Feel Your Way to an Interesting Life

This post can be interpreted either spiritually or psychologically. Feel free to interpret it either way since both work.

Most people look to their outer world in order to determine how they feel. They look to feel good by accomplishing goals, interacting with people, eating certain foods, going to certain places, buying certain products, etc. This has its place in life in the right dose. This also makes sense in a lot of ways since we do live in a physical world (or at lease seem to) where there are causes that lead to effects.

What I am proposing here though is to feel first, as a cause, as a tool to lead to various effects.

Yes, you can take this from a “Secret” or “Law of Attraction” perspective. With this perspective you imagine and feel something deeply enough to be true and then the underlying powers of the universe make it happen. I believe some aspects of this to be true, but I also don’t think that it is generally done correctly. Most people do this from a perspective of laziness while they’re metaphorically waiting for a watched pot to boil.

This isn’t really meant to be a deeply metaphysical post so I will leave the law of attraction stuff to that.

Here I’m looking on focusing more on using a “feelings first” strategy from a psychological perspective.

Most people don’t realize how much control we have over we feel. Many times when we are feeling badly it is because we are choosing to continue feeling that way. Sometimes we might get surprised by something where our initial reaction is anger or distress, but after this initial surprise we can choose to steer how we feel into more positive territory.

This might sound crazy, but try it right now. Choose to feel really happy. Smile if you have to. Focus and think of things that make you happy or excite you. Take a deep breath, sit or stand up straight, stretch out, feel energized…. More likely than not you should be feeling fairly happy, or at least much happier than you were seconds before. You are now in a much better position to achieve any goals you wish to accomplish, interact with other people or just have a better day.

Being in the proper mental state is important in the accomplishment of most tasks. Granted your biochemistry and more specifically your neurochemistry at any given time plays a large role in this, but isn’t the complete picture. At all times a large part of how you feel comes from how you are choosing to feel.

When you are in a positive state you are more likely to believe that things can turn out well and thus look for ways to make it happen. You tend to have more energy and are more likely to behave in a way where people to treat you better.

Many times in life people are choosing to feel badly as a way of getting attention which they believe on some level will make them feel good. They may do this subconsciously. They may do it because it worked when they were toddlers or during other periods of life. Perhaps they had a parent that would coddle them when they were down or certain friends would cater to them when they caused drama. Whatever the reason, the fact remains that many people feel badly out of choice. They are in fact spiting themselves in hopes (at some level) of attaining a certain type of happiness. This isn’t really a great way to achieve happiness unless maybe you’re an infant with little ability to communicate your needs.

It makes much more sense to choose to feel in a positive and capable state and then interact with the world.

You will find that it leads to better results and also perhaps more importantly it feels good along the way. I call this a win:win.

You will see and take advantage of more opportunities. You will meet more people that will enhance your life. You will find that things work out more for you. The sun will seem to shine that much brighter.

This process is simple, or at least the first step is. The most important part is to choose how you feel or at least move in that direction.