Milo’s Guide to Everything Shifty!

What a shifty place you’ve found yourself in! Shift here, shift there, shift everywhere!

While I’m sure this guide has been done countless upon countless times, I thought I’d at least try to take a stab at it myself! Plus maybe someone somewhere will learn something new from this they haven’t read from other guides

That being said:

Welcome to Milo’s Guide to Everything Shifty!

Let’s start with a preface.

Shifting is one of the most talked about experiences in therianthropy. However, you do not have to shift to be a therian! Many therians (especially our younger folks) get anxious or feel like they aren’t truly a therian because they haven’t experienced a shift before, or at least not to some of the extents they’ve heard others mention.

Not shifting does not take away from being a therian.

But, that leads us to asking, what exactly is shifting?

The term “shift” as used in therianthropy is sort of used as an umbrella term for many types of experiences where a therian experiences a psychological or spiritual change that causes them to feel or act more animal-like. Some shifts can be acute (meaning they happen quickly and don’t stick around for an extended period of time) or some may extend to even being a constant and permanent sensation or mindset. There are a few main categories of shifts, which I will detail below!

Types of shifts

• Mental Shifting
  Mental shifting describes a change in mental state where one may exhibit more animalistic behaviors or an animal-like mindset. For example, a wolf therian who undergoes a mental shift may find themselves using wolf-like vocals more often, or they may find themselves more alert, or even have certain urges such as running on all fours. Mental shifts can change in severity. They can be as simple as simply feeling more animal-like in the moment and having that perhaps bleed through in some behaviors such as alertedness, or can even go as deep as clearly exhibiting animal-like behaviors and feeling deeply like an animal.
• Phantom Shifting
  Phantom shifting describes feeling as if you have limbs, fur, feathers, etc. that aren’t actually there. These sensations can feel different depending on each person. Sometimes people will feel a tingling sensation or a pressure, while other times it’ll genuinely feel like a limb is there. Similarly to mental shifts, phantom shifts can range in severity and can be minor sensations that last a short time to much more prevalent sensations that last much longer or even permanently in some.
• Spiritual Shifting
  Spiritual shifting can describe a few things. They can describe dream shifting (dreaming that you are your theriotype), astral projection shifting, aura shifting, or even inducing mental-like shifts through spiritual practice.
  

There have been debates in the past where there have been further categorizations, but these are the most commonly used terms and seem to do the job fine enough!

Voluntary Vs. Involuntary
Voluntary shifting describes when someone chooses how they shift, when they shift, and how much they shift. This is achieved many ways, most of which I’ll do my best to describe below!
Involuntary shifts sometimes happen at random and without us choosing for them to happen. Sometimes we get too caught up in a moment, or get too carried away, or sometimes they’ll just happen!
However, even in the case of involuntary shifting, there should be some amount of control you have over yourself. If you find that you genuinely have zero control over yourself, are severely dissociating during these experiences, or are having blackouts where you can’t remember what happened, then I highly recommend talking to your doctor! There may be a reason beyond therianthropy being a cause for these experiences and if they are genuinely impacting your life in a negative way, do not be afraid to reach out!! No good doctor will judge you, and many will help refer you to the right people if you genuinely need help stay safe, critters!

Inducing a shift
Many consider shifting to be therapeutic, and are also often used to alleviate species dysphoria/dysmorphia. Because of this, many therians may choose to induce a voluntary shift, especially when in private confines or with trusted individuals.
However, how do you induce a shift?
I want to start off with saying that sometimes people struggle with even inducing shifts. That’s a-okay, and again, doesn’t make you any less of a therian for struggling with such. You do NOT have to shift to be a therian!!!

That being said, let’s go over one of the most commonplace methods: meditation.
Meditation is a great practice for understanding yourself, and in this case, inducing shifts. There are many tutorials out there that go over all sorts of ways to meditate. Although, I’ll be briefly describing a meditation practice for inducing shifts here as well!

• To start, find a quiet area. If you are able to go out in nature, then that’s even better! However, it’s not necessary. Then, slowly work to clear your mind. If you need, find something to focus your mind on, such as a soft fan or something smooth to feel on. Once your mind is clear, picture yourself in third person and imagine yourself with the animal-like features of your theriotype. Maybe such as a tail or with sharp canines. Then, start to vocalize. For example, if you’re a wolf, then let out a deep growl. Put your energy into this growl, feel your muscles tense, feel your heart beat, and when you feel you are ready, open your eyes. Do what feels right to you. Let your instincts take over!
  

Sometimes, inducing shifts come naturally to people. Sometimes finding little techniques to help you out can go a long way! For me, as silly as it is, simply growling is enough to flip that switch. For others, it may be listening to their favorite music, looking at photos of their kintypes, or just being in nature. Sometimes it just takes a bit of exploration! Or maybe the correct meditation that best suits you!

Un-inducing shifts
Sometimes involuntary shifts come up at the wrong moments! Many times, we can just tell ourselves no and go on with out days. Sometimes though, they’ll linger! When that happens I always recommend the trusty tool: grounding!
What is grounding? Grounding is a technique used to help keep your mind focused on something simple, giving yourself something else to think on and shifting your attention back to reality.
Grounding itself is really simple once you get a hang of it! It can be as easy as taking deep breaths and focusing on those breaths, or focusing on the textures around you! The goal of grounding is to just bring your focus onto something new.
I’ll admit I’m not the best at describing this, so feel free to google some grounding techniques if this is an issue you have from time to time!

Using gear
Sometimes gear can help us either satisfy shifts or reduce dysphoria! I’ve heard of many people wearing tails to help with phantom tail sensations, for example!

Conclusion
Shifting is a huge topic! Bigger than my wee little brain can fully cover as I’m writing this entire post in one sitting! If you have anything you’d like to add, feel free! Part of this thread is also here to open discussion and allow for people to share their experiences! See an error? Feel free to let me know!

But all in all, stay shifty!

Are you implementing a bad word when you say shifty? cuz my mind always goes to 'shitty' instead of shifty. ( ꩜ ᯅ ꩜; )  xD

If you did that on purpose, i despise you immensely... (¬_¬")

…mayyyybeeeeee
Have a shifty day!!! (Jkjkjk)

In my opinion this guide is well written and covers the important stuff. I like that you also included that there are Alter-Humans who doesn't shift, or are permanently shifted.

I'd just like to add that voluntary/induced shifts (e.g. through meditation) are not a reliable way to find out your kintype!
I've seen some people who tried that, but please don't do that.

So I think I had a phantom shift? I was looking at my shadow, and I felt like it was meant to have a tail and maybe(?) ears? Not wearing tails can make me feel horrible and upset, but mostly, I feel completely fine.

(2023-10-22 12:43)Unknown_Therian Wrote:  So I think I had a phantom shift? I was looking at my shadow, and I felt like it was meant to have a tail and maybe(?) ears? Not wearing tails can make me feel horrible and upset, but mostly, I feel completely fine.

Sounds more like dysphoria! Dysphoria is when you feel uncomfortable in your own body and like there’s something seriously wrong or missing. This can include stuff like what you described such as feeling like certain aspects should be part of your body when they aren’t actually.

Phantom shifts more or so feel like the limb is *actually* physically there

Thanks for the help!

Um. A friend shifted outside while looking at the planet Jupiter, they couldn’t take their eyes off of it. They said they felt like a human, but Fox sized. Everything is fine now but we (we were three therian friends together one shifted) had to literally drag her back inside and she kept looking back at it. She would look through all the windows inside to try to find it. Now there is cloud coverage but every time they are outside they look for it. What does this mean? Does the planet Jupiter have some weird effects on foxes? Anything helps!