Raising your Vibes

I wanted to talk about keeping ourselves joyful during difficult times.
I refer here to a sense of inner peace and well-being. The ‘state’ of joy rather than the ‘emotion’ of joy.

The outside world can bring moments of exuberant, happy emotions, but these are often fleeting and can leave us perpetually chasing the next ‘happy’ moment.

So how can we access a more lasting state of joy? The first thing to realise is that we do not have to rely on the outside world to bring us that state of joy. This is because we already have it within us. This inner peace and joy is actually already there. It is our true nature. We don’t have to do anything to access it, we simply stay where we are in the present moment and allow what is in the way to fall away.

You may be wondering how you can be happy when you have just lost your job, wife or been diagnosed with a serious illness etc …. (you can fill in the blanks). In these situations, off course the emotion of joy, exuberance will probabaly not be there. It is more likely you will be experiencing the emotion of sadness, loss, grief, fear or something else. These are perfectly normal feelings and should not be pushed away or discarded.

The beauty is that you can, paradoxically, experience the emotions of sadness, pain, fear loss etc whilst in an inner state of peace and even gratitude. Sounds strange but it's true. Staying rooted in an inner state of peace, allows the painful emotions to pass, whilst the inner state remains. This is simple (though not necessarily easy), but with practice it can be done.

Another myth to bust here is that you need a reason to be happy. You don’t. Happiness is a choice you can make any minute of any day. Once again I am talking about the state of happiness here, not the emotion. You can choose to access this state any time you choose. It is an intrinsic part of you.

I love to use the example of children. Children do not need or wait for a reason to be happy. They simply are happy, whatever is happening around them. It is their state of being.

So I invite you over the next few weeks to connect with your heart. Raise those vibes! Find that joy, remember a happy moment as a child and let that feeeling stay with you and soak into every cell of your body, no matter what is happening on the outside. If you cannot remember any happy moment in your life, make one up. Make believe. It has the same effect. Simply feel the joy!

If another negative thought or emotion comes in to interrupt, welcome it in, surround it with love and watch it leave again. Don’t dwell on it. Allow it to pass without gettting caught up in the negative thought or story behind it. Then invite the joy back in and continue to feel it again.

Remember, you have the choice here. So go ahead. I invite you to choose joy and raise those vibes!

With Love

Madhuri