I have included an emotional ladder at the end of this article for you to use as a guide to help you with understanding where you are in regard to your emotions. I borrowed this ladder from the book “Ask and It Is Given” by Esther and Jerry Hicks as I have not found anything else in relation to emotions that is as easy to apply and relate to as theirs.
Your emotions, which are always in response to your focus—in response to your thoughts surrounding the subject that has your attention—are not all the same. Each emotion carries a specific frequency, which is what you feel as the physical sensation of emotion. To go one step further, each thought carries a frequency that activates an emotion that you feel. From the bottom emotion—fear/grief/depression/despair/powerlessness—every emotion above it has a higher frequency. The highest frequency, then, is the one at the top—joy/knowledge/empowerment/freedom/love/appreciation—which is the frequency where your “command center” thrives and all your solutions exist. What you cannot do is go directly from the bottom to the top because the frequencies are way too different. Trying to go even 6 or 7 emotions up may be too far of a leap. You can try but chances are you won’t be able to stay there and you will end up right (or near) where you started. This is why traditional positive thinking doesn’t always work. The goal, once you’ve identified where your emotional standpoint is to find a slightly better place to go one to a few emotions (no more than 5 or 6) up from where you are currently.
It helps to know what thought(s) you have about your body or subject that is causing your emotion so you have something to work with. The idea is to try and sooth your current perspective (thought) to one that would bring you to a higher emotion. The goal is to get to a perspective that provides you with relief from where you are. Once you gain relief, you can try to move on from there as that relief, unless it is at or near the top of the ladder, will only feel like relief for a short time. Eventually that emotion will start to feel uncomfortable again so as to get you to move further toward your solution. Once you have gotten to a place of content you should no longer be feeling much negative emotion as you will no longer be looking at what you don’t want. Your perspective should be one of accepting where you are with little or no judgment. It should be one of “it is what it is.” From there, hope is easy to grab and from hope change is much easier. And from hope, optimism is easier to find, and so on. Each higher emotion has a higher and broader perspective, which allows for more creativity, more insight to your solution, and a more efficient body (higher frequencies help the body work at optimal levels).
If you are having trouble finding thoughts that provide you with relief you might want to try reaching for a better emotion. Figure out where you are on this list and look at the emotions above that one and see what emotion, if you were to move to it, would provide you with relief. Once you have that emotion, try to work from that emotional standpoint to find thoughts in that emotion. What would someone at that emotion say about your situation? Play with that until you feel relief.
Whatever you do to get yourself to be at peace with where you are or higher know that all you have to do to keep your new perspective is to think or talk about it from that new point of emotion for about a minute or so to lock it in. Think of each emotion as a stepping stone to moving toward your improvement/solution.
