Reaching for better-feeling thoughts is such a critical Law of Attraction skill.
But here’s what I’ve noticed: Many of my coaching clients are either confused about how to do it or resistant to even trying. Maybe one of those describes you.
Well, to be blunt, I don’t think you’re going to get much traction in leveraging Law of Attraction to your advantage unless you build this skill. It’s that important.
“If you can just remember that anytime something feels uncomfortable, just stop where you are and acknowledge that it’s just a matter of reaching for better feeling thoughts. Reaching for a feeling of relief works the resistance out of everything.” —Abraham
Reaching for a better-feeling thought really isn’t complicated.
But like most things we do for the first time or even the first few times, it can be a little awkward, we’re not sure we’re doing it right, perhaps it doesn’t work as readily as we think it should.
- My wish is you would practice reaching for better-feeling thoughts to the point this is a ninja-level skill for you.
- My wish is you would have confidence in your ability to reach for better-feeling thoughts and move up the emotional scale.
Reaching for better-feeling thoughts is simply a skill, which means you can practice and improve.
No matter what circumstances are going on in your life, you’re able to feel better, release resistance, and improve your point of attraction by reaching for thoughts that feel better when you think them.
“I like knowing that the amount of time it will take for me to go from where I am to where I want to be is only as long as it takes me to find a better-feeling thought.” —Abraham
10 things I’ve learned about reaching for better-feeling thoughts from working with my clients on building this LoA skill.
1: It’s move up, not jump.
Too many of my clients are getting stuck and frustrated in their attempts to move up the emotional scale because they are trying to jump from fear to joy with a single thought.
It’s not possible.
When you’re vibrating that far down on the emotional scale, you simply don’t have access to thoughts that are at the vibrational level of joy. That’s why Abraham says: “Reach for the best feeling thought you have access to.”
You can move up the emotional scale, but you cannot jump from the bottom to the top.
The other day I was working with a client who was experiencing a lot of fear about her business. And she was trying to jump up all the way to joy on the emotional scale with a thought or two. Of course, it wasn’t working because at her current vibration she didn’t have access to thoughts that would create feelings of true joy.
I coached her around incremental moves up the emotional scale, perhaps with thoughts that would take her from fear up to discouragement and then thoughts to move up to disappointment. That is the relief of reaching for better-feeling thoughts.
Now, disappointment wouldn’t be a place I would want to her to stay, but I think you’ll agree Disappointment at a 12 is better than Fear all the way at the bottom of the scale at 22.
2: A thought is a sentence in your head.
When I practice with a client to build the skill of reaching for better-feeling thoughts, often the thought she comes up with is not so much a sentence as a rambling run-on paragraph.
And that can make it more difficult to discern whether she feels any relief.
When you have a long run-on sentence with loads packed into it or a rambling paragraph of thoughts made up of many sentences, you don’t know which part created relief, which was neutral, and which part actually made you feel worse.
So stick to a sentence.
Here are examples of thoughts a client tried recently in an attempt to reach for a better-feeling thought about her business.
- I have a good team around me.
- It’s fun to work with collaborative clients.
- We are doing good work.
- I enjoy clients who value what we do.
Notice each thought is an individual sentence.
With each thought, you can pause, turn inward, and see what sensation in your body that thought created. You can ask yourself: Does this thought offer any relief?
3: You have to be willing.
One of my clients shared there are times when she knows she has an opportunity to reach for a better-feeling thought, but she doesn’t. She said, I have to be open to it.
And she’s absolutely right.
I can relate. Sometimes I know very clearly I’m at the fork in the road: Better-feeling thought to the left, craptastic-feeling thought to the right. And what do I do? I take a hard right to the muck of the negative thought.
You have to be willing to reach for relief. If you’re not willing, it simply won’t work.
“When you care about how you feel and you’re willing to pivot and turn your thoughts towards better feeling things, you will quickly begin the positive deliberate transformation of your life.” —Abraham
4: Only you know which thoughts bring relief.
When my clients practice reaching for better-feeling thoughts, I’m continually amazed by the thoughts that bring relief versus those that do not. It is so utterly and entirely personal.
For instance, there was a time I probably assumed this thought would provide universal relief: The Universe has my back.
But it doesn’t. I’ve had many clients try that thought on and experience zero relief.
This means there is no list of thoughts that will bring you relief. There’s no guru or expert you can turn to. I don’t have your list—only you do.
Only you know which thoughts bring you relief. And you will only know if you actually think them and then ask yourself, “Does this thought feel any better?”
Abraham says: “Get hooked on asking: ’Which thought feels better?’ Let the feeling of relief become what is most important to you.”
5: Stop trying to take action to feel better.
Often a client will tell me she tried to reach for a better-feeling thought, but it didn’t work. And when I ask her to share her process, she says something like this:
- I was feeling really worried, so I decided to take a walk.
- I was feeling frustrated and upset, so I took a bubble bath.
Well, walks and bubble baths are fantastic, but they are not thoughts. Those are actions. When you’re feeling a negative emotion, taking action is not how you feel better.
This is thought work. You feel better by thinking a thought that brings relief. Then you can take a walk!
So this is about cleaning up your thinking before you take action. Otherwise, there’s no way you’re taking inspired action. Because inspired action doesn’t come from a negative-feeling state.
6: Stop hanging out in bad neighborhoods.
Perhaps you’ve made a particular thought a habit. The thought makes you feel lousy and you have it on a loop.
When you think X, you feel insecure or guilty or unworthy—or some other low end emotion. It’s like a bad neighborhood you keep going to hang out in. It doesn’t feel good, there’s a lot of discomfort and anxiety, but you just keep going back to the neighborhood of that thought.
Well here’s what I want you to consider: If you’re willing to hang out at the low end of the emotional scale and stay there, you will only attract other circumstances, situations, people, events, and things into your life that perpetuate you feeling emotions at the low end of the emotional scale.
So stop hanging out in bad neighborhoods. It’s time to get some relief from whatever thought you’ve made a habit that’s making you feel negative emotion.
7: Circumstances are neutral.
If only I had a dollar for every client who wants to discuss exceptions and asks, Well, what about this situation? Isn’t this an exception to the “rule” that circumstances are neutral?
No. Circumstances are neutral. Period. Stop arguing with this. Embrace that your thoughts create your feelings.
“All of your power is in your choice of thought. All of your power is in your ability to focus your mind upon those things that cause you to feel good when you focus upon them.” —Abraham
I can promise you, my friend, there is no power to be found in blaming circumstances—which means people, events, situations, things—for how you feel. To blame circumstances for how you feel is disempowering.
You are not disempowered. Because all your power is in your choice of thought.
8: Stop trying to come up with the most positive-sounding affirmation.
Sometimes we work too hard at trying to find a better-feeling thought. It’s like we work for Hay House and are writing a book of affirmations or we’re crafting the positive sentiment inside a greeting card.
The thoughts you reach for to find relief only work if they feel authentic to you, if they are believable—and if they are not too far outside your current vibration.
So you’re not trying to come up with the most upbeat, rainbows-unicorns-butterflies statement.
In fact, the other day a client mentioned several times that she says positive statements in her head all the time. But there was something a bit off in her vibration as she shared this with me. So I asked her how she feels when she says these positive statements. Her answer: Not very good.
And that’s because she was trying too hard. She was efforting at positivity and her attempts at better-feeling thoughts just didn’t feel sincere to her.
Once she dialed down the over-the-top “positive” statements, she was able to land on thoughts that really did bring relief and allow her to feel better.
9: Don’t get hung up on what the exact emotion is.
In practicing the LoA skill of reaching for better-feeling thoughts, sometimes a client wants to spend time parsing the difference between two emotions, say frustration and irritation.
While the emotional scale is a fabulous tool and guide, it’s totally unnecessary to get hung up on what the exact emotion is. You’re looking for a feeling of relief, not to earn a Ph.D. in the difference between two similar emotions.
For instance, you may experience impatience differently than I do. Or what is worry for you is doubt for me. The exact label of the emotion is not what’s important.
What’s important is the idea of reaching for a thought that offers relief and allows you to move up the emotional scale.
10: Embrace beneficial beliefs.
“Beneficial beliefs feel better when I think them… There are things in your environment—that you believe—that match what you want. And there are all kinds of things in your environment that you believe that defy what you want. How would you ever sort them out? How do you know the active beliefs within you that serve you well and the active beliefs that do not serve you? How do you know the beneficial beliefs from the detrimental ones? The beneficial beliefs feel better when you think them. The detrimental ones feel worse when you think them.” —Abraham, from Getting into the Vortex cards
Don’t you love how Abraham simplifies things? Beneficial beliefs feel better when you think them.
That’s pretty straightforward, isn’t it?
Sometimes a client wants to overcomplicate which beliefs serve her and which ones do not. She’ll have a backstory about where a belief came from, how long she’s believed it, and how hard it would be to change.
All that is far more complicated than necessary. And most times it’s completely irrelevant.
What is relevant is this: Is the belief beneficial? And you know whether it’s beneficial because it feels better when you think it.
Knowledge alone isn’t enough.
Here’s the bottom line: Reaching for better-feeling thoughts is a skill—and like all skills it takes practice to become adept. You have to actually practice this skill for it to make a difference and improve your point of attraction.
My hope is you take your LoA practice up a notch and develop the skill of reaching for better-feeling thoughts. Because there’s only upside waiting for you.
First and foremost, you’ll experience immediate relief and feel better. How cool is that? And then when you feel better, you will have improved your point of attraction, which means the Universe can respond to you differently.
“Your decision to reach for a thought that feels good is a powerful decision, for it serves you in many ways. The better-feeling thought reverberates within you, opening passages to Well-being that reach far beyond this one good-feeling thought.” —The Teachings of Abraham Well-Being Cards
Far beyond this one good-feeling thought. Isn’t that exciting to know?
Would you like to build this critical LoA skill?
Schedule a coaching session and learn how to reach for better-feeling thoughts.
