Note that BOLD TEXT is intentionally set up to help you scan & skim & scram.

Storytime, or Telling on Myself
I found myself unhappy with the choices I made one evening: I was too sedentary, resisted going out into nature when I still could have, then comforted myself by with a digital game that became the phone equivalent of a bag of potato chips.

When I came to for real (the inner tugs were happening all along, but no thanks), I was fascinated once again by how quickly the mind goes to making myself wrong, considering myself a loser, scolding myself for not doing better, accusing myself of being a fraud, and more of the stuff that matches that. Familiar?

None of this is loud or continuous in my current way of being, and typically may even have no words actually or consciously put to it. I do really value catching and practice catching the subtler stuff at earlier stages. And, as it happens for the typical humanoid, the subtle, quiet stuff gets more blaring and glaring as you keep ignoring the earlier stirrings of what feels off. Which I did, that evening, so yeah—glaring & blaring came along as my head started hurting and my eyes burning and actual sentences forming to attack my character.

Catching Yourself & Remembering or Reminding Yourself of a Few Things
I took in that I’d been feeling worse and worse and that I was in low-level self-loathing. I reminded myself of a few things that were within reach (and the more you practice this, the more you have within reach):

• If I’m seeing myself as bad or wrong, I’m not seeing myself through the eyes of Source.
• Feeling bad (according to Abraham-Hicks) means that I’m out of alignment with Source and that my Inner Being is holding the topic at hand in a different way than I’m now narrating it to myself—and it’s that disconnection from Source or Inner Being that makes me feel bad.
• There will always be contrast, and here I am in the midst of a contrasting experience, in that stuff I don’t like and don’t aspire to.
• This is not a punitive Universe unless I make it that way.
• Reconnecting now as best I can would represent my getting behind the idea I don’t deserve punishment. (Note that it doesn’t take much to believe you don’t deserve to sleep well, be happy, keep doing great work, be lovable, feel good in your body have a great life; if you think you don’t do this, I invite you to get more subtle and catch even a whiff of it.)

Refocusing
If I had refocused earlier, it would have been easier, taken less time, and allowed me a shift into an evening of acceptance and baseline contentment at the very least. (You’ll see an image of the Emotional Scale from Abraham-Hicks below, and contentment, at #7, is the last thing on the positive end of the scale before things head into what feels worse and worse. Sometimes they call that point satisfaction. I think of just accepting what is without judging it as being at that baseline as well.)

But no. I refocused at bedtime. I did go to bed ridiculously early, which was a very good idea. Especially since I hold a strong well-practiced credo of putting myself to bed kindly and releasing the day, whatever it did or didn’t hold, and declaring, Tomorrow, all things new, all things possible.

By refocusing, I mean reaching for the right process or soothing support here & now. Just reach for what might feel right. If you ever read what I write, you know I love me a good inquiry or focusing process. You can find the word process as a category tag on my blog to find the ones I’ve written up over time. There’s also stuff on my website under tools. A favorite process of mine is EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique, or tapping), and there’s now more than one playlist on my YouTube channel devoted to that. (And for now, I’m still offering free EFT for whoever shows up on a Saturday morning at 10 ET—see link on homepage of my website.)

Reach for the Easiest Process First
That night, I decided to listen to an Abraham audio in the dark while lying in bed. But first, I did a quick mental listing of what had gone right that day. Otherwise stated, I found easy existing matches for the idea that I did do some things right, or that the whole day wasn’t a bust. I generally recommend & practice doing such things in writing or at least speaking them aloud, but I DIDN’T WANNA. The mental review still helped a lot.

The fascinating thing was that I discovered or took in all over again that I’d actually had a great day. I’d felt good all day (till late afternoon); I’d gotten some things done I felt good about doing; I’d been a supportive and kind presence to my elderly parent I live with; I did that in ways that felt easy and genuine for me (not taxing, not sacrificial), including watching The Six Triple Eight together, which we’d both been wanting to see & were happy to watch; I’d had a sweet, fun conversation with my stepdaughter; and then some!

Side Note about Globalizing Bad Feelings
How quickly a bad feeling about one thing in life or one part of a day becomes the whole story! And it’s just not true—or it’s not an accurate assessment (a sure sign that it’s not time to assess). So make it a habit not to believe and take off running with any globalized sense that everything about you is wrong or bad—or everything about your life, your future, your relationship, your work, your finances, your anything. Please certainly do not accept it as a valid basis for beating yourself up (um, because nothing is that).

Reach for the Next Process that Could Help in Another Way, from Another Direction
Then I put on my headset and turned on the desired Abraham audio on my phone, with the intention of receiving good reminders and some soothing. Note that intention matters. I was not looking to find what I’d done wrong or how I could do better. This would have skewed what I heard into a warped process of figuring out what was wrong with me or what I’d done wrong or even how I got off-track.

Is the importance of that crystal clear? That kind of setup basically exacerbates the sense of being wrong and amplifies the feeling bad. Even more important, it doesn’t let in soothing in the fastest or most efficient way. (Kind of like piping water through tubing with kinks in it.)

Sometimes, looking for soothing is the only thing to do (and please don’t read or treat this as a last resort!). Abraham likes to say, Soothing is the solution. Or, Soothing is solving. Especially at the end of the day—and certainly any other time or area when or where you’re particularly vulnerable (too much happening at once, scary or super-hard things going on, experiencing physical or chemical imbalance, having a particular person or group of people in your field, being thrown off in some specific realm of life …).

​Keep Expanding into the Wanted Feeling State
A certain discipline is required to keep rejecting ugly thought forms that introduce themselves. Whether this means self-accusation or hating on someone else or making bleak predictions about the future (anything in the mental realm that feels bad!), just take these thoughts for what they are: concepts still trying to form as words and images to match the bad feelings that took hold. Basically, those feelings have a certain amount of momentum going, and they won’t just screech to a halt, even as you’ve consciously begun the pivot in the other direction.

Let’s say another defeating or self-critical thought creeps in. Give it a nod, or label it something simple--That’s just a thought. Or declare, That’s not completely true, or tell yourself, It’s really not time to evaluate. If you can just witness it and refocus, even better. How quickly can you notice mental activity or feel in your emotional body that you’ve gone off the soothing lane and onto the rumble strip—and simply head back to soothing?

Whenever you’re rejecting or moving away from something, see how clear you can be about what you’re embracing or moving toward. So that night as self-castigation tried to reassert itself, I kept releasing that and heading toward soothing by dropping in again with whatever the Abraham voice was saying in that moment. (And that, of course, was encouraging, not scolding me.)

SIDENOTE about emotional scale above.
I caught this screenshot of the emotional scale from Abraham-Hicks during an Abraham-Now Broadcast. These are amazing video programs you can sign up to receive live (which also gets you the replay to listen to again and again, one of which I was listening to in the story in this writing). They cost about $50 each. There’s a benefit I’m finding from hearing the most current transmission of Abraham wisdom, which is always fine-tuning and evolving, and from being part of the building dialogue as people from various parts of the planet bring questions and share experiences of applying the concepts from one broadcast to the next.


Noticing a Thing or Two for Future Reference
I find that most mental notes to do better next time don’t do much good. Practicing meeting yourself kindly wherever you are, over and over, sitch after sitch, day in and day out—that does all kinds of good. It sets up a new or ever-stronger tendency or habit pattern of walking yourself through anything well. So when I look ahead to a sort of doing it better next time, I like to focus it this way: What could actually help?

That night, I noticed that it helps when I remember that late (in this case not that late but later) in the day is a potentially vulnerable time for me, and it does me good to slow down at that time and check in if anything feels off.

I noticed that I hadn’t done any segment intending for that evening. I love segment intending, and had used it earlier in the day (back when things were going well!), but didn’t use it when hunger struck in the late afternoon … and Mom was ready for food too, and I’m the cook, and I told myself it was too late to go outside for a walk. (In fact, I could still have managed both simple food and simple outing.)

Segment intending sets up simple intentions for how you want to feel, or how you want to show up, in just the next one thing ahead. That could have supported my choices and their execution, as it usually does quite nicely. And, again, maybe using segment intending during or when facing the time I’m most likely to wobble (for me, late in the day) could be an excellent tactic to keep in view. (I like to literally post notes about things like that until they’re imprinted on my consciousness.)

Finally, Abraham said something in the audio reminding me to just feel better, and gently move up the emotional scale. I had lost track of that. I had been moving down that scale over the course of the evening! Look at the tipping point under #7, contentment, on the scale in the diagram above. I could have kept myself there if not headed upward, but I made a boring choice when I sat down to play a game and, from boredom, started feeling pessimistic while going more unconscious. Subtly and surely, then less subtly and super surely, down the scale I went. It didn’t look like much to the naked eye (no debauchery, no meanness, no money gambled or spent), but it felt bad, and my response was a numbing tactic (just onnnnnnnne more word game). I lost track of feeling better and simply CHOOSING into feeling better. Which is the simple and sure-fire way to move up the emotional scale instead of further down.

No Matter What’s Up: EVERY DAY IS A NEW DAY
I slept well and woke up predisposed to reach for feeling better. In the past, going to bed in a bad state would have meant waking up in that state and expecting to have, then creating, a wretched day. This is why I remind myself at night, Tomorrow, all things new, all things possible.

I put on an audio first thing (which I typically do anyway as a great way to establish a desired set point quickly). I sat down to do a couple of processes to further establish myself in the focus I wanted for this new day. When I caught some color coming through the window, I stepped outside for one of the best sunrises I’ve seen in a while, with gold and peachy colors at the base and rising layers of violet and mauve, with a few blues peeking through. Bonus, a pair of robins were not only singing heartily nearby, but also doing some acrobatic flirting and frolicking. Spring in the air!

And that, my friends, is how to refocus so you create improvements from a better point of departure.

Perhaps you’ve noticed that trying to do better from the point of telling yourself all that you’ve done wrong and how you must really do better in fact does NOT move you along very quickly or very well? That it creates a miserable journey in conflict with the goal of getting you to a better place? I invite you to to keep finding, practicing, and coming back to simple ways to be your own best ally. Soothe yourself. Walk yourself toward the best version of yourself. But don’t expect yourself to be there all the time.

That last bit is literally a sentence Abraham said into my headset that night. And it was soothing: Of course I won’t be there all the time. There will always be contrast. And I can pay attention to how I feel and reach for feeling better whenever I notice I’m feeling bad. I’ve got this. You’ve got this. We’re all in this together.

Love & blessings, Jaya

​Shortest read: Scroll down past the first photo and skim through the end for the things you’re likely to say to yourself in the headings. Drop in with those to see how else you might approach it and what other words might serve you better.

Less of this:

• This can’t be happening.
• This is bad.
• This is not okay.
• What is wrong with me?
• How could I have done (thought, said) that?
• This is so hard.
• I feel so guilty.
• I have to figure this out.
• I can’t
• I don’t know what to do.
• I don’t know how.
• I’ll mess it up.
• I messed it up.
• I missed my chance.
• Everything’s ruined.
• It’s not gonna happen.

INTERRUPT that shit. Stop talking, get off the topic, hit the pause button, redirect your focus, move away from this, get out of head and into body, do anything but keep following those trains of thought or bits of dialogue. You’ll just built momentum in the wrong direction if you keep going with something that was not a useful direction to go in the first place—a direction that leads to all that you don’t want.

Next I’m going to offer better things to say to yourself for each of the above. Essentially, all we're doing here is what Abraham-Hicks calls reaching for better-feeling thoughts.

Replace each heading below with something like the suggestions that follow. Feel better? More of that. Each sentence under each original statement could represent one next thought to reach for that feels even a little bit better than the first thing that popped into your head or out of your mouth.

This can’t be happening.
This is reality, so it must be normal human stuff that I don’t need to get all riled up about. I’d like to accept what’s happening here, which doesn’t require me to like it or approve of it. I’d like to get real. From that place, I think I can see more clearly and peacefully where I’d prefer for things to go.

This is bad.
This is just life unfolding. I don’t need to label it good or bad, just soothe myself where it feels bad and reach for thoughts, words, ideas, a vision, one action to take that feels better.

This is not okay.
It’s okay. It’s really okay. I’m okay. (Hey, younger me, I’ve got you. You’re okay. This isn’t the old thing you were stuck in. We’re not stuck here.)

What is wrong with me?
There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m on a human journey and sometimes I’m in touch with loving that journey. I’ve come a long way. All is well. I’m willing to keep showing up, learning, growing, healing, being a better version of myself.

How could I have done (thought, said) that?
There’s nothing I ever do that isn’t normal human stuff. When it feels off to me, I can love that my guidance system is working. When I feel bad about it, I can make myself feel better and take actions that feel aligned to me. I can simply course-correct. I don’t have to make identity out of anything I do, think, or say. I can simply keep feeling into what I prefer and head that way.

This is so hard.
This is just unpracticed. It’s probably not that hard. I could build these muscles. I could get used to this. I really just need to try the new way here and now and not jump ahead mentally beyond this moment.

I feel so guilty.
Most guilt is false and based on old concepts I no longer believe or someone else’s concepts I don’t need to subscribe to. If I feel guilty, instead of carrying around a guilty feeling and talking (to myself or others) about how guilty I feel, I can check it out. If I’m really guilty, there’s stuff to do (make amends, clean it up, do something else now or later). But if I’m not, then I simply need to soothe the part of me that’s uncomfortable about something here. (I don’t like being seen by them in this way; I hate not giving someone what they seem to need and want from me; I don’t like disappointing them; …

I have to figure this out.
I don’t need to figure this out right now. I need to soothe myself and get into a better space and then watch for inspiration—maybe just for one next step to take toward what feels aligned with what I’m after.

I’ll never figure this out.
I’ve learned so much in my lifetime, corrected so many wrong understandings, expanded my viewpoint, stretched my perspective … I’m open to perception shifts and new information and awareness. I don’t have to have everything clearly in view right now. In fact, that’s not how it works. What I see and don’t see now is all good enough.

​I can’t.
I’ve surprised myself with things I’ve gotten to that I didn’t know I could get to. I will again. I may or may not achieve this specific thing. I’m still going to keep aiming for things I want to create and experience and be/do/have and who knows how life will surprise me next, and how I may yet surprise myself.

I don’t know what to do.
I don’t need to know what to do. I can just soothe myself and get realigned and then I’m more likely to see one way to aim roughly in the right direction.

I don’t know how.
I’ve done so many things I didn’t start out knowing how to do. I don’t need to know how. I need to keep in view what I’m after, what matters to me, and follow what comes to me to do.

I’ll mess it up.
I’d like to be done predicting my own failures or graceless processes. I’d like to be willing to fail or bumble through something without making identity of it—or start making identity out of my badass risk-taking self.

I messed it up.
This didn’t give me the outcome I wanted. That’s okay. That’s a normal human experience and part of the human journey. In fact, I’ve gotten so much better at releasing outcome, which sometimes enables me to move forward when I’m not sure how things will go. So … Now what?

I missed my chance.
Life is full of opportunities. The field of pure potentiality is always before me. Life brings things around again & again & again. As Abraham-Hicks says, You can’t miss the boat because there’s always another boat coming.

Everything’s ruined.
I love catching myself in all-or-nothing thinking and knowing it can’t be true. Everything can’t be ruined. I’m still alive. There’s more to love, enjoy, savor, learn, create, play with …

It’s not gonna happen.
I don’t know what’s next or what will or won’t come to be. I know I have a few things I’d like to head toward. I love the journey. I love remembering it’s a journey, not a struggle toward a series of outcomes. What will be will be, and in the meantime, here I am. I so appreciate getting to be here.

Got it? The simple concept is, less of what makes you feel bad, more of what is soothing and encouraging and makes you feel better-good-great. Walk yourself through kindly. Speak to yourself in ways that are actually helpful. Do not ALLOW yourself to carry around thoughts that defeat you and make you feel like you’re not living your life well, you’re not enough, you’re not equipped for reality. You’re doing great. You’re equipped. You’re amazing.

Love & blessings, Jaya

PS. I also have a post on a simple way to recognize thoughts as working for or against you! Upstream or Downstream?

Also relevant, is Talk yourself through. How do you want to talk to yourself as you kindly walk yourself through things acting like your own best ally?

This is a relatively brief one, so take it in. As always, you can sift through following the bold print if you want a quicker read. Get the gift of this important thing to notice & reframe, with easy tactics for making this all feel better and for your beautiful life to go better for you!

This persistent NOT ENOUGH thing. You too?
I still catch myself, while doing things, moving about my world, transitioning from one task or event to the next, holding a vague sense of finding myself wrong, not doing enough, not having gotten to something yet, not performing or achieving at the right level, not not not …

Sometimes I feel a vague or acute disappointment or dissatisfaction, especially at the day’s end, that I might put any or all of these words to:

• I didn’t get enough done today
• I still haven’t done X or Y
• I’m not doing enough in general
• I’m not accomplishing enough
• How will I fulfill my potential at this rate?

If you amplify all of this (and some egoic part of you actually thinks its job is to amplify this), this swiftly swells into a baseline (wrongly held as factual) of I’M NOT ENOUGH. (Hey, whether you’re actively saying that to yourself OR NOT, that’s the message.) It may even follow a dissonant crescendo all the way to I’M NOT A GOOD PERSON BECAUSE I’M NOT DOING ENOUGH.

Um. WTF?
It’s so unfair, and it’s just wrong. It’s based on a false premise that your worth is and must be established by what and how much you do. It implies that this constant negative assessment (which by some wacky defiance of emotional mathematics keeps adding up to NOT ENOUGH) somehow does something of value.

To be clear: It does not. Go ahead and look for whether that soothes you, bolsters you, motivates you, energizes you, inspires you …

It’s also horrendous self-parenting. Imagine the parent following the kid around while tensely describing what they’re not getting to and how they’re not doing enough and how disappointing they are in what they are and aren’t doing. BAD parenting.

Imagine putting a child to bed at the end of the day with a furrowed brow and a list of all they haven’t gotten to and what they didn’t do well enough and what they’d better be on top of tomorrow …

This is not the picture of parenting that goes with a thriving child, is it?

Here’s what I do with this:
I interrupt it every time. I interrupt it as quickly as I notice it (at the first whiff of it) so it doesn’t build momentum. I do not accept walking around with that sensation, never mind any self-talk that might go with it.

When I catch it and interrupt it, I give myself (usually out loud to fully hear them) new messages that feel good and encouraging. Messages that

• establish: I love my life, my dance with consciousness, myself
• remind me life is not a to-do list
• call me back to grace, to unearned worthiness just because I’m here
• promote holding myself with love and approval and a sense of well-being

Because that positive, generous vision of myself, held in view, reinforced, and constantly cultivated, is actually what points me to flow with life in the best way. That’s what calls me to feeling good and embodying goodness and creating good and beautiful things.

Sometimes living in the flow does look like accomplishment and efficiency, and sometimes it does not. The flow is the flow. One version of it is not better than the others. We all know it feels better when we’re in it. We all know what resistance to the flow feels like. If we try to make the efficient version of flow the right version, we will, again and again, judge ourselves harshly and be disappointed in ourselves.

​Time for reparenting, or conscious self-parenting
If you didn’t get perfect parenting, welcome to the club. Whatever you did or didn’t get, it’s up to you now. Will you parent yourself unkindly, always gazing at yourself through that NOT ENOUGH lens? Or by bringing in calm, soothing, encouragement, positive messaging? Will you tenaciously hold yourself in good esteem?

Why should accomplishment and efficiency be the ruler by which you measure your worth, your whole life, or even any given day? That doesn’t even make sense. That sounds like modern human foolishness, not universal or divine intelligence.

I invite you NOT to ALLOW ongoing self-defeating inner dialogue and negative assessment. I invite you to quick interruption of what is unfair and inaccurate and keeps you feeling bad. Then aim for what feels better, and tell yourself the things you need to hear to soothe and encourage yourself, to promote loving your life as your wondrous dance with consciousness.

Toward that end, here’s a 15-minute 3-centers meditation (addressing body, heart, head) that contains positive messaging in and for each center. And if you like the 3C approach, you can join in live every day from 11:45 to noon six days a week. My lovely colleague Rebecca Mehnert leads on M-W-F, and I’m on T-Th-Sat. Join link is on the homepage of my website (scroll all the way down).

Love & blessings, Jaya

Note that I have a blog post that teaches Abraham Hick's MARBLE GAME and uses the ubiquitous idea of not emough time as the topic to illustrate how the process goes.

Questions with obvious answers
These aren’t worth asking, yet we do ask them or even ask nonverbally. Maybe cut to the chase, and head for that obvious answer?

• Should I hang out with this person who drains me?
  
  
• Should I spend the holiday with these people who yank me back to old stuff I don’t want to be in?
  
  
• Should I keep doing this thing that’s making me hate myself while I do it?
  
  
• Should I make small talk with and be polite to this person I don’t respect or enjoy?
  
  
• Should I smile for them when no genuine smile is arising for me?
  
  
• Should I stay in this interaction that’s becoming increasingly violent by the second (even with no physical violence involved)?
  
  
• Should I stay longer as I notice myself feeling more and more contracted [exhausted, withdrawn, frustrated, humiliated, powerless, overwhelmed, …]?

​​

• ​Should I keep following this topic (in conversation or mind) that’s making me feel self-righteous [angry, annoyed, defensive, some kind of bad]?

Questions based on a false binary
These typically start on a flawed premise that leaves out a whole lot of possibilities and therefore won’t get you to a useful answer [creative solution, new insight, unexpected next step, brilliant course-correction] anytime soon.

• Should I stay or should I go?
  
  
• Is this working for me or against me?
  
  
• Do I do this for money or for service?
  
  
• Do they get it or are they clueless?
  
  
• Do I love them or not?
  
  
• Should we follow this plan or start over?
  
  
• Is this a good or a bad idea?
  
  
• Should I keep my day job or just do what I love?
  
  
• Should I put myself out there or stay in my bubble?

​Questions that take you out of your business
Here, you’re asking from a place where you don’t belong, where you actually have no control or agency. You may notice you’re mentally and emotionally exhausting yourself or even being propelled to take fruitless [forced, uninspired, just wrong, …] actions to try to manage what isn’t yours to manage. These questions typically make you feel disempowered, discouraged, or any kind of yuck.

• Shouldn’t they be doing X or Y instead of wasting their life?
  
  
• Will their feelings be hurt if I say or do that?
  
  
• Am I doing something wrong? What’s wrong with me?
  
  
• How long is this going to last?
  
  
• How many times do I need to tell them …?
  
  
• Why is this happening?
  
  
• Has the whole world gone mad?
  
  
• What have you done for me lately?
  
  
• Why haven't they answered my text [email, voicemail, note I left under their windshield wiper]?
  
  
• Do [will] they approve?
  
  
• Is everything okay?

​If you do keep asking questions that don’t serve you, consider what could support a shift and perhaps bring relief, a sense of new possibility, or movement toward freedom and lightness. Skim through the following and linger with what feels relevant:

You may want to look at the beliefs underlying the question (beliefs about friendship, relationship, roles, ethics, …). You may believe something different in your current reality or phase of life that hasn’t fully come to light and that it would help to articulate. Or you think you’re operating out of your current belief system when in fact you’re still applying an old belief. (A good grown child does this or that for their parents, whatever the cost to self.)

This question may be the equivalent of pointlessly chasing your tail. Put it down and invite a new one, or brainstorm a whole list of questions to support you to think something through more clearly.

A question may be brought to you by some old emotional attachment to operating a certain way or playing a certain role that’s all tied up with being safe [being loved, being good, belonging, succeeding, …]. It could help to be in some process (e.g., inquiry, journaling, coaching, therapy) to locate that so you can disconnect what got wired together. (No, you actually would still be safe and possibly safer if you did move away from or have way more boundaries regarding that person or group.)

You may be asking yourself something you’ve already made a decision about, so it goes without asking. Unless it’s time to look again for real and possibly make a conscious new decision or renegotiation, you don’t need to go in again for more questioning. (You said you wouldn’t get in the passenger seat when that person is driving. So don’t.)

www.amazon.com/Scooch-Edging-Into-Friendly-Universe/dp/0997740108/ref=sr_1_1?
​Some questions are helpful, expansive, empowering, productive. They redirect you to what feels better. They lead to fruitful pondering (not ruminating) and make you feel alive, curious, open-minded, inspired, connected, capable, and more. If you like, find some excellent questions to ask yourself in this blog post:
1 good breath + 1 good question = rumination dissolved!

I like the question NOW WHAT? so much that the conclusion of my book, Scooch!: Edging into a Friendly Universe has that for a title. Bumped into a wall? Now what? Just interrupted an old thought pattern? Now what? This puts you in presence, and open to where you actually want to move toward, or just the one next step roughly in the right direction.

Love & blessings, Jaya

P.S. Who are you to ask yourself crushing questions? Here’s a blog post that invites you to something kinder. 

​From a recent Abraham-Hicks daily message: “The Universe is not punishing you or blessing you. The Universe is responding to the vibrational attitude that you are emitting. The more joyful you are, the more Well-being flows to you.”

Some of you have heard that in my current life with my elderly mother, I’m seeing lots of (bits of) Hallmark movies. Which has led me to coin the term Hallmark-movie wisdom. Can you guess how wise I consider these constant nuggets dispensed by vanilla characters who never offend?

Some of the scripts feature references to THE UNIVERSE, and I’m always fascinated by how this Universe is presented. Most recently, our protagonist was in (pretty) tears because it seemed that she and her friends were DOING THE RIGHT THING and while her friends were getting REWARDED (which meant, they were getting something they wanted and having fun in the process), she was being PUNISHED (or, not apparently getting the outcome she wanted and having less & less fun as she focused on that).

The Universe DOES work this way: You will tend to have increasingly less fun as you focus on all that’s not going just as you want it to. (Nailed that one, scriptwriter.)

The Universe, I daresay, DOES NOT work this way: You get rewarded for your goodness or doing it right by getting just the outcome you want (and perhaps even the desired journey on the way to that desired outcome).

And if you don’t get that, you’re being punished.

Factor in the sad predicament of thinking you’re doing the right thing but not being rewarded, then it also feels grossly unfair that the hoped-for outcome was withheld, and now you’re a victim of this cruel Universe that failed to notice what a good little vanilla girl you are (or whatever your flavor & gender identification).

​To get out of punishment/reward mentality:

Notice that this mindset was instilled in you when you were quite young, and perhaps your child self is interpreting events and getting stuck in feeling bad about things when you’re there. Call in your adult self who gets that shit happens and there’s no reward or punishment about it.

Call in your spiritual self who maybe gets or is starting to get or has experimented with getting that when you carry on believing you’re supported by life, and keep aiming the direction you’d like to go, then you don’t need to get tripped up on evaluating all the ups and downs in the journey.

In fact, you can treat open and shut doors as equally helpful—both offering good information to have, and letting you go where you are and aren’t going.

And you can treat hard or challenging things as building muscles for you that are currently still weaker than you might like. (Remember: muscles are appealing and make you feel strong and capable and badass and maybe even sexy, so build those muscles instead of sinking into a puddle of punishment mentality that just makes you want to give up & cry.)

Your spiritual self probably also knows (and can be called on to remind you) that the more we look away from outcomes while we’re on the journey, the more we benefit from the journey (which includes having fun, feeling good feels, and having wondrous & worthwhile encounters & adventures along the way), and the more PRESENT  we are—so we don’t miss the journey or get lost in a constant referencing of the future and what it’s going to bring in terms of outcomes.

Your chronologically aging self, whatever number of years you can put to that, almost certainly knows that outcomes are surprising. And that sometimes, in retrospect, what seemed like a bad outcome was a bullet dodged, or something invaluable learned or gained, or someone precious brought into the story, or a fantastic story to tell, or … or … or …

So here are some possible components of a reframe:

You don’t even need rewards to be happy.
You don’t need to label outcomes as good or bad.
You don’t need to be bothered by the ups and downs along the way.
You don’t need to assign meaning to whether things are going along to your liking or not or landing just as you thought you wanted.
Do not define anything as punishment, then you’ll get increasingly free of needing to evaluate whether you’re good or prove that you are.

Do focus on loving your life.
Aim toward what you want. (Look away more from what you don’t want.)
Have as much fun as possible along the way.
Gain from anything that does or doesn’t happen.
Carry on and watch for how life keeps supporting you in a million wonderful & often wonderfully unexpected ways.
Watch for how much well-being flows your way.
Watch for how much well-being you generate by living & loving your life and not seeing any of it as reward or punishment.

Love & blessings, Jaya