From Funk to Freedom in Minutes

5. Ask to be a Higher Expression. Invite higher energy to run your life. Spending even three minutes inviting the best in you to run your life can create rapid change in your situation. While driving, I'll often say out loud, "Please let me be an expression of love, peace, wisdom, compassion and joy." Hearing these words helps me to embody those qualities.

6. Count Your Blessings. My experience has been that the greatest key to happiness is what we focus on. If we mostly focus on what is wrong, we will be unhappy. The more we focus on our blessings and what is going right, the happier we are.

There are thousands of people who can’t see, walk, talk, or use their hands. I think about how fortunate I am to be able to dance, or enjoy a cup of coffee, and how my love-filled home brings me joy. I think about the trees, nature, and people in my life that I appreciate and love. This helps shift my mind from being heavily skewed to only seeing what is wrong.

When you realize you are ruminating on what is wrong, stop and shift to focusing on the things that are going right. State out loud five things that you are grateful for and spend 15 seconds feeling how you appreciate each one. I might say, "I am so grateful for the wonderful people in my life." Then, I'll feel the love we share and the fun we have. Actually go into the scene in your mind and feel the feelings of appreciation or happiness and it will help lift your mood and also retrain your mind to focus on what is right. You will experience more happiness every day.

7. Forgive Others and Yourself. When I feel hurt by someone, I try to find an excuse for them. So when a driver cuts in front of me, I'll think something like, "maybe they just lost their job," or I'll think, "I have accidentally done that myself, there goes me on a bad day."

If you are holding a judgment about someone, it hurts you because it keeps you stuck in bad energy. While you may be guided to address a wrong doing with that person, curtail obsessive thoughts about them and use practices two and six. Letting others be themselves, while you focus on being your highest self is the quickest way to improve negative situations.

Here, you can use prayer or intention, "Please help me to let go of judging Mary. Please help me have a higher understanding of this situation."

What works really well for me is to picture the person in my mind and send good energy from my heart to their heart and state my positive intention, "I really care about you and I want to work this out so we both win." When I see the person the next day, their attitude has often dramatically improved.

Sometimes, we need to forgive and show ourselves compassion. See the ways you are trying to be a good person and do the best you can. Put your hand on your heart and send yourself love and talk to yourself like a loving parent would to a child. Remind yourself that everyone hurts others and forgive yourself because you were doing the best you could in that moment.

8. Don't Cling to Good Things. When something good comes along, enjoy and treasure it, but energetically maintain a little detachment. Don't limit your security or happiness to one person or situation. This keeps you open so your life can morph into even better scenarios.

9. Follow those Nudges. Intuition often communicates through a knowing in our belly or in a way other than how we usually receive ideas. It is often a very quiet but clear knowing. If you are hesitant to do what intuition suggests, you can ask, "If this would be good for me to do, please give me a clear and undeniable feeling."

If thinking about doing something makes you feel lighter, clearer or truer, it's a good sign that it will benefit you to act on the guidance.

10. Focus on What You Want. Think and talk about what you want, not what you don't want. Recently, instead of griping about how I wasn't feeling creative, I told a friend, "I need to be creative again." And that night, I wrote this article!

Try the practices that feel most powerful to you for three days and you may be delighted to discover you can create your own happiness!

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Valerie Stuart offers sessions in Presence, a direct connection to the truth of who you are. She specializes in healing, lifework, relationship, spiritual issues and working with diet to heal disease. More info at the Private Sessions tab at www.livinginpresence.com

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From Funk to Freedom in Minutes
By Valerie Stuart

Growing up with emotionally disturbed parents often found me in deep despair. One night when I was 9 years old, I found myself sobbing as I prayed fervently to God to help me find a way to help people stop hurting.

Most of the practices in this article were developed during 30 years of working with people. I feel what you are about to read is the answer to that little girl's prayer.

Many clients shared that they were able clear negative emotions within minutes by using one or more of these practices. Some clients told me about miraculous changes that happened within a few hours or days of working with these practices. Start with practice one, two and three or try six, four and five. You can have fun discovering which sequences work best for you.

1. Say "Yes to The Mess. One of the most powerful things we can do is to truly be with our feelings. A good first step is to state out loud what emotion we are feeling, "I am really angry," or "I am really worried." This alone can bring relief as we stop fighting our feelings.

We all have bad moods, it is a part of being human. Try to find the place in you that can be OK with what you are feeling. When we judge ourselves for feeling bad, it adds an extra layer of negativity to have to work through. So, shift your attention away from judgmental thoughts and just meet the emotion directly.

For a few minutes, invite the emotion to just be there and take up all the space it needs inside of you, without acting it out or repressing it. This helps the emotion begin to lift. Just gently hold it like a loving parent holds a crying child. Take your focus off of the story in your head and just feel the emotion wherever it is in your body. Just sit quietly and hold it with calm and compassionate presence. If you start thinking, just stop and focus your attention on the felt sense of the emotion in your body.

Emotions often have a standard sequence. Typically, underneath anger is fear, then sadness or despair, and then tenderness, love and peace. We can help the emotion release by asking outloud, whichever one of these questions works best, "What is at the heart of this emotion? "What is underneath this emotion?"

Then, hold still, ignore the thoughts that come and wait for a feeling in your body. Then, hold and meet that emotion until it lifts as much as it can (usually about 2 minutes), and then state the question again for each emotion that comes up. Eventually, you enter into a deeper realization which might be experienced as peace, freedom, love, or just resting in radiant stillness.

Many of us learned caring means constantly worrying and thinking about an issue. While this is a strong habit for most of us, it is possible to greatly reduce obsessive thinking and the worry and anxiety it fuels.

2. Allow The Energy to Move! Let go of the story you are telling yourself. Try to be like a baby who has no idea about what is happening. Work to keep your energy open like you are breathing in fresh crisp air on a mountain. Breathe openness into tight places. Become as open and soft as you can, especially in your belly and heart. When we hold onto our perception, it keeps us stuck in that reality. When we let go and open our energy up, it makes room for the situation to quickly change. Remind yourself that you are SO much more than the situation you are dealing with!

3. Ask for Help. When I'm in a funk, I ask out loud, "Please help me lift up my energy. Please help me to be more at peace." Pray or ask for whatever qualities of being you want to feel that don't depend on people or circumstances changing. It can be while you are driving, standing in line, or getting dressed. Paradoxically, also just be with whatever is happening, without wishing for anything to change, perhaps even honoring the rightness of what is happening and where it may be leading you.

4. Hold onto What is Important. In your heart of hearts, what is it you most want to be? If you had all the money and everything you needed, what would you feel? Ultimately, we want to feel a quality of being like freedom, joy, love or happiness.

When I remember what I truly want to be, it helps that reality become stronger than the current situation. When I can hold this even just a little bit, it is amazing how quickly it transforms outer reality. Focusing on feeling the love or peace in my heart also helps.