How to tell

You can't check the outcome. Has it happened yet? is the self monitoring its results, and every look spent on that is a look not taken. But you can check the process, and the process is checkable in the moment, not after months. The difference is what you're looking at: not whether the shift has come, but whether the last second was a look or a sentence.

In the moment

Looking. Each look returns something found at the spot — a sensation, an image, a word, or nothing and the sound still clear — and sometimes the finding is a surprise. If every look returns the same sentence, you're reciting. If a look takes minutes, you're concentrating. If you're waiting for a feeling, you're monitoring. A look that never surprises isn't a look.

Resting. Lighter over time, not heavier. Drifts noticed sooner, with less ugh. If it feels like holding something, wrong. If it's gone dim, wrong. If it's quiet and you can feel yourself sitting in the middle of the quiet, that's the jam. Glance. Who's resting?

Holding a question. A felt not-knowing, not a verbal loop. Frustration means forcing. An answer you've settled into means answering.

Flooding. Wide, and unnamed. Chanting labels means it's gone mechanical. One object, held, means it collapsed into concentration.

Over weeks

Working: looks get shorter and more frequent on their own. The self gets caught earlier — I'm irritated and the ownership on it noticed in the same moment, not ten minutes later. Less effort. The occasional huh: you looked where somebody should be, nobody was, and nothing broke. Less thinking about the practice.

Off: heavier. More frustrating. More reading than looking. Nothing ever surprising. And measuring — if you're checking after every look, the checking is the practice now. Check the process once a week. Never check the outcome.

How long

Nobody can say, and anyone who says is guessing. The reports run from days to decades. What correlates with speed in them isn't technique. It's how often you look, and whether you're willing to feel what comes up instead of managing it. The people who go years without a shift aren't usually at the wrong door. They're in one of the named jams, uncaught. The jams are catchable. That's the only reason this page exists.

The fear

I'll never shift the way I'm doing it. That has a practical core, and the sections above are the answer to it. It's also the waiter — the one for whom it hasn't happened yet — and the waiter is findable right now. Both are true. Answer the practical part with the checks. Answer the rest with a look.

The accounts

The famous accounts are the dramatic minority: a question collapsed to a point under pressure, and resolved. In every one of them the mechanism was one of the four doors. Most shifts are quieter, and get recognized afterward. Take any account you've already read and name its door. Do it once. Then close the book.

Someone who's crossed

The traditions' real answer to am I doing it right is a person who's had the shift checking you. If you can get that, get it: Liberation Unleashed's guides do it for free, in text, and teachers hold meetings. This page is for the nights you can't.