PRIMING THE PUMP: TAKE CHARGE OF YOUR EMOTIONS IN 4 STEPS (Summary)
Ask: How am I feeling in this moment? In general?
How do I want to feel? Make a list. (Collect a “basket” of great feelings)
Add a “Thank you” statement to each sentence in your list.
Tap and read/recite the list. Tune in to any changes in how you are now feeling. .
THE STEPS UNPACKED:
STEP ONE: TUNING IN TO YOUR INNER WORLD
Identify and write down how you are feeling right now. Know that there are no wrong or “bad” answers. If you are feeling frustrated, depressed or angry etc, that is TOTALLY ok! (Even if it doesn’t feel ok, you are showing up for yourself and are taking the first step towards feeling how you would prefer to feel.). You can use as many “emotion” words as you wish to give yourself a complete picture of your inner atmosphere. Refer to the diagrams at the bottom of this page for inspiration.
1. I AM FEELING ____________IN THIS MOMENT.
Next, assess how you have been feeling in the past few months.
2. IN GENERAL, I FEEL___________.
Note: The purpose of Step One is to begin to tune in to your inner world. The “List” you will be creating in Step Two can be a response to your answers in Step One, or that list can be wholly independent of how you are feeling in this moment. This will become clear as you do Step Two.
STEP TWO: CHOOSING/DECIDING HOW YOU WANT TO FEEL
Get out a journal or use your NOTES on your phone. Create a list from one of the two choices:
PICK: A. when you’re feeling negative and want to feel better :
or B. when you want to promote and sustain good feelings:
A: I WANT TO FEEL ___________. (Use the full sentence for each emotion: I want to feel calm. I want to feel focused. ETC.)
B: I LOVE FEELING ____________. (Again, use one sentence per emotion.)
Note: Once you have created both lists (perhaps on different days), you can combine them. See the next step.
STEP THREE: ADDING A STATEMENT OF APPRECIATION
To each line in your list, add a statement of appreciation:
E.G.: “I want to feel satisfied. I love feeling satisfied. Thank you for this feeling of satisfaction.” “I want to feel satisfied. I love feeling satisfied. I appreciate my desire/intension to feel satisfied.”
I can’t emphasize enough that you can’t get this “wrong” or do it “badly”. You can be as creative or simple as you feel like. If all you did was tap on “I want to feel calm” and NOTHING more, this exercise can still be wonderfully effective. Or you could tap “Thank you.” on the body’s meridian points, let your mind search for things to appreciate, do this multiple times a day, and get great results.
On the other hand, if you want to follow the full instructions, engaging your mind in this way can offer a creative distraction and a deliberate way to practice positive statements for raising your vibration.
STEP FOUR: GENERATING THE NEW FEELINGS
SLOWLY READ OR STATE ALOUD THE LIST THAT YOU CREATED IN STEP TWO:
“I want to feel____”. “I love feeling ______”. “Thank you for this feeling”.
NOTE: If, so far you have only made an “I want to feel_____” list, proceed with that. That is, read or state aloud, “I want to feel calm. I want to feel satisfied. I want to feel relaxed. I want to feel confident.” etc.
ALLOW YOURSELF TO CLOSE YOUR EYES AND REPEAT EACH SENTENCE.
EXPERIMENT WITH YOUR BREATH: Take a full breath after each sentence so that your mind has time to absorb the benefits of the recitation. As you allow your breathing to deepen, you will start to feel a perceptible shift in your energy field.
NOTE: As in all of the exercises on this site, you can supercharge the positive effects by adding EFTapping to your reading or reciting of the statements. See EFTapping for instructions. This will become “second nature” once you have used the EFTapping sequence a few times.
Now check in to see if you “moved the needle”, particularly if you used the breathing and/or the tapping. Do you feel more centered? Do you feel a pleasant tingling in your hands? Do you feel energy moving in your body? Is your mind feeling settled?
If the answer is “NO”, experiment with making it very simple: I want to feel calm. Repeat that statement as you gently tap on each point around the body.
PRACTICE! PRACTICE! PRACTICE!
Feel free to post your list on your bathroom mirror or in your car. It can be helpful to tie the exercise to a daily habit: e.g., upon rising or going to sleep; when you go into the bathroom or when you get into your car, before you set out or when you arrive home. As you incorporate this exercise into your day, (say 3-4 times/day), you will begin to feel a shift in your sense of well-being and self-empowerment. Most compellingly, you can expect to feel better, with conscious intention, in this present moment!
SAMPLE LISTS:
I want to feel calm. I love feeling calm. Thank you for this calm feeling.
I want to feel relaxed. I love feeling relaxed. I appreciate myself for letting go.
I want to feel present in my body. I love feeling present. I thank myself for my attention in this present moment.
I want to feel whole. I love feeling whole. I appreciate this comforting feeling of wholeness.
I want to feel good. I love feeling good. I love knowing that it’s good to feel good!
I want to feel secure. I love feeling secure. Thank you for this feeling of security.
I want to feel content. I love feeling content. Thank you for this deep contentment.
I want to feel peaceful. I love feeling peaceful. I appreciate this moment for the opportunity to feel the presence of peace.
I want to feel happy. I love feeling happy. Thank you for my happiness.
I want to feel loving. I love feeling loving. Thank you for my loving heart.
I want to feel loved. I love feeling loved. Thank you for my experiences of feeling loved.
I want to feel healthy. I love feeling healthy. I appreciate my abundant health.
I want to feel supported. I love feeling supported. Thank you for all the ways I feel supported.
Note: After you have read/recited your list several times, you can begin to experiment with how you want to use your lists. You can string the statements together and really sink into one feeling. For example:
“I want to feel relaxed. I love feeling relaxed. Thank you for this feeling of deep relaxation.”
Or, you can read down each list in its entirety and then move to the next list:
I want to feel calm. I want to feel relaxed. I want to feel focused. Etc.
I love feeling calm. I love feeling relaxed. I love feeling focused. Etc.
Thank you for this calm. Thank you for this relaxation. Thank you for my ability to focus. Etc. And of course you can modify the emotions in your list to suit any given moment or situation.
NOTE: Presented here are two diagrams of major human emotions. There are hundreds of words beyond what you will find here, which describe, with great nuance, what can be felt in any given moment. If you are earnest about wanting to change your inner emotional landscape, it is helpful to identify where you are on these scales. If you don’t see the “right word”, go with your own definition of what you are feeling.
It is likely that you will identify many feelings including ones that seem in direct opposition to each other. Go with all that resonate for you. STEP ONE asks you to identify both what you are feeling right now (your current mood) and also to identify your typical day-to-day overall demeanor (referred to by Abraham as your emotional or vibrational set point). For example, you can know yourself as a generally optimistic person (the #5 set point on the scale below…) but be feeling frustrated in this moment in response to what you are currently experiencing. Or you can know your friend to be a worrier (#14) in general, but you can see him experience joy as he is greeted by his dog.
So, emotions are both immediately felt and, with enough strength and momentum, create a cumulative effect as well. That is, what you have been giving your attention to over time consolidates into your general inner atmosphere (vibrational set point). That being said, the only time you can do anything about the quality of your emotions is in THIS NOW. By using any of the exercises on this website, you have the opportunity to consciously return again and again to the Present, where “all your power lies”, to make those satisfying changes and take control over what is truly only yours to control. With the deliberate intention to feel good in this present moment, you can improve your vibrational set point and ultimately your Life. According to Abraham, this attention to your emotional well-being is truly the most important creative step you can take before embarking on any other kind of action.
