I’ve spent the last couple of blog posts talking about how to feel bad.
I hope I’ve conveyed how important it is to feel and process our negative emotions fully.
What we resist persists.
This basically means pushing those feelings down doesn’t make them go away.
They get bigger. They get stuck.
They affect our relationships, and they make us sick and unhappy.
But when we learn how to feel bad in a healthy, productive way, we can move on more quickly and easily to feeling good.
Most of us have to learn the skill of feeling bad.
But many of us also have to learn the skill of feeling good.
You would think feeling good would come naturally.
But just like we have to acknowledge and allow our negative emotions, we also have to acknowledge and allow our positive emotions.
Like, really FEEL them.
We tend to push the good feelings down just as we do with the bad ones.
You know when someone compliments you, and you brush it off?
Or when you accomplish something, and you just move on to the next thing?
This was pointed out to me recently by my coach.
I achieved a significant milestone in my business.
But instead of taking time to feel proud, accomplished, or grateful, I skipped right over it to focus on the next hurdle.
Our brains are wired to look for problems. That’s what comes naturally.
But what if you took the time to FEEL complimented or FEEL accomplished and celebrate it?
I’ll tell you what, you will rewire your brain.
You will teach it to be comfortable with feeling good, and it will begin to look for more reasons to feel good.
And then you will create a cycle of goodness.
When we feel better, we do better, and when we do better, we have better lives.
Feeling good can become your new normal.
Start practicing this by intentionally thinking about what’s working, what went well, what you want, and what you have.
Then pause and FEEL the positive emotion.
This is where the magic takes place.
That feeling sends a message to your brain that creates the rewiring.
What does it physically feel like in your body to feel positive emotion?
Well, it depends on the emotion, but generally, it feels warm, light, expansive, and full.
And you create this feeling with your thoughts.
Try it.
Then get comfortable with this feeling, and your brain will go to work to create more of it.