How to feel Better | Design Life

Hello and welcome to the DesignLife blog where we discuss Holistic Beauty, Personal Development and a little bit of Magic!

If you're anything like me, you'll find that sometimes you feel really good and sometimes you feel really bad (anyone?). I want to share something with you called the 'emotional scale' which has really helped me in the past to stay focused on feeling better and not drown in that pit of self-despair, because let's face it. Once somethign happens in a minute of our day that crushes our mood, we keep milking that minute for the rest of the day and it's as if things just get worse and worse. It doesn't have to be that way though.

Most of us only realize we're not feeling good until we're feeling really bad, but if we checked in on ourselves more frequently to find out exactly what it is that we're feeling, we stand a much better chance of preventing ourselves from getting depressed and feeling very intense bad emotions. It's not like you just wake up one morning, completely depressed and ready to jump off a bridge - it's a gradual process. One that can be stopped and reversed long before we hit rock-bottom.

The emotional scale:

Many people find themselves more or less in the Orange space - they're disappointed, they worry about a lot of stuff, they blame others for the things that go "wrong"... Sometimes they move two spaces up, sometimes they move two spaces down. Others I've seen descend slowly down to the Grey space... Something 'big' happens in their lives and they slowly (or quickly) descend into grief, depression and powerlessness. This can mean one of two things. Either they let the depression consume them, eating away at their lives and eventually they die in their despair, or they live the rest of their lives oscillating between depression and anger. 

Or, as so many have done before, they use their intense grief as a strong reason to move forward and onward and upward. Many of those people who choose to get better, even when met (again) with disappointment or doubt or worry - they have already gone through "the worst" and they use it as fuel to propel them towards everything they want. Because they have met with the epitome of despair, they know that they needn't go back and they move on. You can't see the stars without darkness. 

It's lovely to know about the Emotional Scale of course, the analogy created by Esther and Jerry Hicks, but how can you use it to your advantage? One of the most valuable things that I have learned from reading so many of their books is that I don't have to feel better all at once. It's nearly impossible to jump from anger, rage and revenge to enthusiasm, happiness and positive expectation. If you can catch yourself earlier on, however, during the Orange space, when you start feeling doubt and worry... Instead of letting those feelings drag you down, immediately turn your attention up (we'll talk about how to do that in a minute). It is much quicker to get from discouragement to enthusiasm, than to get from depression to positive expectation. Does that make sense?

How do you move up the emotional scale?

1. Check in with yourself - really ask yourself, as often as possible, how are you feeling right now? 

2. Acknowledge your feelings. You don't really have to worry to much about why you are feeling this, just confirm that you would like to feel better. 

3. Think about what feeling or emotion is 1 level, or maybe even 2 levels up on the emotional scale. 

For example, if you are feeling despair/powerlessness, it would be anger/rage. 

Now many may argue that it's not good to feel anger or hatred and of course it's not if you're planning on staying there forever. But you're not. Don't you agree that anger is a little better-feeling than depression? At least when you're angry, it comes from a place of power, whereas depression comes from a place of powerlessness. 

4. Once you have identified what feeling it is that you want to move towards, direct all of your attention on that. It's easy to do - just think of as many examples as you can where you have felt that way in the past. Imagine scenarios in your mind that would make you feel like that now.

For example, if you're bored and frustrated that things haven't worked out the way you would have liked it to, but you know that you would like to feel happy and eager for the good things to come, then imagine a time in your life where you have felt happy and eager. Remember that time when you were on holiday and you were so excited while packing your bags to go on that week-long beach trip? Or listen to songs that give you that eager and excited feeling. Or imagine things working out the way you would like them to and focus on the feeling of happiness that it would bring. Just keep boosting that feeling.

5. Repeat step 4 until it becomes your dominant feeling.

And that's how you move up the emotional scale. It really is an easy process, but it does require that you consciously make the decision to feel better. It does mean that you have to get off AUTO-PILOT and be aware of your emotions so that they can guide you to living a life of joy. If you missed my post about why you should let your emotions be your guide, read it here.

I hope that this post was helpful to you. In the next post, I would like to share more little "tricks" or activities that I use to feel better and better all the time. Until then, have a beautiful weekend!

All my love! And remember that YOU are The Creator 💜💜