Shifting emotional states is an extremely powerful tool of being.
It’s less about shifting emotional states and more about learning how to let go of negativity and return to your natural state of being. You were born with a certain status quo feeling of happiness, peace, safety, and joy. When you were a baby, you would only cry if something “happened.” Then the need would be met and you would once again return to that natural state.
Many of us have so lost our natural state that we almost entirely default to a subtle sense of unease, stress, anxiety, and tension. This creates most of the pain, disease, and dysfunction in our life.
I have found several tricks to be able to shift a negative emotional pattern (anger, worry, anxiety, stress, fear, hate, jealousy, self loathing, guilt, shame, etc) once I became aware of it:
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Emotional Momentum
An important note: it takes approximately 17 seconds to begin creating emotional momentum. That means that if you can hold a feeling inside of you for 17 seconds, other similar emotional thoughts will start to appear effortlessly. You know this to be true with your negativity. It’s the same thing if you’ve ever had that looping sensation where you feel like you keep getting dragged underwater by the same emotional thought loop.
If you then hold the feeling for about 60 seconds, you will enter the flow state and you can basically continue surfing.
We are almost always in some form of emotional momentum. Only if we are in a state of deep meditation is our momentum at zero. It is always easiest to shift to positive emotional momentum from a place of zero. Besides meditating, here are other ways that you can shift your emotional momentum:
Ways to Shift Your Emotional Momentum
- Take a nap. This is always a good option. Don’t be afraid to take a little time to reset. Working four hours in a constricted, resistant state is worth 2 hours of inspired, flow work. You’re not too busy.
- What if this was the last day I had to live? Close your eyes and feel this. Really feel it. Would you be worrying about the things you’re worried about?
- Become aware of your body / energy flow and how you are an extension of source. Do you feel the movement of the energy in your body. This is your life force. Where is it coming from? Can you feel how you are almost being projected into existence, moment by moment.
- Imagine an experience of awe and gratitude. I picture myself on top of an insane mountain during one of my Alaskan expeditions.
- Laugh at yourself. Stop taking yourself so seriously, seriously. When a little kid pouts, you don’t let yourself get dragged into their negativity. You’re crazy, admit it, embrace it, that’s what it is to be human!
- Imagine this negativity inside of you as an external person. Can you imagine what that negativity would like if they were a human standing in front of you? I usually vividly see an anxious 7 year old who just wants to understand what is happening. That’s not a person you punish. That’s a person you speak kindly to, explain, and then buy them an ice cream cone.
- Give your little child a hug. Give that person a hug. That person inside of you (your ego) is battered, scared, paranoid, and vulnerable. Close your eyes and feel the warmth and safety of a hug.
- Show yourself compassion. This is seriously powerful work you’re doing. You’re literally trying to break the habit of being yourself. That takes time. Of course you’re not going to be there all of the time.
- Acceptance (but then…)
- A powerful trick for practicing acceptance is to ask yourself: “what if nothing inside or outside will ever change. Can I exist in this state/moment forever and be ok with it?” Feel what that would be like.
- …but then…make sure you’re not using acceptance to keep negativity trapped inside of you. Acceptance should feel good. Even if it feels bad, there should be a goodness in the awareness of allowing the bad.
And…perhaps the most powerful one:
- What would it feel like if…use your imagination. What would it feel like if you felt exactly the way you want to feel right now. Understand that negativity is always a contrast that serves as a portal to accessing exactly how you want to feel. You have been imagining bad things happening for years. It’s the same place in your mind. Now just imagine what it would be like if good things happened.
Don’t lose yourself in a bunch of these. Don’t spend too much time on any of them. Read them and feel which one resonates. Your inner being will tell you which will work for you. Feel how good that resonance feels inside you. Don’t practice. Revel in the feeling. Watch as that feeling returns to you the next time you feel disconnected from Source.
I relate to this whole experience according to several spiritual ideas. It is akin to holding something “in your mind’s eye.” It is also akin to opening your heart as Michael Singer says (or better yet, opening the barrier between your mind and your heart). In Judaism, it would be referred to as contemplation or to activate your da’at. It is the capacity to turn something from knowledge into a “felt-experience.” By the way, psychedelics are so powerful because they rip this barrier wide open so that every thought you have is a felt experience.
Manifesting exists in your capacity to turn thoughts into felt experiences.
As I’ve said before, there is also the concept of emotional momentum. If you can create a felt experience and hold it for about 17 seconds, that experience will gain momentum and begin to take you up in it. Wake up in the morning and try to imagine a feeling of gratitude. What would it feel like if I woke up feeling unbelievably powerful and grateful (like I just sold a billion dollar company)? If you can start your day like this and conjure that feeling, then you won’t have to do much else to RUN with it the entire day. It kind of just takes you up in it. It’s like surfing. You need to paddle just until the wave sweeps you into its momentum.
As you become capable of identifying and then changing your emotions, you will begin to feel enormously powerful. Like you’re playing at an entirely different level than everyone else. You will start to understand the true power of manifestation and may even start to feel like a wizard.
Practice building emotional momentum with this meditation.
Read More:
Learning To Meditate From A Buddhist Monk Let’s Talk Meditation What is Manifesting: How to rewrite the code to your life