Care about how you feel

Like many of you, I am a deep empath. I can easily feel the world in my body, and sense the vibrations of others. I have to work diligently to keep my focus on love and good feelings, while witnessing daily the pain, fear, and sadness in the world, in my clients, and my in-box. If I had not learned to care about how I feel and how I focus, I’d have burnt out years ago. At times I do forget, for a while, and then my body or my life quickly reminds me.

As a musician must practice their craft, or an artist must make time for their muse, I must make time in my life to constantly recalibrate myself to love. The more I practice, the easier it has become, but it is an ongoing discipline, not some perfect state I’ve reached and stay in all the time. I talk to so many dear souls who are so hard on themselves when they slip out of love, yet we all do, often many times a day! The goal isn’t about learning to be perfect all the time. The real trick is learning how to recalibrate ourselves to love quickly and easily so we can “get back in the vibrational saddle” and get back to creating the lives and world we love.

The angels have taught me to prioritize feeling good. I take time every day to do something that refills my soul. I take time in silence in the morning before work whether quieting the mind in meditation, reading a short uplifting passage from one of my favorite books, or watching the birds. I take time every night before bed, no matter how late, to do something uplifting for my soul like watching a YouTube video to learn some new creative skill, using my Muse meditation headband to see how many birds I can get (birds chirp sweetly on the app when you go into deep meditation!), or even just sitting on the patio in the dark enjoying a peaceful silence. Some nights I revel in a good cup of hot cocoa with marshmallows, and on others, I challenge myself to sit and list all there is to appreciate about the day. I take time morning and night if only a few minutes to recalibrate to love.

I’ve also cultivated a habit of looking for the good and turning towards what feels like love. I appreciate my clients reaching for love. I appreciate the angels. I appreciate my meals, my kitchen, and the sunflowers that re-seeded themselves and are blooming like crazy this year. I appreciate my friends and think often with a grateful heart about those I love. When someone is cruel or unkind it doesn’t feel good to get angry in return. Instead, I pray for them and then immediately turn my focus to those who are loving and kind in my life. When someone disappoints me, it doesn’t feel good to wallow in my disappointment. Instead, the angels have taught me to hug and comfort myself, to let it go, and to do something kind for myself. When I see horrors and atrocities in the world. I quiet my mind, tune into God and ask this Presence of love to wash through me to all who are hurtful and hurting and to let me know if I can do anything else. When I mess up my body and I’m in pain, I take time to remember feeling good and follow the inspirations to fix myself.

I calibrate towards love whenever and wherever I can. Last weekend on Mother’s day, I was thinking about how much my mom and I have grown into a beautiful, deep, loving relationship and was inspired suddenly to call at exactly the time when she and my Dad were at a celebration lunch thousands of miles away. I felt like I was with them.

I hung up and missed them. That didn’t feel good so I recalibrated to love. I decided to celebrate Mother’s day with my garden. I gave all my little plants their favorite cocktails. Some got a solution of eggshells soaked in vinegar overnight and mixed with water (equal parts eggshell to vinegar, soak overnight, and then use 4T of this in a gallon of water – google “plants that like eggshells”). Others got a cocktail of Epsom salts (1 T to a gallon of water). I suddenly was inspired to take a Starbucks break… just in time (of course!) for them to put out their “grounds for the garden! Back home, I went, coffee and grounds in hand to give my hibiscus, potatoes, and cucumbers their favorite snack – coffee grounds! Talk about shared joy!

I am all too aware of the atrocities in the world. I am aware of the rapes, murders, hatred, possession, and a myriad of other horrid things going on. I am aware of the greed, manipulation, and forces that are unseen but nonetheless real. These things exist. I ask God to tell me what I can do about them and when, and when inspired I act, donate, pray, meditate, hold a soul in an embrace of love, call a friend, write a client, or do whatever is guided.

Meanwhile, my only job – and yours – is to make sure we’re not at war by battling ourselves, life, or others, and to exist in a space of love as often as we can, recalibrating often when necessary and remembering that to feel good is to feel God.

Here are a few tips to help you recalibrate to feeling good & feeling God...

1. God doesn’t keep score

There is a tendency among many of us who try to exist in love, to beat ourselves up when we slip out of it, and as a result to disallow ourselves from feeling good immediately! There’s a mistaken notion that we need to punish ourselves for our so-called mistakes so we won’t make new ones.

That’s nonsense. It doesn’t work… and God doesn’t keep score.

The minute you get your mind out of the muck and focus on something that feels better, you deserve to feel better. You chose it. You are allowed to feel good if you suddenly shift to compassion even after you were feeling nasty and judgmental a few seconds ago. Focus forward, not backward. Focus on the fact that you recalibrated to love and love feels good.

There is never a need to withhold good feelings from yourself. Just do your best to choose them, then enjoy them. God doesn’t keep score. God just welcomes you home to love.

2. Remind yourself often, “I care about how I feel, therefore I must care about how I focus.”

When you don’t feel so great, you’re focusing on something that doesn’t feel good. Sounds easy but we often blame the world, our bodies, someone else, etc. The bottom line is that we are not focusing on something that feels good.

Someone could be terrible to us but if we have compassion for their disconnection, we’ll feel good. We could see the most horrific news and focus on it and feel terrible or we could stop, pray for all involved and look for examples of people who are caring and kind.

Our body might be in pain but we can focus on the pain or use our willpower to focus on something better (been there, in serious pain, and it works!).

We might be completely unable to shift our focus on our own, but we can turn our focus on some good music, breathe, and ask the angels for help. Even asking for help is a positive shift in focus and feels better than telling ourselves we can’t feel good.

We get to choose. If you care about how you feel, you must care about how you focus.

3. Care less about the topic and more about the feeling of Love

When you love or appreciate anything or anyone, you are calibrating to love. I can appreciate my hot cocoa or aim love at a lost soul and it is the same vibration of love that I’m tuned to regardless of who or what inspired it.

It helps to have a large list of things that you appreciate, shows, books, music, or quotes that uplift you, and disciplines that you know will work for you. It is useful to have some go-to meals or activities that feel good. Collect a repertoire of things, thoughts, people, or practices that help you recalibrate to love. It doesn’t matter so much what helps you calibrate to love. It matters that you choose something that does.

Love is love no matter what focus you adopt to feel it. Care more about the feelings and less about the topics that inspire them.

It is sometimes hard to permit ourselves to feel good in a world where many are not. However, if we want to be the change, this calibration to love is our soul’s most important work in a given lifetime. Focus on good, feel good, and as the angels say, “Then you’ll feel God.” Let’s all give ourselves permission to feel good, feel God, and become open channels through which love can pour into the world and of course, into our own lives more strongly.