Most of us have days when we really don’t feel that good at all, sometimes we feel just plain bad, and it seems like we can’t do anything about it. Then you have those people that seem to feel good all the time. How are they doing that? Are they doing it deliberately or are they faking it? I know the answer and it’s actually a bit of both.
There has been a lot of talk about thinking positive and paying attention to thoughts, but a lot of people still don’t seem to grasp the relationship between their emotions (how they feel) and their thoughts. The reason for this is that the effect of thinking positive isn’t immediately visible and even if you’re able to do it for some time, it’s easy to fall back into old habitual thought patterns.
What is thinking positive and what does it really mean?
A few years ago I was reading a lot of books on the subject of positive thinking but for some reason I never really grasped the benefit of it entirely up until now. Thinking positive doesn’t mean that you constantly need to force your mind in thinking you are feeling great. Forcing yourself really doesn’t help and in my experience only leads to tension. It just means that you need to try and see the positive in the situation even if it seems like there isn’t anything positive about it. You can always find something; just start small if you have to.
How to turn negative emotions into positive ones
It basically starts with the awareness that you’re not feeling good. The fact that your feeling negative is actually your body telling you that there is something wrong and once you’re aware of that, you can do something about it. Negative feelings should really be used as a contrast system. It simply tells you what you don’t want so that you know what you do want.
You should also be aware of the fact that there are different grades of feeling bad and feeling good. If you are feeling very bad it means that you are focusing on something very specific that is negative in nature. If you are feeling very good it means you are focused on something very specific that is positive in nature.
The problem with most people is that they want to jump from the feeling very bad to feeling very good and it just doesn’t work like this. If you are feeling very bad the first step you should take is to stop focusing so specifically on the thing that is making you feel so bad. So then you go from feeling very bad to feeling generally bad. Once you feel generally bad you can start thinking positive things about yourself such as “I feel good” or “from this day forward I will feel good all the time”. Don’t overdo it, just say it to yourself regularly and more importantly make the decision that you will feel good.
Making that decision that you will feel good is very important, because if you can make that decision it will happen very soon. You also need to keep being aware of any negative thought that might popup, because that habitual thought pattern that you have been cultivating for so long won’t immediately go away.
So as you go from feeling very bad to feeling generally bad and start thinking positive thoughts, in a relatively short period of time you will start feeling good. This could be a few hour to a few days, just keep it up. Once you are feeling generally good it’s important that you make the decision that this will become your predominant state of being. You then practice this feeling generally good until it becomes easy for you to feel that way.
When feeling generally good has become easy for you, you now can start focusing on specific things to make you feel very good. Basically life will become better and better from that point forward. You really need to train yourself gradually into different stages of how you feel. You need to get used to feeling better and better gradually.
So here are the different stages again:
- Feeling very bad: you are focused on something very specific that is causing you to feel this way. This could be almost anything and is usually not worth focusing on.
- Feeling generally bad: stop focusing on whatever is causing you to feel so bad. Once you do that the subject of your focus won’t have that much power over you, and thus you won’t feel that bad anymore. You still don’t feel good but at least you can now start to work on feeling good.
- Feeling generally good: Once you feel generally bad you can start thinking positive thoughts like “I feel good” and make a firm decision that you will feel good. Once you made that decision it will surely happen very soon. Keep monitoring your thoughts and if negative ones creep in turn them into positive ones. Make several affirmations on a regular basis that you feel good. Just say it to yourself, in your head or out loud, whichever you prefer.
- Feeling very good: This is the stage where you start focusing on the thing you want. This is where you create your life. This is where you become you. This where you become the person you where always meant to become. Focus on positive things at all time and cast out all negativity. If you interact with negative people keep your positive feeling and don’t get drawn into their negativity. They are on the same path as you; they just haven’t reached the stage you are in now.
Do you have a method to feel great? Kindly share it in the comment section.
Image: thephotographymuse
