"You can't help but feel emotions,
and emotions will guide your life.
There's only one question:
Will your emotions guide you?
Or, will you use your emotions
to guide your life?"
-- Albert K Strong
One of the most helpful things that I have learned in the last several years is to pay attention to my emotions and to use that information as a tool to guide my life to more joy, or far more good feelings and far less bad feelings. Most of my life prior to this was spent reacting to emotions. If I was feeling anger, I would be angry, if I was feeling guilty or powerless, I would spend time there. Now, if I were to feel those things, I would use those emotions to understand what I am thinking that is causing them and do some things to help change to better feeling thoughts and feelings.
Among the early things, I learned from Abraham-Hicks was the Emotional Guidance Scale. What is really helpful here to me was seeing these emotions listed so that I could see them and to understand the good feeling emotions and the bad feeling emotions and have a sort of graded scale of degree. Here it is from their book, Ask and It Is Given:
1. Joy, Knowledge, Empowerment, Freedom, Love, Appreciation
2. Passion
3. Enthusiasm, Eagerness, Happiness
4. Positive Expectation, Belief
5. Optimism
6. Hopefulness
7. Contentment
8. Boredom
9. Pessimism
10. Frustration, Irritation, Impatience
11. Overwhelment
12. Disappointment
13. Doubt
14. Worry
15. Blame
16. Discouragement
17. Anger
18. Revenge
19. Hatred, Rage
20. Jealousy
21. Insecurity, Guilt, Unworthiness
22. Fear, Grief, Depression, Despair, Powerlessness
Contentment is the middle point, and once we get into hopefulness, we are in positive territory, and as we move below the middle line, we are increasingly in negative emotions.
What I loved about this was that I could see how often I was all the way at the bottom of the scale in fear. I could also see how much of my life I spent in the negative emotions. Blame was a regular companion, frustration was like a roommate, disappointment a frequent visitor, anger was nearby, and so on. I can also see many times I was in positive territory. I was all over this scale.
What has changed in me by learning more about this and other basic teachings of Abraham is that I now spend a great deal of my time above hopefulness. In fact, I don't often dip below that level, or if I do, it is only until I realize by paying attention to what I'm feeling, that I am where I do not want to be.
Then, I give thanks for the guidance telling me that I am thinking something that is causing a discordance within. Then, I can move back up the scale by telling a better story, or pivoting. I am grateful to have the guidance and since I have learned to love feeling good, spending much time in appreciation, joy, love and so on, I am eager to return. It's nice to visit for a short time, but so good to get back home, ya know?
Don't you think it is interesting to see these emotions on a scale like this? I think it is absolutely fascinating and incredibly helpful. I'll talk more about this tomorrow and in the coming days.
When I Know What Is Happening And Why, I Can Make Decisions To Change.
Spread Some Joy Today--Joy is at the top of the Emotional Guidance Scale. What better place to be?
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