Prime Yourself To Feel Good

If I asked you to write down the emotions you experience in a day, what would the list look like? Would it be filled with positive emotions, negative emotions? Would it be null of much emotion?

People want to feel good. There is always a desire to be happy and feel as good as possible, but few people deliberately go in and make themselves feel good. What most people do is react to conditions, people, old beliefs, what society or the news tells them to feel and believe, old habits, etc. The truth is that you can DELIBERATELY choose how you want to feel and what you want your life experience to contain.

In order to feel good, you HAVE to choose how you want to feel. You choose how you want to feel and then you allow yourself to think in ways that evoke these emotions. Your brain is not designed to make you happy, YOU ARE. You have to deliberately choose how you want to feel, and then you can begin thinking and acting in ways that support those emotions.

How can you begin doing this?

Below is a list of positive emotions. Read through this list. Tell yourself that you want to begin experiencing these emotions more often and then begin writing down ways you could evoke more of these emotions within yourself. For example, let’s say you choose appreciation as your emotion. You would focus on the word appreciation until it begins to move through you. Then ask yourself, how can I experience more appreciation? Write out a list of all the things you appreciate in yourself and in others. Write until you feel filled up with appreciation. In order to experience appreciation, you would also have to stop doing its opposite. This could mean not complaining about what you don’t like or what isn’t working. So the exercise is 2 parts. 1. Ask yourself what you need to start doing. 2. Ask yourself what you need to stop doing.

You can do this exercise daily moving from one emotion to the next. Each day ask yourself what you could think and do in order to feel more, and what you need to stop. Do that.

Changing your belief system or thoughts happens over time. The more you prime yourself to focus on feel-good emotions, the easier it will be to simply experience these. It is as simple and easy to experience positive emotion as it is negative, most people have just practiced feeling bad more often and longer.

Remember: Your life satisfaction is in direct proportion to the emotional states you live in. If you want to live a fulfilled life, you have to deliberately choose which emotions you want to feel. Take control of your focus and decide how you want to feel.

Positive Emotions to Deliberately Evoke:

• Joy – a sense of elation, happiness, and perhaps even exhilaration, often experienced as a sudden spike due to something good happening.
• Gratitude – a feeling of thankfulness, for something specific or simply all-encompassing, often accompanied by humility and even reverence.
• Serenity – calm and peaceful feeling of acceptance of oneself.
• Interest – feeling of curiosity or fascination that demands and captures your attention.
• Hope – feeling of optimism and anticipation about a positive future.
• Pride – a sense of approval of oneself and pleasure in an achievement, skill, or personal attribute.
• Amusement – a feeling of lighthearted pleasure and enjoyment, often accompanied by smiles and easy laughter.
• Inspiration – feeling engaged, uplifted, and motivated by something you witnessed.
• Awe – an emotion that is evoked when you witness something grand, spectacular, or breathtaking, sparking a sense of overwhelming appreciation.
• Elevation – the feeling you get when you see someone engaging in an act of kindness, generosity, or inner goodness, spurring you to aspire to similar action.
• Altruism – usually referred to as an act of selflessness and generosity towards others, but can also describe the feeling you get from helping others.
• Satisfaction – a sense of pleasure and contentment you get from accomplishing something or fulfilling a need.
• Relief – the feeling of happiness you experience when an uncertain situation turns out for the best, or a negative outcome is avoided.
• Affection – an emotional attachment to someone (or even a pet), accompanied by a liking for them and a sense of pleasure in their company.
• Cheerfulness – a feeling of brightness, being upbeat and noticeably happy or chipper; feeling like everything is going your way.
• Surprise (the good kind!) – a sense of delight when someone brings you unexpected happiness or a situation goes even better than you had hoped.
• Confidence – emotion involving a strong sense of self-esteem and belief in yourself; can be specific to a situation or activity, or more universal.
• Admiration – a feeling of warm approval, respect, and appreciation for someone or something.
• Enthusiasm – a sense of excitement, accompanied by motivation and engagement.
• Eagerness – like a less intense form of enthusiasm; a feeling of readiness and excitement for something.
• Euphoria – intense and all-encompassing sense of joy or happiness, often experienced when something extremely positive and exciting happens.
• Contentment – peaceful, comforting, and low-key sense of happiness and well-being.
• Enjoyment – a feeling of taking pleasure in what is going on around you, especially in situations like a leisure activity or social gathering.
• Optimism – positive and hopeful emotion that encourages you to look forward to a bright future, one in which you believe that things will mostly work out.
• Happiness – a feeling of pleasure and contentment in the way things are going; a general sense of enjoyment of and enthusiasm for life.
• Love – perhaps the strongest of all positive emotions, love is a feeling of deep and enduring affection for someone, along with a willingness to put their needs ahead of your own; it can be directed towards an individual, a group of people, or even all humanity.

Have fun with this!!

Dana