How to feel better
If you're feeling bad, how can you start to feel better?
If you're experiencing a negative emotion, it can sometimes feel impossible to change the way you're feeling.
If you've ever been really angry, for example, it can feel impossible to immediately stop being angry. Even if you didn't want to feel angry anymore, you might have felt powerless to change the way you were feeling.
Emotional Guidance Scale
In the book Ask and It Is Given, there is "a scale of your emotions" on page 114:
Joy/Knowledge/Empowerment/Freedom/Love/Appreciation
Passion
Enthusiasm/Eagerness/Happiness
Positive Expectation/Belief
Optimism
Hopefulness
Contentment
Boredom
Pessimism
Frustration/Irritation/Impatience
"Overhwhelment"
Disappointment
Doubt
Worry
Blame
Discouragement
Anger
Revenge
Hatred/Rage
Jealousy
Insecurity/Guilt/Unworthiness
Fear/Grief/Depression/Despair/Powerlessness
The scale is in order of feeling. #1 is the best-feeling emotion and #22 is the worst-feeling emotion.
Sometimes we find it difficult to even name what emotions we are feeling. You can keep this scale handy as a reference anytime you want to identify what emotion you are currently feeling.
How to feel better
If you find that you're experiencing an emotion that's low on the scale, you can move up the scale to a better-feeling emotion.
The way you do this is by thinking better-feeling thoughts.
"Choosing a different thought will always produce a different emotional response" (92).
Your thoughts can change your emotion and you have control over what you are thinking.
"So you could say, 'I will deliberately choose my thoughts so that I can feel better.' That would be a good decision for you to make. An even better decision, and really, an easy one to make is: 'I want to feel good, so I will try to feel good by choosing a thought that does feel good'" (92).
You usually don't have immediate access to positive emotions when you're experiencing a negative emotion
If you're currently experiencing an emotion that's low on the scale, you don't have vibrational access to the emotions at the very top.
If you've ever been really angry and someone told you to calm down, you've experienced this limited access to positive emotions when you're experiencing a negative emotion. You can't immediately go from being angry to being happy.
"Just because you make the decision to find a different thought, it does not necessarily mean that you can go directly to that thought right now, for the Law of Attraction has something to say about the thoughts you have access to from where you are ... you cannot instantly jump to a thought that has a vibrational frequency very different from the thoughts you are usually thinking" (91).
"So, something has happened in your experience that makes you feel terrible. Nothing sounds good, nothing feels good, it seems as if you are suffocating, and each thought is equally painful. The best word to describe your nearly constant state of emotion is one of depression ... There are many thoughts that you could entertain that would free you from your depression. However, vibrationally, you do not have access to most of them right now. But if your intention is to find a thought, any thought, that feels better, you can begin to move up the Emotional Guidance Scale immediately" (115).
Take it one thought at a time
You can't jump all the way from the bottom of the scale to the very top. You have to climb the emotional scale like a ladder, one (or, at most, a few) rung(s) at a time.
"The Law of Attraction cannot deliver a thought that holds such a dramatic vibrational difference. But if your decision is to reach for the best-feeling thought that you have access to, that decision can be easily achieved" (92).
If you're feeling depressed, you'll feel better if you think a thought that makes you feel rage.
If you're feeling rage, you'll feel better if you think a thought that makes you feel vengeful.
If you're feeling vengeful, you'll feel better if you think a thought that makes you feel angry.
If you're feeling angry, you'll feel better if you think a thought that makes you feel worried.
If you're feeling worried, you'll feel better if you think a thought that makes you feel frustrated.
If you're feeling frustrated, you'll feel better if you think a thought that makes you feel bored.
If you're feeling bored, you'll feel better if you think a thought that makes you feel hopeful.
If you're feeling hopeful, you'll feel better if you think a thought that makes you feel passionate.
If you're feeling passionate, you'll feel better if you think a thought that makes you feel joy.
You don't have to limit yourself to ascending the scale only one tier at a time. It's all about which thoughts you have available to you.
If you observe your thoughts and you find that you have a thought that makes you feel an emotion that's five tiers above the emotion you're currently experiencing, go for it!
"It is really a process of thinking a thought, any thought, and then consciously evaluating whether the new thought gives you any feeling of relief from where you were before that thought. So, you think and feel and think and feel, with one intention only: to feel even the slightest bit of relief" (115).
The key is to be aware of how you feel
You need a starting point. You have to be able to assess where you are currently on the Emotional Guidance Scale.
Then, once you know where you are, you still need to stay tuned in to your emotions as you reach for better-feeling thoughts. This way, you'll have a starting point and you'll know when you're making progress up the scale.
"The key to moving up the vibrational emotional scale is to be consciously aware of, even sensitive to, the way you feel, for if you are not aware of how you feel, you cannot understand which way you are moving on the scale" (92).
"Now, here is the crucial step in effectively utilizing your Emotional Guidance System: Stop, and consciously acknowledge that your chosen thought of anger does feel better than the suffocating depression that is replaced. And in the conscious recognition of your improved vibration, your feeling of powerlessness softens and you are now on your way up your Emotional Guidance Scale" (116).
It feels good to be in control of how you feel
What everybody really wants is to feel good.
Imagine being able to control how you feel and being able to get yourself to feel good most of the time. Wouldn't that feel empowering? Wouldn't that feel good?
"There is tremendous value when you are able to deliberately cause even the slightest improvement in the way you feel" (117).
"The key to regaining your wonderful feeling of personal empowerment and control is to decide, right now, no matter how good or how bad you are feeling, that you are going to do your best to make the best of it. Reach for the best-feeling thought that you have access to right now, and as you do that again and again, in a short period of time you will find yourself in a very good-feeling place" (118).
"In time, and with practice, you will become very adept at understanding what your Emotion Guidance System is telling you. Once you make a determined decision to continually reach for the relief that an improved emotion brings, you will find yourself feeling good most of the time, and allowing into your experience all the things you desire. Attention to how you are feeling is necessary in order to understand everything that is happening to you. How you feel—and the feeling of relief that you discover as you reach for better-feeling thoughts—is your only true measurement of what you are attracting into your experience" (120).
Hope you feel better! ❤️