CHANGE HOW YOU FEEL

What if you could change how you feel?  Whenever you want.  Would that be valuable?

Read on.

Some of you won’t believe this until you try it.

Some of you won’t even try it. 

Some of you will try it and fail because you don’t WANT to give up the feelings you say you hate.

But if you are committed to growing and changing, this is a tool you will find invaluable.  It takes practice to become competent, ESPECIALLY for men, because we have been trained to suppress all but certain emotions.

But even men can succeed with determination and practice.

Suppose, for example, you are feeling sad, but want to feel happy.  You can do that.  But not in the way you were taught.  Most of you were taught to just stop feeling sad, and put on a happy face, and just BE happy.  Didn’t work so well, did it.

It didn’t work because whatever we resist persists.  Your resistance to the sad feelings means they are still there, even if you tell yourself to stop being sad, and start being happy.

The key to changing how you feel is to first EMBRACE how you feel.  ALLOW yourself to fully experience WHATEVER is coming up for you.   You will find that if you do that, FULLY, that feeling will disappear.  Because ANY experience, once fully experienced, disappears.

ANY experience fully experienced, disappears.

It might return if there is some underlying cause, particularly if we are talking about physical aches and pains, but even those can be dealt with, with practice.

So, once you have fully experienced the feeling, you will find that you feel in a neutral place.  Neither happy nor sad.  In THAT moment, you can say to yourself, “I AM HAPPY.”  And if you ALLOW yourself happiness, it will come.  Your brain will make you right.  Remember how we love to be right?  Well this is one time when it is an advantage,

If I tell myself I AM happy, I will be.  Again, it might not last, but it can if I want it to.  It truly is a choice.

So, first experience your experience, then call forth the emotion, or way of being that will serve you best in that moment.

This works for happiness, courage, power, tranquility, WHATEVER you may need in any particular moment to achieve your vision for that moment.

Now it is also important to know HOW to first fully experience the feeling you want to leave behind, like sadness, or rage, or whatever it may be.  As you experience that emotion, do NOT say, “I AM sad.”  Because, once again, your brain will make you right about THAT, and you will REMAIN sad.

Say, instead, either out loud or to yourself, “I am EXPERIENCEING sadness.”  And allow yourself to fully experience it.

If you have been conditioned to stifle feelings like sadness, as many of us have been, you might need some practice before you can fully allow yourself to feel something like sadness.  But there is a visualization process that can help while you practice.

As you are allowing yourself to experience sadness, or whatever, imagine yourself bathed in a light, the color of which matches your feeling.  For example, sadness might be blue, or purple.  Rage might be orange, or red, or whatever YOU say the color is.  Anyway, close your eyes, and as you say, “I am experiencing sadness,” imagine that you are covered in blue or purple light.  And really allow yourself to experience that feeling.

With practice, or maybe even right away, you will find that feeling is simply gone.

Fully experienced, and gone.

You feel neutral.

Now say, “I am happy.”  Say it again.  And again, until your brain makes you right.

PS, if this didn’t work, see the chapter on Happiness.