This is a story of my journey from misalignment to alignment. Since this is a journey we all go on, I know you’ll be able to relate.
I’m going to share the story of what happened, my reaction, my misalignment, and then most importantly, how I got back in alignment. Sitting here now, I actually feel appreciation for the circumstance I used as my excuse for misalignment.
That might sound pie in the sky. Why on earth feel appreciation for something that knocked you out of alignment?
Because even more gratifying than being in alignment all the time is knowing you have the ability to get back in alignment no matter what is going on in your world.
That is ninja level Law of Attraction.
But I’m skipping ahead to appreciation when that’s not at all what I was initially feeling. Let’s go back to the beginning.
The other day I was on my phone reading reviews of my podcast. At the end of every episode, I say: If you’ve enjoyed this episode of Love Your Life, please leave a review. Reviews help me reach new listeners, grow the show, and keep putting out content you enjoy.
I’ve had some amazing reviews since the show launched in January 2018. Reviews like Love Your Life has really changed my life. Every Monday is like hitting the refresh button and I am so grateful for this podcast. I feel like this show is the first LOA show that has actually been sinking in and making big differences in my life.
I feel so much appreciation to everyone who listens to my show. I’m so appreciative when someone takes the time to leave a a review and let me know the show makes a difference in their life.
Before this “incident”, reading reviews of the podcast was sometimes part of my alignment practice.
Reading I’m part of someone’s daily commute or they have stopped complaining because of the show…that has always felt really, really good.
But I will say this: Even then in the back of my mind, I could hear a bit of wisdom from Deepak Chopra. I first read this quote from him in Gabby Bernstein’s book, Super Attractor. It definitely stood out for me.
“When you’re happy for a particular reason, you’re still in misery—because that reason can be taken from you tomorrow.” —Deepak Chopra
Deepak is getting at the idea that feeling good is good for its own sake. He’s saying don’t make happiness dependent on circumstances, even the so-called good ones.
If I’m using positive reviews to feel good, am still in misery?
If you are using “good” conditions to feel good, are you still in misery? And does that make it way too easy to then use “bad” circumstances to feel bad?
OK, so back to the day I’m reading the high vibe reviews, and I come to this one with 2 stars. The title of the review is “Her voice”. Now I’ve had loads of reviews that mention my voice in a positive way. The other day a new client told me the whole reason she wanted to work with me is my voice just resonates with her.
But back to the two-star review. Here’s what it said: “Her voice. So much potential to be a great podcast, but her voice is horrible. She speaks to us in a tone as if we were dumb. Not necessary.”
Let’s just sit with that for a second. My voice is horrible. I’m speaking to you as if you are dumb.
If I had been in one of those dunk tanks, reading those words would have sent me into the water with a very big splash.
In a nanosecond, I went from high on the emotional scale—all rainbows and unicorns—to very low. I was stunned it was possible to head downward that fast. Over so few words. From a stranger.
Here’s what I noticed right away, which is perhaps the biggest takeaway for whenever you are out of alignment. My first thought, which didn’t even really feel like a thought, more like a reaction was: That hurts my feelings. That review, what that person wrote hurt my feelings.
Are the warning bells going off for you? Because they were for me even as I was thinking those thoughts.
That review didn’t hurt my feelings. That person did not hurt my feelings.
Instead: The way I am choosing to think about that review is hurting my feelings.
I am always telling clients: Circumstances are neutral. It is your thoughts about circumstances that make you feel good or make you feel bad. It is not ever the circumstance.
My mind wanted to say, But, but, but…
But..isn’t that kind of a mean thing to say? But…can’t those words be what is hurting my feelings, what is making me feel bad?
No.
No because that’s not really what is happening. No because there’s no power in that.
If you are at the mercy of every circumstance and every condition, if you have no agency about how you feel, then life can only be one gigantic reaction to circumstances—the so-called good ones and the so-called bad ones.
And if that’s how it’s going to be, you have no ability to offer your vibration on purpose.
And that is the point. The payoff in being able to offer your vibration on purpose is infinite. You are a powerful creator. I am a powerful creator.
But if I am going to make the vibration I offer dependent on circumstances and conditions, and if I am going to sort life into columns of these things are good so I can feel good and these things are bad so I feel bad, then I am creating by default.
Life will be a gigantic mixed bag of manifestations. I will walk through life reacting to every circumstance and every condition. I will create by default.
So I’m sitting with this review. And I know I have a big opportunity to manage my mind.
- I am noticing I want to blame the review for how I feel.
- I am, for sure, noticing I don’t feel good. At all.
So I’m noticing. I’m bringing awareness to what’s going on.
The fact that I feel lousy is my signal. It’s my Emotional Guidance System in fine form, letting me know to slow down all that negative momentum, to stop indulging in thoughts that make me feel lousy, and to choose to move up the emotional scale with better-feeling thoughts.
Often when this opportunity to move up the emotional scale presents itself, part of me is like a petulant child stamping her foot saying, No, I don’t wanna. I don’t wanna feel better. You can’t make me.
Which is kind of hilarious, right? Why would we ever not want to feel better? It feels good to feel better and Law of Attraction is responding to how you feel, to the vibration you offer.
I knew enough in that moment to understand feeling lousy is not worth it.
Regardless of whatever the “cause”. Because nothing I want to attract is at that low end of the emotional scale.
- I’m not wanting more circumstances in my life to be discouraged about.
- I’m not wanting more people in my life to be angry about.
- I’m not wanting more things to be fearful of.
- I’m not wanting more situations to feel unworthy over.
If I don’t want more circumstances, people, events, situations, and things that match low vibe emotions, then I need to get to a better-feeling place. I need to be intentional about the vibration I offer.
So I read the review. I feel bad. I notice I feel bad—that part was not hard. I try to blame feeling bad on the review, but I know circumstances are neutral.
Any time you find yourself knocked out of alignment and want to blame some circumstance or condition, let that be a sign, a signal, an invitation, a directive.
However you want to think of it, it is pointing you in only one direction:
- Stop blaming the circumstance and start managing your mind.
- Stop blaming circumstances and start offering your vibration on purpose.
Now, to do this, you always have the option to distract yourself altogether from the subject that “caused” your misalignment.
Distraction can be a fantastic way to nip negative momentum in the bud.
The moment you take your attention off the subject that feels bad to you, your vibration lifts. Abraham says only things you focus on are included in your vibration. If you stop focusing on whatever is upsetting to you, then it’s no longer part of your vibration.
I could have chosen not to focus on the negative review. To distract myself from it.
“I like knowing that my vibration is the result of my emotions. And that my emotions are the result of my thoughts. And that my thoughts are the result of my focus.” —Abraham
That being said, I didn’t want to distract myself from this review. I had an inner knowing I would be better served by thinking differently about the review so that I felt differently.
In other words, I was looking at this, even as I felt incredibly gunky, as an opportunity to deepen my LoA skills. As an opportunity to walk my talk. As an opportunity to practice alignment—regardless of circumstances.
Now I would never want to tell you which option to choose—distraction or reaching for better-feeling thoughts. When you’re out of alignment, tune inward. You will know which pathway forward is right for you.
So I knew, Jennifer, this is back to that core, essential LoA skill: Reach for better-feeling thoughts. The review doesn’t need to change. It doesn’t need to not be there. And you don’t have to distract yourself from it. Rather, you CAN feel good about this review.
What the what?! Really? Feel good about this negative review?
Because when I read that review a flush of shame came over me and I was flooded with thoughts like, I don’t want to be in the arena if people are going to say mean things. Is that what people think of me? Maybe I should just stop doing the podcast.
Can you relate? Something happens and you feel vulnerable and it just makes you want to fold up shop. It makes you want to quit and not ever put yourself out there again.
So when I say I wanted to practice reaching for better-feeling thoughts and actually feel good about this review, that seemed like a long way to go. Because where I was starting out was feeling really bad about that review.
I’m going to share my real-life example of reaching for better-feeling thoughts about this negative review.
I’ll be able to share my verbatim thoughts because I wrote them down at the time.
That’s something I want to offer. When you reach for better-feeling thoughts, try writing them down. Sometimes I can do this in my head and move up the emotional scale, but it seems, at least for me, more elusive doing it that way than writing down my thoughts.
I’m going to share my thoughts, in order, and then tell you how each one felt to me at the time. I’m doing that to emphasize this is not always a straight move up the emotional scale. Some thoughts you try make you feel the same, while others could actually make you feel worse.
The more I’ve practiced reaching for better-feeling thoughts, the more trusting I’ve become about the process.
Meaning I don’t get derailed if I try a couple thoughts that feel the same or worse. I trust the process.
I know I have the ability to reach for thoughts that feel better. But I also know I might not land on them right way or in a linear way, up, up, up. No, it might be more like same, better, worse, worse, same, better, better.
Here we go… The first thought I tried was:
I’m not for everyone. This thought felt ever so slightly better. But it also seemed more intellectual than something I was actually feeling.
That review hurts my feelings. With this thought, I felt worse. Because I know circumstances are neutral. I knew I was passing the buck here with this thought, and also undermining my ability to use Law of Attraction to my advantage. If I was going to throw everything I know about LoA out the window, that made me feel worse.
I don’t think others are dumb. Remember, that’s what the reviewer said about me. This thought really didn’t make me feel better. In fact, I would say it made me feel worse. Because it felt like pushing against some else’s opinion of me. So now I’m resisting what they said. I feel worse with this thought.
That comment says more about them than me. Hmmm…kind of neutral, but definitely not better.
Maybe I need to tone something down. Oh my, this thought definitely made me feel worse—for so many reasons. So I’m going to tone myself down, whatever that means, and change my voice, and try to get everyone in the world to like me. That sounds exhausting, right? And impossible. And incredibly low vibe.
I want you to notice I’m not really feeling better with any of these attempts at better-feeling thoughts. But…I trust the process, which means I know to keep going.
I actually do feel a little better overall because I’m doing what I know to do to tend to my vibration. That feels empowering, which is at the high end of the emotional scale.
So at this point I’m not feeling better about that review, but I’m feeling good that I’m using the tools and techniques I know. Next thought…
If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all. That actually felt a little better to me. I felt some relief. It kind of made me laugh, like I’m back in elementary school, learning those great life lessons.
I still don’t feel great about that comment. This is a thought I had, noticing where I am in the process. I didn’t make where I was mean the end of the world, this LoA process doesn’t work, or I can’t do it right. No, I didn’t make it mean any of those things. My thought simply noticed: Hey, I still don’t feel great about that comment. But my feeling was hopefulness that I would get there.
Wow, someone really took the time to write that, to leave that review. This thought definitely created a shift in how I was feeling, which was so interesting to me. I realized it was because I have this story in my head about all this free content I deliver each week with the podcast and someone listened and rather than just turn it off—the show isn’t for them, I’m not for them—they actually took time to write a negative review. I felt a little annoyed by that. Oh, but that’s good! Let’s call annoyance a very light version of anger. Well, anger is #17 on the emotional scale. What I had been feeling before this thought was definitely lower on the scale than anger. It was more like insecurity and unworthiness, and fear of what people think of me. Well, those are down around #21 and 22. So this thought— Wow, someone actually took the time to write that, to leave that review—did offer me relief. I was kind of ticked—and that was actually relief.
You’ve had dozens and dozens of positive reviews to one negative. This felt OK, but kind of neutral. Again, I would say I experienced this thought intellectually rather than feeling it.
Consider the source. That thought didn’t feel good to me. It’s not even those words exactly, it was how I felt when I thought them. As if I had to bring the other person down in order for me to feel good about me.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion. That thought actually did feel better. It felt more expansive. It felt more aligned with let me attract who is for me, and there’s no need to expend any energy in the direction of those who aren’t.
What they think of me is their business, not mine. Oh! That felt better. For just a moment, and then I thought:
Then why am I reading the reviews, positive or negative? That thought caused me to feel confusion, which was actually a relief because I’m not thinking in that moment about the negative review. It’s kind of like I distracted myself with the bigger philosophical question: Why am I reading any reviews?
Maybe I should stop reading the reviews altogether. That felt kind of good, at first. Like Oh, I can just avoid this altogether if I don’t read any reviews. But then I realized I would be doing this so I would never have to encounter a negative review, which felt very much like conditional alignment. I would rather my alignment be unconditional. So this thought initially created some friction in me, but then quickly shifted to a hopefulness that I could get to that state of unconditional alignment about any and all reviews.
This review made me feel bad. Oops, we are back down the scale. I felt so disempowered by this thought. If the review can make me feel bad, I have no agency. That is the opposite of how I want to feel, which is empowered.
My thoughts about this review are making me feel bad. Yes, indeed! This feels true and empowering, and I can feel a lift. Notice there’s really nothing new with this thought, but having gone through the process, at this point, this thought feels incredibly different than how it did at the outset. It almost feels light now: Just think different thoughts about that review, Jennifer, and you can feel good.
I could share this on the podcast as an example of misalignment and reaching for better-feeling thoughts. Oh my goodness! I actually felt excited with this thought. Excited that this had happened so I could learn from it and then share it with you. At this point I’m up around Enthusiasm, which is #3 on the emotional scale.
My experience could help others. Again, very high vibe. I’ve always said I do the podcast first and foremost for myself, so I have a container to learn about Law of Attraction and grow my LoA skills. Then second is sharing what I’m learning with you. Well, at this point, the negative review had started to feel like such an opportunity, such an invitation to learn and grow and share.
I like knowing it’s my thoughts about this review that are causing my feelings. This is a very empowering thought to me. I like knowing it is my thoughts that cause my feelings, including my suffering. Because then I can change my thoughts to ones that offer relief and allow me to feel good.
I want to feel good. This is such a great thought. It’s so simple, isn’t it? So many of the great teachers say in order to feel good you have to make the decision to not feel bad. I believe that. I want to feel good. This thought feels really good to me—full of positive expectation and optimism.
This is an opportunity to practice getting back in alignment. With this thought, I’m on a roll now. I’m feeling good. I’m truly seeing that review in a new light. It’s shifted from this ugly, dark thing to offering light and possibility to me.
Notice I’m feeling pretty good now, so you might wonder why I didn’t stop at this point. Once I move up the emotional scale and get momentum in the direction of feeling good, I like to milk it for more.
Milk it until I reach a point, an inner knowing, that I am complete. And that is when I stop.
In other words, I don’t necessarily stop the process when I initially reach a more elevated state. I keep going, maybe for another thought or two or perhaps many more thoughts, until I sense completeness on the subject.
I don’t know that I have a better description for how I know I’m complete. I encourage you to trust yourself and your own inner guidance. You’ll know when you’re done. But for me I kept going for a few more thoughts.
It’s kind of funny what throws me out of alignment these days. At this point I was starting to see the whole situation with more lightness. I have a successful podcast called Love Your Life + Law of Attraction. I received one negative review. And part of me wanted to pitch everything I know about LoA out the window and blame that review, that circumstance, for how I felt. I can see the humor in that.
I forgive myself fast for being out of alignment about this. This thought felt really good, really loving. Self-loving. Forgive yourself fast is Gabby Bernstein’s phrase, and we would all be served by embracing this concept. I did not beat myself up for being out of alignment. I didn’t want to indulge in the misalignment, but I certainly wasn’t going to pile on and make myself feel even worse because I was out of alignment.
Being knocked out of alignment is ok, staying out of alignment isn’t. This felt empowering. Hey, I’m a human being; I’m not going to be in alignment all the time. That’s absolutely A-OK. But I’m also not someone who indulges in negative emotion, so let’s get back in alignment.
I have the tools to get back in alignment about this, about anything really. This thought felt amazing. Again, empowering is the word that comes to mind. I do, indeed, feel empowered with the tools I have collected in my LoA toolkit.
I feel better thinking about sharing this to help others get back in alignment. Sharing this is so cool. The sharing part. When I read that review I felt a sort of red-faced shame, a being called out in public. The inclination could be to try to hide this thing that has “caused” me to feel that way. Sharing it, actually doing an entire podcast episode and blog post on that review is the opposite of hiding it. It feels like the best kind of vulnerability. I’ve always liked this from Brene Brown: “Vulnerability is not winning or losing; it’s having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome.” This podcast is me showing up and being seen. I cannot control all the outcomes, including how the show lands for others, how I am perceived. But I have the courage to show up and be seen—and that feels really high vibe.
We’re all in this together. This thought felt so loving. I know we are all on our own journey, on our own path. While we are at different stages of the journey, we are all, indeed, in this together. Including the beautiful soul who wrote the review.
I appreciate this opportunity to get back in alignment. This is a thought of appreciation, so you know it’s at the high end of the emotional scale. I was feeling appreciation for this opportunity. Through this process of reaching for better-feeling thoughts, I had gone from all that discomfort about the negative review to thinking and feeling appreciation for the opportunity it gave me to practice my alignment.
It’s empowering to know I can always get back in alignment. This thought made me feel so much freedom. If I can always get back in alignment, then I always have the freedom to feel good. Freedom is at the very top of the emotional scale. That’s where I am with this thought.
I’m sending love to the person who wrote the review. This thought felt loving and peaceful. In fact, I want to thank that review writer for providing me with contrast, for being a cooperative component in my growth and expansion, and for inspiring this blog post. With love and appreciation, I thank you.
Are you using circumstances and conditions as your excuse for being out of alignment?
That’s what I was tempted to do when I read that negative review.
Circumstances are not the cause of your misalignment. Repeat after me: Circumstances are neutral. My thoughts cause my feelings.
I want you to claim your power as a deliberate creator by taking responsibility for your feelings and the thoughts that are causing your feelings.
Next time something knocks you out of alignment, remind yourself circumstances and conditions are neutral, and then consider reaching for better-feeling thoughts.
Here are 8 tips to guide you:
- When you reach for better-feeling thoughts, write them down. Paper and pen are your friend. Get good at doing this process on paper before you try to do it solely in your head.
- Embrace and trust the process. Reaching for better-feeling thoughts works. It offers relief and allows you to move up the emotional scale. It doesn’t just work for me or for a select few. It can and will work for you if you embrace and trust the process.
- Take your time. Sometimes a client will want to go from the bottom of the emotional scale to the top with two or three thoughts in about as many minutes. I’m not saying the process has to take a long time, but don’t rush it. Enjoy the feeling of relief as you move up the scale.
- Don’t expect to move to the top of the emotional scale with one thought. If you go into this process with the expectation you have to move up the scale with a single thought, you’re going to put too much pressure on yourself and the process. Also, you simply don’t have access to high vibe thoughts when you are at the bottom of the scale. Be willing to move up incrementally.
- Don’t expect to move up the emotional scale in a linear way. I don’t have the expectation that moving up the emotional scale is necessarily a straight line. When I try a thought that keeps me feeling exactly the same, I’m not exasperated. I don’t get discouraged if a thought makes me feel worse. I stay curious about the next thought and whether it will offer relief.
- Be OK with some thoughts making you feel the same or worse. I am always fascinated by the thoughts that offer relief and actually do feel better versus those that keep me feeling the same or even worse. You just won’t know which is which until you actually think the thought and notice how it feels.
- Keep going until you experience relief. I really do believe if you approach this process lightly, with curiosity and trust, relief is always available. That being said, if you encounter a ton of resistance while reaching for better-feeling thoughts, don’t effort this process. Efforting your way to feeling better is not the energy you’re looking for.
- Trust you will know when you are complete. When I first started using the process of reaching for better-feeling thoughts, I simply stopped when I felt better. That made sense to me since that’s why I’d undertaken the process to begin with. Now I am more likely to milk those elevated feelings—to keep going even after I’m in alignment. I stop when my Inner Being lets me know I’m complete.
I really appreciate the opportunity to share my story of going from misalignment to alignment. I’m glad to be on this journey with you.
“Perfect and bulletproof are seductive, but they don’t exist in the human experience.” —Brene Brown
