Remember, if you show your excitement to the Universe, it’ll give you more things to feel excited about.
Vex King
The law of vibration may be a bit out there for some, but if it’s good enough for Oprah Winfrey, then I’m all ears! In a nutshell, if you can raise your vibration… then you change your life.
The basic concept is that whilst we naturally think of ourselves as separate physical entities in a physical world, with our own unique experiences and hardships, we are actually all interconnected spiritual beings in a vibrational universe.
The difficulty we face in our individual human experience is learning how to tap into this energetic abundance that flows through the universe. By harnessing the power of our own thoughts and emotions, we can program our subconscious mind and act like a radio transmitter in terms of the people and situations we attract into our lives.
Most people never get the opportunity to fully grasp this. They go from this emotional state to that emotional state, continually at the mercy of their uncontrolled thoughts. In this sense, I am strangely grateful for the struggles I’ve had with my mental health. As I’ve grown older and learnt more about OCD, it has taught me more plainly than anything else that:
You can shift your vibrational energy by changing your thoughts.
It was like a lightbulb switching on when I came to this epiphany. The change didn’t need to come from the outside world! I was completely responsible for myself and the life I was creating. This was daunting but empowering.
Please note that you should consult a qualified health professional if you’re struggling with any mental illness. What I can say, is that having an awareness of my irrational thoughts has fuelled my curiosity about how we can use thought in new and powerful ways to transform our lives.
Why We Self-Sabotage
In Eckhart Tolle’s book The Power of Now, one of his central arguments is that there is a part of you that needs pain in order to survive, and that you create most of the pain you experience. This may be difficult at first to get your head around. Why on earth would we intentionally create pain? Isn’t the pain we experience inflicted on us? Surely everyone is ultimately striving to be at peace and just, well… happy?
What we need to understand is that we don’t get what we want in life. We get what we think about. Whether we want to manifest a new relationship or a new job, we need to change our own specific frequency so we are in alignment with our desires.
According to Tolle, pain is a self-created inner resistance to external things we can’t control. Tolle describes this as the ‘pain-body’, which is made up of all our painful experiences, and continues to grow and strengthen as we experience more pain throughout our lives. Eventually, this cycle becomes so embedded that we actually start to identify with it, and to let go of it would be to risk losing our identity altogether.
The ego is a destructive part of the human mind which most people are unaware is controlling their life to a large extent. It depends on misery for its continued existence, and often acts against our own interests. This is why we can find ourselves in toxic relationships, cycles of break-ups, or continually self-sabotaging.
If we want to reduce our own suffering and raise our vibrational frequency, it is important we have an awareness of this. We need to check our own inner tyrant, and learn ways that we can stay in control of our thoughts and emotions.
Changing Your Vibrational Frequency
Whilst it is important to have positive thoughts so that we simply feel better most of the time, we should also be aware that our thoughts are powerful and are reflected back to us; they can dictate and bring about our actual circumstances in the world.
As Esther and Jerry Hicks put it in Ask and It Is Given, what you think about is a self-fulfilling prophecy:
You get what you think about, whether you want it or not… Whatever you think about is like planning a future event. When you are appreciating, you are planning. When you are worrying, you are planning. (Worrying is using your imagination to create something you do not want.)
In other words, every thought and idea is vibrational, and things that match your vibrational energy are drawn to you.
In order to take full responsibility of our lives, we need to start having an awareness of the power of thought, and identify the vibrational energy we are currently transmitting and receiving back to us. What we experience on the physical plane is a vibrational match to our current state of being. A scale of our emotions may range from positive emotions like love, empowerment and joy, right down to negative energy like fear, despair and powerlessness.
There is nothing shameful or unfixable about identifying that you find yourself stuck in lower vibration energy. The key is to recognise this and sincerely ask yourself what you can do to change, so that you can send a new signal to the universe!
10 Ways To Raise Your Vibration Now
Here are some of my own top tips for daily activities to stop negative thinking in its tracks, and instantly raise your own vibration at any given time. The goal is to develop these into daily habits and routines to see long-term change.
It is worth pointing out here once again that if you are struggling with any kind of serious mental health condition, you should always seek the help of a qualified professional first.
Start the day with a vision board and positive affirmations
When you are creating a vision board for your life, don’t get hung up on the finer details of how you are going to get there (that comes later)! Right now, your job is to feel excited and inspired by your vision, so that you can access the vibrational state of your imagined future every morning.
Louise Hay also talks about the power of positive affirmations in her book You Can Heal Your Life. By turning negative statements into positive ones, and always stating them in the first person present tense, you are sending powerful new messages to your subconscious mind.
Start your day with intention by saying your affirmations out loud for the day when you wake up in the morning. Whether you believe the statement right now or not is irrelevant. You are planting the seeds in your unconscious mind, and these seeds need time and TLC to grow, so consistency is the key.
Once your subconscious starts to receive and accept the new messaging, your life will begin to change in miraculous ways.
Practice meditation or yoga
If physical exercise leads to mastery over our bodies, then peaceful meditation leads to mastery over our minds. Both are muscles that require time and dedication to grow.
A bit like the gym, it can be hard to build and maintain a consistent meditation practice. It can also feel difficult and even silly at first! You may experience thoughts of boredom, frustration or pointlessness, but these are all perfectly normal! Focus on your breathing, recognise your thoughts and let them go. You may never get to a point where you completely empty your mind, but that’s okay. You don’t have to achieve enlightenment. The most important thing is developing an awareness of your thoughts and observing them from a distance.
Alongside this, joining a weekly yoga class is a self-care tip I can’t recommend highly enough! Yoga is as much about quietening your mind as it is focusing on the postures or ‘asanas’, and teaches you to be fully present in the moment (rather than stewing on the past or worrying about the future).
Observe the space between yourself and your thoughts to build mental resilience, and stop yourself from getting unconsciously caught up in painful lower vibrational energies.
Listen to upbeat music
What is one of the quickest hacks for entering a new emotional state? It’s as simple as listening to your favourite song!
We all know that listening to a sad song can really make us feel sad ourselves, even if we have nothing to be particularly sad about in that moment. And listening to something upbeat can put a smile on your face when you were least expecting it!
When you go to the gym, or you’re doing house work you don’t particularly want to do, or you’re just feeling a bit flat, there’s no better motivation than blasting a song you can’t help but move to. Give yourself an extra boost and maybe even have a little dance in the kitchen on your own. No one is watching, and I promise, you’ll feel so much better for it!
Lose yourself in a good book
I know… we live in an age of Youtube, social media and instant gratification. But having been a bookworm since childhood, I’ve always had an awareness of the way in which reading can quite magically transport you to different places.
When you truly get engrossed in a good book (especially fiction!), you enter the most wonderful flow state, momentarily transcending space and time, leaving behind your body, thoughts and emotions. If you’ve ever read for hours on end and suddenly realise you need a drink or a wee, you’ll know exactly what I mean by this!
Our brains don’t make real distinctions between actual and perceived experiences, which means the same neurological regions of our brains are stimulated, as if we were actually acting out the narrative in real time. This means we can enter completely new and exciting emotional states, that may not be so easily accessible to us in our current real world setting.
If you want to switch off from your own thoughts at the end of a long day and turn up your vibrational frequency, try reading for half an hour before bed instead of scrolling Instagram.
Volunteer for a local charity
Volunteering is asking the universe a different question. Not ‘why me’, but instead ‘how can I serve’?
The more you start to ask this second question, the more you will come to understand the somewhat paradoxical law that the more you give away, the more abundance will be reflected back to you in your own life.
See what local charities there are for causes you care about, that align strongly with your own moral compass and values, and see if you can dedicate some regular time weekly or even monthly. If you can’t spare the time but want to do some good in the world, how about buying a hot drink for a homeless person the next time you’re in town?
Helping others in selfless ways is nourishment for the soul. You don’t have to shout about it. This generosity will be transmitted back to you in a myriad of ways in your own life.
Commit to a consistent exercise routine
It’s no exaggeration to say that walking out of the gym after doing some intensive exercise… makes you feel like a demi-God!
Any way in which you can get your body moving – whether it’s running, biking, rowing or tennis – has proven psychological and emotional benefits, as well as simply physical gains.
Exercising improves your mood, reduces your stress levels, increases your energy levels, and makes you feel more confident, to name just a few positives. It quite literally makes you feel good, pumping you with endorphins (your brain’s feel-good neurotransmitters).
In particular, starting your day with exercise can be a great way to get your brain firing in a way which sets a positive tone for the rest of the day.
Do some housework
Okay, okay, no one gets particularly excited about housework, I hear you say. How on earth is that going to help me move up the emotional scale?!
As Marie Kondo points out in her best-selling book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, the purpose of tidying unnecessary clutter isn’t just to keep your home neat and organised. Actually, it is doing much more than this on a subconscious level. You are creating a space that improves your body and mind.
Kondo argues that tidying has a similar effect to that of meditation; its power lies in the self-awareness of doing what feels right for your environment, your belongings, and ultimately your well-being. Bringing fresh air into your home and imagining your ideal space in detail brings you closer vibrationally to the life you want to live.
So whether it’s decluttering one drawer or picking up the feather duster, just start in any small area of your home.
Go for a walk in nature
Walking is man’s best medicine.
Hippocrates’ statement remains as true today as it was 2,500 years ago.
I feel particularly blessed that my family was a family of walkers. Some of my happiest memories are days spent hiking in The Peak District, with nothing but the clothes I was wearing to keep out the wind and rain, and a rucksack on my back with the bare essentials.
When the Romantics talk about the concept of The Sublime, or ‘the experience of vastness’, what this really grants us is a new perspective within which our own concerns are blissfully irrelevant.
Spending time in the natural world brings us into a ‘one-ness’ with the entire universe, and suddenly our own concerns can seem very small. We have probably all had this experience when looking up into the night sky at the vastness of space. There is comfort in how irrelevant we are, and an inexplicable feeling of interconnectedness in all things.
If you’re able to – I prefer early mornings if possible – try to spend half an hour or so each day walking in the natural world. You will feel re-invigorated and re-energised.
Keep a gratitude journal
It is worth considering whether your glass is mostly half full or half empty. When something goes wrong or doesn’t go your way, are you the first to complain? Or do you tend to look for the silver lining, no matter how undesirable the circumstances?
Gratitude is another muscle that needs developing. By listing three things you are grateful for at the beginning or end of the day, you start to build this habit of optimism.
Whilst you may start this process through gritted teeth, opening your heart and being thankful for what you have is one of the best ways of attracting more of what you want into your life.
When you say ‘it’s miserable outside’, try ‘I’m so pleased I’m warm and cosy inside’. Instead of seething when someone goes into the back of your car and it’s not your fault, say ‘thankfully I’m alive and no one was seriously hurt’. ‘I’ve failed’ becomes ‘I’m so proud of myself for trying, and I’ve learnt a valuable lesson for next time.’
It’s deceptively simple, but sometimes nothing needs to drastically change. You just need to reframe the picture you’re looking at.
Smile!
Let’s finish with the simplest trick of all. Smile.
And… I know how ridiculous it seems to smile when you don’t feel like smiling.
However, remember one of the most important universal laws of manifestation: your subconscious mind believes everything you tell it, whether it has any basis in truth or not.
When you are walking past a mirror or catch your reflection in a window, smile. When you look into the face of a stranger as you walk past, smile. The first thing you do when you sit up in bed at the start of a new day, smile!
It is honestly hard to feel bad when doing something associated with feeling good. Try to smile as much as you can on a daily basis, and you will naturally start to find more to smile about in life.
Raise Your Vibration & Manifest Today!
Whilst these things may not come completely naturally to you at first, everything becomes easier over time and you will start to see the positive benefits. I hope this gives you some straightforward and practical tips to take into your every day life, to speed up the manifestation process and bring yourself into vibrational harmony with your dream life!
For more inspiration on learning to manifest, why not have a read of my article 15 Must-Read Books to Manifest Your Dream Life in 2023?