If we are all so unhappy, why don’t we do something about it? It’s not that hard to change what you think.

But it is hard to STOP.

Here’s the rub. Feeling happy is uncomfortable.  The happy vibration clashes with the vibration we have, like fingernails on a chalk board–or listening to Pachelbel’s Canon when you are expecting Radiohead. Imagine an old-school rapper being forced to listen to  Saint Saens, or vice versa.

It’s like a new pair of Birkenstocks. You have to wear them a while before they take on the shape of your feet. It takes a few days to break them in.  If you just jump on them and go on a ten-mile hike, you won’t make it.

Changing an emotional state is the same way. It takes effort to think new thoughts with positive messages and then NOT to follow them with cynical or sarcastic humor that just slaps us us back down where we are used to being.

You think, “I could win the lottery,”  raising your vibration to hope. But then you add, “I’d just have to hide out from everyone who wanted to get my money.”

That CLUNK sound is your vibration hitting bottom.

You dutifully write your affirmations:  I am debt free. I am healthy. I am thin…but with each stroke of the pen, you think about how much shorter than the month your paycheck is, or how thin people have to watch what they eat, or how hard it would be to exercise.

CLUNK.

Being unhappy is only comfortable because you are used to it. You practice it very hard every day.

If you worked at anything as hard as you work at being unhappy, you’d be the world’s leading expert. That big weight that holds you down and makes you tired when you get up in the morning is the chain of unhappiness you forged yesterday, and that you are forging every minute that you aren’t working to be postive.

Try for fifteen minutes, five minutes even,  to think a positive thought whenever you hear something unhappy.  Do you get stopped by the traffic light? Admire the glow of the red light.  Congratulate yourself for driving safely.  Take a deep breath and say, “I’m doing well today.”  Anything positive.

Every time you start to say “Yes, But…”, STOP.

Start
Talking
Only
Positive.

I  whined grumpily that I was tired, and she said something brilliant.

“Why don’t you raise your vibration so we can keep working on this?  Then you can find out what you need to do today., and you’ll feel better.”

At moment, I could only think dark and cloudy thoughts. I didn’t want to do the work anymore, even though I had asked her to help me. I wanted to just give up and escape.

“Think of it this way,” she said. “If your mind was a machine, and there was a piece that was broken or worn out, you could just stop for a minute, take out the bad part and put in a new part.”

I could see it in my mind–a sort of grimy, greasy machine with a lot of gears, and a handle that I was having to push very hard to turn. When I stopped to look at the imaginary machine,  I could see that one piece was missing some cogs. I took it out–it was conveniently located at eye level and not constrained by serpentine belts, bearings or safety covers–and replaced it with a bright, shiny new one, which of course magically appeared in my hand.  It was a new thought.

Even that seemed like a lot of work, just imagining it. But I did feel better, just for thinking about something else for a few seconds.

Then Rachel told me how she could always find that feeling, any time she needed it. She said, “I just imagine flying…soaring around a thermal…” She stretched out her arms. ” or swooping around, not doing anything, no strings, not looking for food or doing anything but enjoying being in the air. ”  She once drew a picture of a happy harpy several years ago, and the image of it came into my mind.

The Happy Harpy By Rachel H. White

Just watching her was uplifting. My grumpiness was not completely gone, but it had lightened enough that I would at least imagine standing on top of a mountain or sitting up in a tree, always a place of peace and calm for me.

I can remember dreaming of flying. I decided that such a daydream would be a good one to cultivate and practice for when I was feeling weighted down.  So I’ve been spending a fem seconds every time I think about it , just imagining soaring in the sky, with the sun on my feathered back and the wind rippling the edges of my pinfeathers.

Try it. Soaring like the eagles beats the heck out of hanging out with the turkeys.