book, you can have these shifts too.
Discover unspoken limiting beliefs Achieve higher stages of consciousness Break free from the boundaries of ego Understand people in your life empathically Experience the pure joy of spiritual growth
Praise for Banner's Frameshifting
"For anyone serious about activating their inner brilliance, Frameshifting is a must read!"
--Dr. David Breitbach, Founder of Bright Life U
"David's journey has been eclectic, but his wit and courage have served him well and we are fortunate that he is willing to share what he has learned."
--Dr. James Way, PhD Mentor, Walden University
"Frameshifting describes a process to let go of your ego and discover your divine self."
--Ken Maclean, author The Vibrational Universe
"Whatever your personal development directions, you will benefit from Dave's journey and the insights he offers."
--Robert J. Wright, author Beyond Time Management
"Frameshifting is truly a life-altering book as it changed my views in many ways and increased my overall sense of awareness. I think that anyone who reads this book will find it beneficial in aiding him or her to lead a more fulfilling life."
--Kam Aures, Reader Views
New Hardcover Edition for 2010!
PHI013000 Philosophy : Metaphysics
SEL016000 Self-Help : Personal Growth - Happiness
SEL021000 Self-Help : Motivational & Inspirational

Leseprobe

FrameShifting

A Path to Wholeness

David K. Banner, PhD

Spiritual Dimensions Series

FrameShifting: A Path To Wholeness

Text copyright© 2008, 2010 by David K. Banner, PhD.

Cover art copyright © 2008 by Mark L. Taylor

(www.round-river2000.com). All Rights Reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisher.

First Edition: April 2008

Second Printing: January 2009

Third Printing: February 2010

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Banner, David K.

Frameshifting : a path to wholeness / David K. Banner. -- 1st ed.

p. cm. -- (Spiritual dimensions series)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identity (Psychology)

ISBN-13: 978-1-932690-55-2 (trade paper : alk. paper)

ISBN-10: 1-932690-55-7 (trade paper : alk. paper)

1. Ego (Psychology) 2. Whole and parts (Psychology) 3. Spiritual life. I. Title. II. Title: Frame shifting.

BF175.5.E35B36 2008

204’.4--dc22

                   2008009973

Published by:

Loving Healing Press

5145 Pontiac Trail

Ann Arbor, MI 48105

USA

http://www.LovingHealing.com or

[email protected]

Tollfree 888-761-6268

Fax [phone]

To Diane,my major supporter,loyal friendand beloved wife

Other books by David K. Banner

•    Designing Effective Organizations: Traditional & Transformational Views, with T. Elaine Gagne. (1995)

•    Business And Society: Canadian Issues (1979)

•    The Future of Post-Industrial Society. with Kenneth Zapp. (1977)

•    Politics Of Social Program Evaluation. with Samuel I. Doctors and Andrew C. Gordon; foreword by David B. Hertz. (1975)

•    Whatever Happened to Minority Economic Development? (ed.), with Samuel I. Doctors, Susan Doctors and Sharon Lockwood. (1974)

Praise for Banner's FrameShifting

“It's a truism—where you stand determines what you see. FrameShifting describes the route David Banner took and what he now sees from a new position (read paradigm shift) that has clarified and re-spirited his life. Included in this easy-to-read book is enough instruction that you might decide to take a similar journey. Minimally, you are going to know that there's more to be seen and less to fear in shifting focus to see the world through the experiences of other creatures.”

—Samuel Culbert, PhD

Anderson School of Management, UCLA

Author, Beyond Bullsh*t: Straight-Talk at Work

“For anyone serious about activating their inner brilliance, FrameShifting is a must read.”

—David Breitbach, PhD

Founder of Bright Life U and Embrighten.com

“In this engaging and important book, Dr. Banner pulls from a wide array of wisdom traditions to explore the promise of a higher level of consciousness. The careful reader begins to witness the power of the self as s/he slowly comprehends the importance of letting go of the ego's need to exert control—comprehension aided in no small measure by a gifted teacher (and trickster) who delivers the call in as unthreatening a way as possible. David's journey has been eclectic, but his wit and courage have served him well and we are fortunate that he is willing to share what he has learned.”

—James Way, PhD

School of Management, Walden University

“FrameShifting, by David K. Banner, is a remarkable book that tells the story of one man's personal spiritual awakening. Filled with examples from David's life and extensively referenced, FrameShifting describes a process to let go of your ego and discover your divine self. Let David tell you how he personally experienced the transition from ego-based living to love.”

—Kenneth J.M. MacLean

Author of The Vibrational Universe

“I wholeheartedly subscribe to Dave Banner's assertion that changing frames is the trick. Whatever your personal development directions, you will benefit from Dave's journey and the insights he offers.”

—Robert J. Wright

Author of Beyond Time Management

“FrameShifting is truly a life-altering book as it changed my views in many ways and increased my overall sense of awareness. I think that anyone who reads this book will find it beneficial in aiding him or her to lead a more fulfilling life.”

—Kam Aures, Reader Views

“David Banner's Frameshifting: A Path to Wholeness is one man's full-immersion journey on the spiritual path…In short, FrameShifting is a delightful read, a view altering experience, and a rich resource for those seeking a more fully developed consciousness.”

—William Motlong, PhD

Center for Personal & Family Life

Table of Contents

Foreword by K.J.M. MacLean

Preface

Chapter 1 – Ego and the Illusion of Separateness

Primer on the Ego

The Ego and Vibrational Reality

The Role of Fear

Levels of Development

The Shadow as Friend

The Law of Attraction

Chapter 2 – A Question of Identity

The Ego Identity

The True Identity

Chapter 3 – The Development of Empathy

Family Constellation Therapy

The Enneagram

Avatar “Feel Its”

It Ain't Personal!

That's An Interesting Way to See It!

Chapter 4 – FrameShifting Tools: Body Expansion

Introducing FrameShifting Tools

Body Expansion Tools

Network Spinal Analysis

Ishaya's Ascension

Shamanism

Avatar

Attunement

Chapter 5 – FrameShifting Tools: Mind Expansion Tools

EST and Avatar

The Leadership Circle

The Pathfinder

Chapter 6 – FrameShifting Tools: Emotional Expansion

The Enneagram

Roleplaying

Diversity Training

Imago Therapy

The New Warrior Training

Summary

Chapter 7 – Consciously Broadening Your Frame

Realizing the Subtlety of the Ego

Generating Possibilities

The Role of Vision

Adopting a Creator Frame

Chapter 8 – Where Do We Go From Here?

The Transcendence of the Ego

The Five Day Ego Cleanse

The Artifact of Belief

Using the Enneagram for Spiritual Development

Chapter 9 – Spiritual Principles that Accelerate Growth

Living In the Present Moment

Surrender

Forgiveness

Thankfulness

Stillness

The Law of Attraction

The Law of Cause and Effect

The Law of Attention

The Law of Energy and Creation

The Will of God

The Law of Conscious Precipitation

Summary

The Journey

Epilogue

About The Author

About The Artist

Bibliography

Index

Foreword by K.J.M. MacLean

David K. Banner has written an inspiring, heartfelt book based upon his own experiences in ego transcendence.

Dr. Banner describes a concept he developed, called FrameShifting, which identifies your own personal ego state and allows you to transcend it. I don't want to give away all of David's secrets here in the foreword, but I have to say that I found FrameShifting to be an exciting book!

David has led an eventful life, and he uses his life experience to illustrate the idea of FrameShifting in a practical manner. The book is filled with the many tools and processes he has used to shift himself to higher states of consciousness.

David isn't afraid to admit his mistakes either! That is one of the best features of FrameShifting, because human beings often learn most from the errors of others. It is only possible to do that when you have transcended your own ego.

David is a doer, not just a theorist, and that comes through strongly in this narrative. The best way to learn is from someone who has done it, and David has!

I learned a lot from this book. David has a way of explaining complex subjects in clear language. That's probably because he's had so much experience with the material he writes about.

In Frameshifting, I learned how to raise my conscious awareness out of the ego state, and into a state of love.

Kenneth James Michael MacLean,

author of The Vibrational Universe

Preface

I was raised in Ft. Worth, Texas by an avowed agnostic father and a lukewarm Episcopalian mother. Dad “refused to be a hypocrite”, so he wouldn't go to church. Mother has this vague feeling that she should give us some religious education, so she began taking us to the local Episcopal church. My uncle Kellner (Dad's older brother) was a celibate Episcopal priest so we became Episcopalians. I gave it my all, even becoming an acolyte (similar to an altar boy of the Catholic faith). One Sunday, the priest and I were getting ready for the service, and, being a curious boy of 14, I asked him “Why do I have to say all this Latin in the service? I don't know what it means.”

The priest replied, “It is not important for you to know what it means; it is a ritual of the church.”

“I am not saying it anymore if I don't know what it means!” I replied.

He said, firmly, “It is not important that you know what it means.”

I left the church that day and have not returned. I did not have a formal religious practice for many years after that. As I approached age thirty, I began to have a gnawing feeling that there was a Higher Power at work in the Universe, but it was not to be found in my Episcopal church experience. So, I began what I call my religious dilettante experience. I started going to every church I could think of, from Baptist to Catholic, from Church of Christ to Methodist, from Pentecostal to Baha'i, from Presbyterian to Christian, from Unitarian to Unity. I looked at them all and came away feeling empty. So, I finally relaxed the search and just lived my life.

This search for ultimate truth is what Joseph Campbell called the “hero's journey.” At some point, all of us seem to become disenchanted with the promises of materialism and start the search for ultimate “truth”. Here is a wonderful quote from the Self-Realization Fellowship papers of Yogananda:

What is the Best religion?

Most people who follow a variety of teachings stick to none. Their choices are usually influenced by imitation or curiosity, rather than by logical reason or necessity. Such students like to listen incessantly to new ideas from new personalities, without ever making an effort to assimilate the ideas. They may be compared to one who sets out to reach a certain destination, and becomes enamored with walking that he wanders here and there, forgetting all about his goal.

Some students are led by curiosity to adopt a certain spiritual path, hoping to reach the destination of truth and wisdom, but they often get sidetracked by their insatiable curiosity As they keep trying new ways for the thrill of a change, they never reach their goal. These people are interested in listening to spiritual truths but not in making the effort to apply those truths to everyday life and to realize them through experience, within the Self.

(NOTE: The difference is that I have tried to apply them.)

I wandered about, looking for an elusive source of spiritual truth. Then, in 1970, I had a major transformative experience. I read Baba Ram Dass‘ Be Here Now and it changed my world view. I was drawn like a magnet to what seem to me to be a basic underlying truth. It was unlike anything I had ever experienced in any church setting. I suddenly knew that I had to develop a spiritual path that led me to the truth in my personal experience.

But first, allow me to relay some personal history. I was married in 1963 at the age of 21 to my childhood sweetheart, Jo Lynn. In 1965, I went into the US Army and was sent to Vietnam. Although I came away from that experience sobered, a peace activist and a skeptical observer of USA motives over there, I still wanted to return to the relative calm of my life back home. Jo Lynn seemed glad to see me; what I didn't know at that time (and found out from friends), was that, while I was gone for that year, Jo Lynn came unglued and literally started having affairs with men, one after another. With today's eyes, I know that Jo Lynn, coming from a very dysfunctional family situation, was deeply wounded and counted on me for emotional stability. With me gone, she literally fell apart and began “looking for love in all the wrong places”. Desperate to keep the marriage together, we entered counseling and seemed to be doing better.

One Saturday morning in the spring of 1968, Jo Lynn sat me down in the study of our modest suburban home and she said “I am leaving you.”

Shocked, I asked her “Why?”

Then she said “Because you are too boring.”

It hit me like a ton of bricks because I knew she was right. I had been so focused on my career (I got an MBA from the University of Houston in 1968 and was well on my way to a partnership in Peat, Marwick Mitchell, a huge international accounting/consulting firm). I was wearing my three piece suits and wing-tipped shoes. My consciousness was so linear and focused on material success, I was completely oblivious to my counterculture wife who was smoking marijuana and playing music as a sociology student at the University. So, then, I asked the pivotal question: “What do I have to do to persuade you to stay?”

She replied “Well, it wouldn't hurt for you to loosen up a bit; would you be willing to smoke some marijuana with me and some of my friends?”

I said “Sure,” feeling somewhat scared and apprehensive. We went to the apartment of her “friend” (whom I later discovered was also her lover). Walking in, we saw her “friend” and his date in the living room with 10 marijuana joints rolled up on the coffee table. The four of us smoked the first three joints and the three of them were laughing and rolling on the floor. I felt nothing. Not to be embarrassed, I smoked the other seven by myself. When the intoxication of the herb began to work on me, too, I had the most powerful, intense experience of my life to that point.

To describe the experience doesn't seem to do it justice but here goes; it was like being drawn to an abyss of nothingness by a magnetic force, and it took all my will power to pull myself back, time and time again. This went on for 12 straight hours. As you can imagine, by the end of this experience, I was irreparably changed. In light of my current understanding of consciousness, I now know what happened to me. I will describe this process later.

Jo Lynn decided to stay with me. I now know that I was so insecure at that point in my life that a divorce seemed like abject failure, and was, therefore, intolerable. To pursue her passion for education, Jo Lynn left Chicago (where I was working on my PhD degree in management at Northwestern University in Evanston), and enrolled in Antioch College in Putney, VT, to pursue a Master's degree in Education. I was working away at my dissertation and, once day, I got a phone call from Jo Lynn asking me to come to Vermont and live as a threesome with her new boy friend. I knew my marriage was finally over (circa 1971). I told her I was filing for divorce. The year was 1971 and I was 30 years old.

This catalyzed a mystical experience for me. Despondent over the failure of my first marriage, I was delighted when an old friend came to town for a visit. He said “We need to get you out on the town for some fun; you are too morose!” I agreed. That first night, we went to a local dance club. The room was packed and my friend quickly found a woman to dance with. I felt apart from the proceedings and just stood there and watched. The band was a Santana “wannabe” band and were loud and fun. As I watched and basically felt sorry for myself, I felt a presence behind me. I turned around and saw one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen. She was about 5’7” tall, slender, beautiful brown hair to her waist, and gorgeous features. She was looking at me intently. We started talking and she was clearly interested in me. As the evening wore down, at 2 AM, we left and she asked me to come to her place. I agreed. It was February in Chicago and very cold.

We drove the short distance to her house and she invited me in. As we came in the living room of the apartment, I saw what looked like an altar in the corner. I asked her about it and she told me, quite innocently, that she was a witch and a trance medium. I asked her what that meant; she said she used the witchcraft in positive ways and could receive messages from the “other side.” We put on George Harrison's “All Things Must Pass” on the stereo; one thing led to another and soon we were passionately making out. All of a sudden, she stopped me and said “I can't do this!”

I said “OK” and we stopped. Half hour later, we were passionately embracing again. Again, she stopped me. By this time, I felt this was pretty crazy-making, so I said that I was going to leave. I got dressed, went outside to Lake Shore Drive and hitchhiked home (my car was in the body shop, having been wrecked the previous week by a friend). I was picked up by a car full of gay guys and they took me home after they discovered that I was a raging heterosexual. I slept fitfully for about 3 hours.

Eager to return to that woman's place so I could discover what was really going on, I hitchhiked back down and she was home. The apartment was full of young men (ages approximately 16-20 years). She explained that these were “her boys” and they were there to protect her from danger. This, of course, seemed weird. It got weirder very quickly. I stayed there all day, and we smoked marijuana, played music and ate a lot. As the evening wore on, I got very tired and asked if I could go crash in the bedroom. I got a funny look but she said OK. I fell asleep instantly. I awoke suddenly with all of them (the boys and the woman) standing around the bed saying “You must leave now!” Grumbling, I got up, got dressed and went out into the cold again. I arrived home at around 1 AM.

Sleeping fitfully again, I got up and went down for the second time. She was there and explained to me that the “boys” were worried that I was just waiting for her to come join me in bed so we could make love. They were jealous, she said. This time, she didn't have the boys with her and she asked me to spend the night. I agreed. We made love all night long and it was fantastic. We watched the sun come up. Then, she asked me to leave again as the “boys” were due any minute. I left. I called her from home and said “This is just too weird for me!” I never saw her again. This altered reality is still inexplicable to this day. Obviously, my grief and my openness to experience had propelled me into a reality where non-ordinary events could occur.

What do all these seemingly unrelated experiences, i.e., reading Be Here Now, the “witch” experience, the marijuana experience, and being told that I am boring have to do with each other? Now, I see that they produced altered states of consciousness. In Ken Wilber‘s landmark audiotape collection, Kosmic Consciousness (2004), he calls states (states of consciousness with different levels of conscious awareness that are transitory in one's experience) a primary ingredient in the evolution of consciousness to higher stages (levels of conscious development that are relatively stable over time) of development. Apparently, all these experiences served to catapult me into different ways of understanding my personal reality. And, with each of these experiences, my conscious experience of reality shifted, however imperceptibly. I now see that this has all been part of a journey from a fear-based ego sense of selfhood (or identity) to a larger, more holistic definition of identity (who I really am).

Who am I? Why am I here? What is my purpose in life? These questions have haunted humanity for eons. Our society provides little help. The messages we get in the media are you are your stuff (consumerism). From the churches, we often get you are a miserable sinner (the mainstream Christian perspective). Even the more “enlightened” religions say that you are a creation of God (but separate from God). From business, we get you are your job or career. From school, you get you are your mind. On the question of purpose, there is scant help in our society. Work hard (The Protestant Work Ethic), Raise a family, Lead a righteous life is about all the help we get.

I remember vividly standing in line as a freshman at Texas Tech in Lubbock, Texas, in 1959. I had to declare a major (mercifully, we now allow students to become juniors in college before we make them declare a major.) As I got closer to the front of the line, a sense of panic overtook me. I turned to the guy behind me, whom I didn't know and asked him “What are you going to major in?”

He replied “Oh, I have done some research on this. Chemical engineering is a great field. They make a lot of money.”

So, when I got to the end of the line, I said” Chemical engineering.” I don't even like chemistry. Needless to say, I lasted one semester before I switched majors, but this shows how clueless I was about my life purpose.

But, the point is this: We, as a society, don't help people with the larger questions of life. We are all expected to consume, work hard, obey the law, achieve “success”, etc. But that is it. In this book, I will explore the implications of all this as it relates to our sense of identity and purpose on this planet. My thesis is that my life experiences have drawn me into a larger and larger definition of who I am and that process has inexorably shown me a different world. This process, I am calling FrameShifting in the book.

Thomas Kuhn, in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1963), popularized the concept of “paradigm”, a set of beliefs or mental models that limit what you can see and literally determine what you do see. A frame, then, is a paradigm (or set of paradigms) that serve to define a particular reality experience. So, a frame shift is a paradigm shift in a larger sense, i.e., a shift in definition of personal identity. As I experience myself as part of a larger whole, interconnected with all of life in its many forms, I find increasingly that I am “living in the world but not of it”. Sure, I am still David K. Banner, MBA, PhD, husband, son, friend, teacher, golfer, scholar, father—but I am more than just the roles I play. I am a spark of God-consciousness living in a human form, and that, increasingly, is my living experience. This book will explain how each of my life experiences has contributed to the larger sense of self I now experience.

I wish to issue a caveat at this point. I am obviously writing this book from my point of view and, even though I am aware of an expansion of my consciousness over the years, I am still a tall, white, Caucasian male from North America. So, please, have some empathy with me as I frame this book within the parameters of my cultural paradigm, my ethnicity and my privileged status as a result of these. I am quite confident that, if I had been born in this incarnation as a poor starving female child in an Ethiopian dust bowl, I would have had a completely different experience.

In this book, I will share the experiential exercises and activities I have done in a variety of “consciousness-raising” seminars, workshops, and other experiences. Each of these exercises contributed to the expansion of my sense of self. I have divided them somewhat arbitrarily, into three categories: (1) body awareness expansion; (2) mental (belief) expansion; and (3) emotional expansion. The sum total of all three is an expansion of who I now define myself to be.

Welcome to my journey! My template of experiences is not meant to be prescriptive for each reader; rather, I am sharing my process and the intimate changes I have gone through as a guide to help you explore your own consciousness-raising tools and activities. It is my desire that the processes and signposts I have discovered along the way may help you navigate your own personal journey. Also, it is my profound hope that this book will help you see and acknowledge in yourself the same process of becoming who you really are. Thanks for reading and for being yourself fully!

David K. Banner

Viroqua, WI

January 2009

 1 

Ego and the Illusion of Separateness

We live in a world of duality, of good and bad, of right and wrong, of hot and cold. Also, we inhabit a reality where we seem to be separate from each other, from Nature and from God. In his book, Richard Heinberg reveals a pattern of myth around the planet that there once was, on Earth, a literal Paradise.1 This was a time, according to Heinberg and the mythology, that men lived in harmony with the entire natural world, ate fruits from trees and bushes, killed no animals for food, had no illnesses, had semi-luminous bodies that could literally fly, etc.

In other words, it was a paradise on earth. Then, through a series of decisions that humans apparently made long ago, we chose to leave the state of Oneness and began our journey with a separate, individualized sense of self. We literally began to see ourselves as separate from Nature, from each other and from God. This journey has brought us to where we are today; estranged from each other, from Nature and from God. This state of separateness has been referred to as our “collective madness”2 It has also been called the ego, a false self that is separate from the larger whole of life.

How did we fall out of the state of perfection? At least two theories have been advanced. One school of thought argues that we just wanted to experiment with being separate to see what it was like—and then, in so doing, we forgot that we really are God-beings in human form. We literally sank into our creation, the so-called objective world and forgot that we were actually creating it with our individual paradigms, i.e., Beliefs, Attitudes and Values (what I will refer to from now on as BAV). Rather than being the cause of our experience, we saw ourselves at the effect of our personal world.3 Another theory suggests that we chose to separate from God as an act of rebellion, the idea that we can be