Mary-Elizabeth’s Messages
PUTTING THE ONLY GOAL YOU NEED INTO ACTION

Whether you agree that feeling good is the only goal you need or just a good goal to have, one thing is for sure: You’ll need to be in touch with how you feel to stay on track.

Our moods and emotions give us critical guidance.

Like in a game of hide-and-seek, they say, “Warmer!” or “Colder!” as we move closer to or farther from what we’re looking for, whether we’re clear about what that is or not.

I introduced Esther Hicks and her source of inspiration, called Abraham, here. As a team known as Abraham-Hicks, they teach that JOY is the purpose of our lives, and the reason we even bother setting goals is because we think we’ll feel good (or better) reaching them.

That feels right, so it makes sense to make feeling good be our main measure of success.

When I was writing one day, I had a SO NOT successful streak:

I got caught in a downward spiral pretty fast.

My week hadn’t gone as planned and I was feeling behind before I had started typing.

Brrr, I was already in chilly territory.

Once I started working, my idea wasn’t gelling, which was frustrating.

Getting colder…

And the harder I worked, the worse I felt.

My emotions were screaming FREEEZING!!! but I kept pushing because the clock was ticking. Around midnight, I gave up and got ready for bed though my work wasn’t done.

I was thinking that committing to writing one story a week was a mistake.

And right after that, I had another thought…

And then another…

And then some more, all confirming that I’d bitten off more than I could chew at the time.

I was in despair when my head hit my pillow, and funnily enough that was perfect:

I was writing to share The Abraham-Hicks Emotional Guidance Scale, a tool that we can use to 1) stop emotional free falls like I was having, and 2) reach the goal of feeling good.

How ironic was that?

Had I practiced what I was planning to preach, I would have taken my butt to bed at 10 p.m.

Sometimes the best thing we can do to feel better is to fall asleep, because it stops the flow of bad-feeling stories going through our heads. Or we can do this:

1) Use the scale (below) to slow down, tune in and locate where you are emotionally.
2) Tell yourself better-feeling stories than what you’ve been thinking.
3) Once you’re truly feeling better than when you started, repeat the process.

The idea is to think your way up to the top of the scale, taking the time you need—hours, days, weeks, whatever—and patting yourself on the back for any upward movement and not beating yourself up for backsliding.

THE ABRAHAM-HICKS EMOTIONAL SCALE:

  1. Joy/Appreciation/Empowerment/Freedom/Love
  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/Desperation/Despair/Powerlessness

I went to bed that midnight feeling one of the lowest emotions: despair. Kind of. The irony of feeling worse while trying to write about an emotion-improving tool wasn’t lost on me.

So I changed my tune before I fell asleep:

Instead of repeating that I’d bitten off more than I could chew, I thought, “Chicky, you need a system. But right now, go to sleep and the writing will get done on time.” And that mental shift took me from mild despair at level 22, to full belief at level 4.

And my work got done, like I knew it would.

At that time, I’d been feeling a bit overwhelmed with the pandemic and other personal stuff. The good news was that I was halfway up the scale and all I needed to do to feel better was to think thoughts that helped me feel frustrated!

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