Understanding what negative emotion is telling you can soften the experience of what you’re feeling and help you actually appreciate the feedback you’re getting.
Wait a minute! Did I just say you could actually appreciate something about the experience of negative emotion? Yes…yes I did! And you’ll soon find out why.
Let’s begin by exploring four things negative emotion is telling you.
This first one is a biggie as in it can totally shift your perspective about what negative emotion is and help you embrace its usefulness.
“Are you under the misimpression that negative emotion is a bad thing? Negative emotion is not a bad thing. Negative emotion is guidance to help you redirect and refocus. It’s all part of the dance.” —Abraham
Many of us are under the misimpression that negative emotion is a bad thing.
That was certainly my perspective at the outset of my LoA journey. Now I have a very different take on negative emotion.
As in, negative emotion is feedback. Negative emotion is guidance. And this feedback and guidance is super useful to you.
I’ve heard it described with this analogy. When you reach out and touch a hot stove with your fingers, you get feedback, right? Your sense of touch alerts you that the stove is hot. So you pull your hand away.
Now, would you want that feedback to go away? Probably not. You likely appreciate receiving clear feedback to take your hand away from the hot stove.
Well, negative emotion, rather than being a bad thing, is giving you this same kind of feedback.
Yet many of us really really really push against negative emotion. I think at least some of that pushing is because of this misimpression that negative emotion is a bad thing.
Negative emotion is simply guidance. Negative emotion is telling you to redirect your thoughts and refocus your attention.
If you follow this guidance—as in redirect your thoughts and refocus your attention—you will feel relief, you will move up the emotional scale and feel better.
So isn’t it kind of perfect that you have this built-in Emotional Guidance System alerting you when you need to redirect and refocus?
You don’t have to guess. There’s really no gray here. If you feel negative emotion, you might as well be standing in front of a huge billboard that says, Now would be a really good time to redirect your thoughts and refocus your attention!
In a similar vein, negative emotion is telling you a great deal about your flow of Energy.
Which means you can know if you’re flowing Energy in the direction of wanted or unwanted.
In the case of negative emotion, it always means you are flowing Energy toward what you do not want.
“Instead of being mad at yourself when you’ve mis-created, or mad at yourself when you have negative emotion, if instead you will appreciate your Guidance system is working. Appreciate your conscious awareness of how you’re flowing Energy.” —Abraham
Negative emotion is alerting you as to how you are flowing Energy. It’s making you consciously aware of the direction of your Energy.
It’s a very good thing, indeed, to know this because that flow of Energy leads to what you’re creating, what you’re attracting. That flow of Energy leads to the manifestations in your life.
Instead of stomping your foot and being frustrated with yourself because you’re feeling negative emotion, what if you appreciate this clear indication of how you are flowing Energy? What if you appreciate the amazing Emotional Guidance System you have that is always available, always reliable?
Quite simply: Negative emotion makes you aware of how you are flowing Energy. Thinking about negative emotion in this way shifts you from being mad about feeling low vibe to actually appreciating the feedback you are receiving about what you’re attracting.
Next, negative emotion is also telling you about your relationship to what’s in your Vortex—or more specifically, your relationship to receiving what’s in your Vortex.
“Your work is to be ready for what’s ready. The question is: Are you ready? And if you’re having fun, you’re ready. If you’re chilling, you’re ready. If you’re upset about something, frustrated, or disappointed or angry, you’re not ready. Negative emotion means you put something in your Vortex that you’re not allowing.” —Abraham
If you are feeling negative emotion, you are disallowing the physical manifestation of what’s in your Vortex. Because negative emotion is not a match to your desires. Negative emotion is not a match to what you’ve put in your Vortex.
On the other hand, fun and all the other high vibe emotions, are a vibrational match. To be ready for what’s in your Vortex and to receive what’s in your Vortex, you have to be offering a vibration that is a match, which is going to be some flavor of positive emotion, of feeling good.
And so negative emotion in all its forms—like frustration and disappointment, like fear and worry—means you are not in receiving mode for what’s in your Vortex.
When I experience negative emotion, I like to remind myself that I’m not allowing what’s in my Vortex. Now, I don’t remind myself in a heavy-handed way and it’s not to beat myself up for feeling low vibe.
But I do find value in connecting the dots. I want what’s in my Vortex and I know when I’m feeling negative emotion that I’m not allowing what I’ve put in my Vortex to flow to me.
So I remind myself: Hey Jennifer, that overwhelment you are feeling means you’re not ready to receive; you’re disallowing what’s in your Vortex. Let’s do something about that, shall we?
The fourth aspect of what negative emotion is telling you is such a lovely one.
Of everything I’ve shared so far, this one has probably been the biggest game changer for me. By game changer I mean this has really helped me see negative emotion in a super useful light—and, perhaps even more importantly, has helped me move away from negative emotion more easily, more readily.
As I think about it, this one has allowed me—much of the time—to move effortlessly from negative emotion to positive emotion. Perhaps the same will be true for you.
“Negative emotion that you are feeling always means that the thought that you are thinking right now is…way, way, way, way off what the Source within you knows about the subject.” —Abraham
Prior to my obsession with all things Law of Attraction I had never looked at negative emotion in this way.
- When I think the Customer Service rep on the phone isn’t responding quickly enough and feel irritation, the Source within me doesn’t see it that way.
- When you think about your bills and feel worry, your Inner Being is not down at #14 on the emotional scale with you. Your Inner Being isn’t worried. Your Inner Being knows there’s nothing to worry about.
“Feeling good equals allowing the connection; feeling bad equals not allowing the connection—feeling bad equals resisting the connect to your Source.” —Abraham
Now I know this is what alignment is. Alignment is when your perspective matches that of your Inner Being.
“Your Inner Being, or Source Energy, always offers a perspective that is to your greatest advantage, and when your perspective matches that, then positive attraction is occurring.” —Abraham
And so negative emotion is telling you that you are looking at something, thinking about something, giving meaning to something that is not in alignment with the perspective of your Source, of your Inner Being.
“Your Inner Being is not standing around with other Inner Beings complaining about how much resistance is in your way. Your Inner Being isn’t wishing that you hadn’t done that thing when you were 12 or 14 or 15. Your Inner Being isn’t holding any attention on those unwanted things. Your Inner Being is giving only undivided, full attention to the Pure Positive Energy of your desire.” —Abraham.
And so when you are not giving your undivided, full attention to the Pure Positive Energy of your desire, of what is wanted, then you feel negative emotion. And that, my friends, is telling you everything you need to know about what you’re creating.
Let’s recap the four things negative emotion is telling you:
- Negative emotion is telling you to redirect your thoughts and refocus your attention.
- Negative emotion is telling you how you are flowing Energy.
- Negative emotion is telling you about your relationship to what’s in your Vortex.
- Negative emotion is telling you your thoughts are different from what your Inner Being knows.
OK, so you’re getting all this great feedback and guidance when you feel negative emotion. But what about steering clear of negative emotion altogether—or at least experiencing it way less often?
Most of us have the dual opportunity of experiencing less overall negative emotion, and knowing how to move more quickly and easily from negative emotion to positive emotion when we feel low vibe.
Let me share three tips to help with both aspects of this two-fold opportunity.
Tip #1 Be picky with your thoughts.
“Most humans are sloppy in your focus because you’re willing to endure negative emotion. Stop it! We want you to be picky with your thoughts!” —Abraham
Are you being picky with your thoughts? Or are you indulging in thoughts that make you feel negative emotion?
I like to imagine thoughts like the produce section at the grocery store. You have all these thoughts laid out like fruits and vegetables that you can pick from.
Some of those thoughts, though, are bruised and blemished. Some are moldy and decaying and rotten. Yuck!
Now in the store you would bypass the rotting produce, right? You would be picky about the fruit and veggies you select.
Why would you be any less picky with your thoughts? Especially knowing, by Law of Attraction, how your thoughts are affecting your point of attraction.
Bottom line: It’s time to be picky with your thoughts.
Tip #2 Pivot your thoughts to what you do want.
“So the pivoting process is simply: Whenever you recognize that you are feeling a negative emotion (it is really that you are feeling the lack of harmony with something that you want), the obvious thing for you do do is stop and say, ‘I’m feeling negative emotion, which means I am not in harmony with something that I want. What do I want?’”—Abraham
Are you thinking about what you want or are you thinking about what you don’t want? The former creates positive emotion in you, while the latter causes you to feel negative emotion.
You need to be in harmony with what you want to attract what you want. So pivot from unwanted to wanted. Rinse and repeat.
Tip #3 Put your attention where you feel positive emotion.
Another way to say this is: Take your attention off subjects that cause you to feel negative emotion.
“How do you feel about those things that you are giving most of your attention to? If there is something in your life that gives you negative emotion almost every time you think about it, we would do anything that we could do to get that negative thing out of our awareness.” —Abraham
This advice sounds so reasonable, right? If there’s something in your life where you feel bad every time you think about it, why would you keep thinking about it? Why would you keep looking at, talking about, thinking about something that causes you to feel negative emotion?
Put your attention, instead, where you feel positive emotion. It really is as simple as that.
Often we want to justify why we are feeling bad. We want to tell the bad-feeling story. We want to look at the bad feeling subject from all angles and say, See this—this makes me feel bad. Let’s talk about it and you’ll understand why I feel so bad.
That only adds power to the negative emotion. It only continues to keep the vibration active. It only attracts more and more thoughts and then things that match up to that negative emotion.
This is not what you want.
“As you try to explain why you are feeling negative emotion, you are adding power to it. Release the negative emotion; the negative feeling, and the negative attraction—by taking your attention from it.” —Abraham
Negative emotion exists when you are mis-creating. Be picky with your thoughts. Pivot your thoughts to what you do want. Put your attention where you feel positive emotion.
