Feelings, like all things are energy, and there are low and high vibration feelings. Your vibration is based in the feelings, or emotional state you tend to be in most of the time. Most of us would prefer to be in higher vibration feelings like happiness and love most of the time, but may find this challenging. It is all about finding your joy and freeing yourself from the things that keep you in low vibration feelings like anger, frustration, depression, resentment, sadness. You have the power to lift these feelings and shift into higher vibration feelings like gratitude, love, joy, peace, and grace. Today I am sharing three practices to raise your vibration so you can receive more love, joy, abundance, and peace.
Some of you may be familiar with the concept of low and high vibrations and some of you may not. It’s simply energy frequencies. Every feeling we experience has a certain frequency and we are in a certain frequency, or vibration all the time. You are either in high vibration or low vibration; you cannot be both. The law of attraction tells us that whatever we put out, or present with, in the world day-to-day is what we will attract to us. Many of us tend to be conditioned or inclined to lower vibration feelings like worry, anxiety, depression, resentment, etc. Some of us struggle with the negative what if game or we have walls up from things that have happened to us.
What many of us don’t realize is that these things steal our joy and our life. Fortunately, we can change it, but we have to choose to do so. Today I am sharing three practices that will shift you from the lower vibration feelings like grief, anger, depression to higher vibration feelings like gratitude and love. These are:
- Live your joy.
- Forgiveness.
- Prayer.
If you have listened to my previous episodes or read my blog, you may know that I have struggled with depression and many other low vibration feelings in my life. In fact, it was when I was at my lowest point that I made the decision to change, which ultimately led me to where I am now. About ten years ago, I found myself in a very difficult and painful place. I was pregnant with my second child and had just discovered that my ex-husband was not who I thought he was, to put it mildly and so as not to go into specifics. He moved out when I was about two months pregnant with my daughter. There I was with my two-year old son, pregnant with my second child, betrayed, alone, and scared as hell. I was barely able to pay the bills and keep food on the table and I had no idea what I was going to do.
Two years later I met what I thought was a great guy and we started a relationship. It seemed to be going great until I discovered I was pregnant. About two months later he disappeared, and I haven’t seen or heard from him to this day. In the midst of these years, my father passed away, I went through a series of toxic situations in my work environment that made my day-to-day seem like a living hell. I was struggling with my weight; I was struggling financially; and I was coping with my pain and stress in unhealthy ways. Not surprisingly, I was depressed, I was angry, I was resentful, I was unhappy, and I felt pretty hopeless. I call this place I was in the pit. It just felt like I was at the bottom of a giant black hole in the earth, face down with no will to get up.
Though I felt this way day to day, I kept going. I felt like a shell of myself. I couldn’t see it at the time, but I was just perpetuating it by staying in that state. I didn’t feel like I had a choice; I didn’t feel I had control at all. It’s just what kept happening. People always betrayed me, or left, or lied, or exploited my kindness and trusting nature. And with each one, I added another layer to the giant wall I had amassed around my heart. As much as I wanted things to be different; to find genuine people and relationships, happiness, love, and just to feel better I couldn’t because I was in a low vibrational state all the time. I didn’t know then that people were just mirroring back to me what was inside and that I was attracting more of this because that was the state I remained in.
It was sort of by accident that I found I could change it. It started in one of my many weight loss programs where I learned about mindset and how to change it using affirmations. Over time, using affirmations all day every day, while also exercising and following good nutrition, I started to feel better. I loved myself again. I felt confident again. I felt happy again and I just felt better overall. In tandem with all this my relationship with God was deepening and I was spending time in prayer, meditation, and doing devotionals and reading the Bible daily. This helped me with the spiritual aspects of my healing, particularly forgiveness, grace, and refinement.
Of course, like all things in life, this hasn’t been linear and it hasn’t been perfect. I’ve had my ups and downs along the way and I’ve gone through various cycles and stages. I’ve had many different seasons of growth, which has included falling back into low vibrational states and pulling myself back out of them. So as I sat down reflecting back on things and how I could use this rough ride I’ve been on in the past decade to help others who may find themselves struggling with similar feelings and who may want to turn it around, these three practices came through for me to share with you today.
- Find your joy.
This can feel counterintuitive when you’re “in it” as I call it. Joy might feel like the pie in the sky kind of idea, but that doesn’t mean you can’t start taking steps to bring joy into your day, every day. The more you do, the more joy you’ll experience. What things bring you joy? Is it a house full of family and friends laughing and talking? Is it dancing to upbeat music? Does a day at the beach, the lake, or the river bring you joy? Watching your kids play and laugh? Make time and space in your day and week to do these things. But more than doing them, be present in the moment; lose yourself in these things to where you forget time and forget your worries.
I used to spend almost all of my evenings chewing over my problems, playing my negative “what if” movies in my mind. I’d get myself into panic attacks doing this at times. You know what it solved? Nothing. Not a damn thing. All it did was take that evening away from me as I imprisoned myself in my own mind. I threw away countless evenings and days this way. Sometimes it’s tough not to get sucked back into that, but the difference now is, I recognize it when it starts and I know I need to get my mind off it. So, I’ll check on my plants, or step outside and look at the beautiful view. Sometimes, I dance around my room. Sometimes I sketch or paint.
Where the mind goes, energy flows, and if your mind is always going into the worry, anger, chewing on the past, stewing about something that happened, then that’s exactly what you are going to get more of. If you want more joy and happiness, you have to direct your energy towards the things that may you feel joyful and happy. - Forgiveness.
This is probably both the most challenging and most important of the three practices I’m sharing today. Many of us have experienced things that seem unforgiveable and by most people’s standards certain things are unforgiveable. One of the reasons for this is the notion that forgiving someone is the same as condoning or accepting what they did, which makes us resistant to forgiving them. Another reason is we want vindication, we want justice, we want the wrong to be made right. But what we often fail to realize or perhaps just lose sight of is that forgiveness is for you. It doesn’t mean you condone what the person did and it doesn’t mean what they did was ok. Forgiveness sets you free from the prison of anger, bitterness, resentment. Refusing to forgive hurts nobody but you. It keeps you from fully receiving love, peace, joy, because anger, resentment, and bitterness cannot occupy the same space as love, peace, and joy.
It is easier said than done, but it is so important to forgive everyone and everything that has hurt you. This includes forgiving yourself. What are you hard on yourself for? What do you beat yourself up about? What have others done or said that you have allowed to mean something about you? What do you carry shame about? Forgive all of it and let it go. There is a reason Jesus told us to forgive, and it’s not just so God will forgive us; it’s also because of what it frees us from. All the feelings that come with holding onto what someone has done to you are destructive and steal life from you. - Prayer.
We have all heard the term “the power of prayer,” I’m sure, and for good reason; prayer is powerful. There are tons of research studies that have shown how powerful prayer is. Like everything it is energy, but it is also intention. Prayer is an act of surrender and an act of faith. In this sense, prayer is an essential practice for spiritual growth and ultimately to shift your vibration. Philippians 4 verses 6-7 says it all: Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
God tells us three very important things in this passage, that are critical to raising our vibration, and ultimately, receiving the things we pray for. First, don’t worry; He tells us not to be consumed with fear or anxiety. Second, he tells us to bring anything we want to Him and ask or it in humility and faith. Third, he tells us to be thankful. So, through prayer, we can lay our concerns, fears, troubles, or our desires, needs, and requests at his feet. In order to receive; for our prayers to be answered and fulfilled, we must also have faith, knowing God will fulfill our prayers, and, we must be in gratitude. This is gratitude for what we already have and the things God has already done for us, but also, gratitude for what we are praying for. Be thankful that what you have asked for is fulfilled, even before you see it in your reality.
I think many of us pray a lot, but we aren’t necessarily doing so in the way God describes here. We are told multiple times in the Bible that anything we ask of God will be given to us. Jesus, in Matthew 7:9, uses the example of a son asking for bread, you wouldn’t give him a stone instead, right? It’s n different with God, yet, we often struggle with the faith aspect. We think if it doesn’t happen that it’s not meant for us or that the answer is no, but really it’s that we aren’t playing our part, which is to trust and believe what we are told; that what we ask in prayer will be given to us. We need to do our part, which is to trust and believe that God will provide it and be in gratitude for what we have and what we have asked for in prayer.
Gratitude and faith are mentioned specifically for a reason. It goes back to what I said earlier, you cannot be in a low vibration feeling and a high vibration feeling at the same time; and whichever vibration you are in, is what you will get. So, if you are in fear and not faith, you get more fear and all that comes with fear, like anxiety, lack, etc. If you are in faith, you get all that comes with faith, like peace, security, comfort. Similarly, you can’t be grateful and discontent. If you are complaining all the time, you just get more of what you complain about. If you look for things to be thankful for instead, you get more of what you are thankful for. You cannot receive while whining, worrying, and grumbling all the time. You have to choose one or the other and God is telling us in these verses that the key is in the choice we make.
So, these are three practices for raising your vibration. The state that we find ourselves in is always our choice, as unpleasant and difficult as that can be to hear or accept. Nonetheless it is the truth. The beauty of this truth is that we can always change it, we can always make a different choice and I hope these practices for doing that here will help you in that endeavor. In my podcast episode on this topic, I also included a guided meditation to help clear any of these low vibrational feelings you may be holding onto. So tune into Episode 18 if you’d like to try the meditation.
I hope this has blessed you. Please share your thoughts in the comments. If you find this helpful and want to continue the pursuit of faith, fitness, and joy with me, please like and subscribe. You can also find Faith Fitness Joy on Facebook and Instagram or check out the podcast at https://faithfitnessjoy.podbean.com. I hope to see you in the comments and on the socials!