Twelve Steps to Feeling Good

Just for fun, imagine with me that we are Olympic Equestrian athletes in training for the next Olympics. Our team has a training coach. We have a large, indoor training gym set up with all sorts of equipment. We train on our Olympic class horses, as well as on a mechanical ‘horse,’ with a saddle, to build up our muscles and stamina. We train six days a week. These are just some of the many different techniques we use to attain our goal of Olympic gold.

OK, back to earth. We may not be Olympic-class athletes, but we’re definitely in training. We each have our own coach. Yup, you do, even if you don't know it yet. We have tools. We train in different ways every day. We’re spiritual Olympians in training. We’re committed to attaining spiritual gold. We're committed to feeling good.

“Anytime you feel good… you’ve found vibrational alignment with who you are… When you are in alignment with who you really are, you cannot help but uplift those with whom you come into contact, your value to those around you hinges upon only one thing - your personal alignment with source.”
-Abraham-Hicks

Now, imagine this - you are that spiritual athlete in training for the spiritual Olympics. You have a training coach to guide you – your Higher Self. You use lots of different spiritual tools, train in many different ways. You strengthen your power muscles, train your power memory pathways, instilling the habits of success. You strengthen your emotional and mental bodies by ‘feeding’ yourself with the nutritious food of positive, supportive thought. You care lovingly for your physical body with good nutrition, exercise and rest. You do all these things because you have a goal. You want to feel good, right?

Feeling good may seem too simple a goal. Yet it's not. Many of us spend our lifetimes learning how to feel good. Feeling good may seem too frivolous a goal. It is not. When you feel good, you serve. (See the posts, Love in Action, One Woman's Joy, The Greatest Service about that very thing.) Feeling good is a worthy goal.

So, you want to feel good. How do you go about that?
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An Olympic-class athlete is born with an innate talent, but that talent must be nurtured, trained, strengthened and coached to blossom into its fullness. It doesn’t happen overnight. Just because an athlete has the interest and the ability, doesn’t mean they don’t need to practice and train. The innate ability is like clay, it needs to be molded and trained into shape. It needs to be strengthened in the fire of the kiln.

You too have an innate talent. It is your source of power (see more about that in the post, You are More Powerful that you Know.) It is your ability to choose how you will experience your life. You are born with this talent. It is an ability that is trained starting from day one in your life. Depending upon the social environment you grew up in, this ability may or may not have served you positively. That’s OK if it hasn't in the past. You can retrain yourself.

Let’s take a page out of an Olympic athlete’s training manual and look at how you can train your innate ability to serve you in twelve doable steps that can become a integral part of your spiritual practice. 
 
Twelve Steps to Feeling Good
1. Commitment – Take yourself seriously, make this commitment to yourself - “I empower myself to feel good with each positive thought that I think.”
2. Coach – your built-in fitness trainer, guide and mentor, your Higher Self.  Ask your Higher Self to be your spiritual director supporting you to feel good, each morning when you awake. Make this a part of your morning wake-up routine.
3. Spiritual Tools – to practice the skills from many different angles and approaches, building up your endurance and strength, choose a new tool to practice each week from the many Spiritual Tools offered on Soul Doors (search on the category "Spiritual Tool") or the myriad of others offered online.
4. Training – warm up with a morning wake-up spiritual routine, (see Yoga Inspires),  practice with a new spiritual tool of your choice for six days. Rest on the seventh day allowing yourself processing time.
5. Set Goals – what is it that you want to achieve? What feels good to you? Set incremental goals so that you experience a feeling of success all along the way.
6. Change it up – so you are constantly challenging yourself. When you choose your new tool to practice each week, change it up. Choose something different from the week before. Challenge yourself by pushing your comfort envelope. This is how you grow stronger.
7. Bring back the tools that resonated for you, and utilize them at least once a week, along with the new tool you are practicing each week.
8. Find support from family, friends and community to inspire, motivate and support you.  Get to know other spiritually minded people. This can be online or in your community. Find a soul tribe, or a soul-friend. Share and motivate each other.
9. Get used to using your power even when you're under pressure. Pay particular attention to those times in your life that feel less than positive. Practice using your tools, your new skills under pressure. Grow and get stronger each time you do.
10. Take care of your body with healthy eating, drinking plenty of water, and getting enough sleep.
11. Keep yourself in balance with an inner focus through meditation and positive visualization.
12. Make rest and recovery a regular part of your self-care routine. Take time off. Take time to rest. Find out what feels restful to you and make sure that too is part of your daily routine. 

Photo by Amir Kh on Unsplash