Turn down your thoughts. In times of tension and stress, your mind is not your friend. This is because our brains are wired to respond to stress with more stress. We are conditioned to “do something!” and in the reactive doing, we are acting out of fear, which is never the source of solutions. What’s needed is soul-guided responses made from the connected wisdom of the heart, and those are accessible only when the mind is turned way down. This can be extra difficult in the middle of stress, because reacting is literally an addiction, and our brains want their fix. Guided meditations or self-hypnosis, nature walks, hot baths, music, silent meditation, or anything that gets you out of your head and into the inner knowing of the heart is your best ally in times of stress to keep you more attuned to the space of your intuition.
But feel what you need to feel. Resisting the urge to indulge unhelpful, stress-fueled thinking is not the same as resisting the emotions you are being invited to feel. Often, refusing to indulge in lower-vibration mind patterns gets confused with pushing away uncomfortable or painful feelings. The “high vibes only” mentality that brushes aside any heavy feelings because they aren’t pleasant is a sign of spiritual whitewashing, which is the misuse of spirituality to minimize the parts of life that are more difficult but are crucial to growth. When you’re being triggered in feelings of sadness, anger, frustration, confusion, guilt, or anything else that feels bad, it’s important to go into and underneath the emotion instead of trying to go above or around it. Avoiding emotions will only invite them into your life in a bigger way down the road, so face them head-on (in a calm, quiet, reflective space if possible), and explore what the feeling is showing you that needs to be seen for your expansion and healing.
Move away -- even if it’s only a little bit -- from the things that just don’t feel like a fit anymore. Once you’ve acknowledged and felt into the lessons and healing opportunities hidden in the things you don’t like about your current situation, it’s time to start shifting into one that is more in alignment with what you DO want. One of the quickest ways to move into a higher vibration is to participate less in the things that don’t feel right to you. If you get a headache, stomachache or other physical pain every time you’re with a particular person or in a certain place, your body could be sending you intuitive clues that they’re not a vibrational match for you anymore. If you find yourself absolutely dreading certain tasks, see if it’s possible to spend less time doing those and more time doing the ones that excite you. You may notice your mind telling you that you “have to” continue to participate in many things that just don’t feel right anymore. Remember that your brain has been conditioned since birth with expectations, judgment, roles, and a variety of other things that are designed for fear-based human reasons to keep you living small. When you choose what your heart and body are telling you over what your mind says, you will discover the rewards, as well as the next steps toward what is more aligned for you on a soul level.
When you take these leaps of faith in yourself and the universe to move more fully into a higher vibration, you will find yourself in a place of being able to receive more of what feels good to you, which leads to your vibration rising even more! It’s all part of living in flow with the abundance and support that is available to you at all times as you move forward on your purposeful soul path.