Groovy, Man… Getting My Vibes Up
I’ve been asked by Cardin (and now Rick) to take part in The High Vibes Game. In a nutshell, we are sharing what we do to raise our “vibes”, and pointing to posts that have helped us do this.
My top five vibe raising activities are:
Do Something!
Since I’ve suffered from severe depression through most of my life, just getting up and doing something can do wonders for my vibes. Depression is the classic low vibe state, and when it’s chronic and severe, it’s only a step above death. One of the greatest ways to combat it is to get your body moving, do something, anything, that involves physical activity. Outdoors in natural sunlight is best, but if that’s not possible, just doing something physical is always better than doing nothing, even if it’s just wiggling your toes when you can’t get out of bed.
Insight Meditation
There’s a reason I keep writing about this… because when I do it, the results are immediate and amazing. My mind clears, my energy levels go up, and I am much more focused on my day.
Laughter
One of the reasons that my wife and I are so happy in our relationship is that we laugh together so much. Humor can do wonders for our vibes – now every time something good happens to us, either Tracy or I will look at each other and blurt out “Secret!”
Playing with my Dog
I was brought up as a a cat person, but I’ve converted over to the other side. Nothing beats it when I get home and Baby comes flying out of the bedroom and jumps on me until I get down on my knees so she can give me a hug by draping her front paws over my shoulders. She drives us crazy too (I think this dog and her might be related), but even that is one of the joys of our lives. Another one of Tracy and my words is “Starving!” (you’ll have to read the previous link to get it).
Reaching for a Better Feeling Thought
Abraham-Hicks teaches about an emotional scale, and how moving up that scale can move us into a place of allowing. The scale runs from “Fear/Grief/Depression/Despair/Powerlessness” to “Joy/Appreciation/Empowered/Freedom/Love”. When I can just reach for a thought that is a bit higher on the scale, I can immediately feel the benefits. One of the most freeing things for me was when I gave myself permission to feel anger or blame, simply because they felt better than depression.
So those are my top five ways to raise my vibes. And I’m high vibing the following posts:
The Emotional Scale – The Key to Your Success from Contemplate This
Happiness is Just Around the Corner from The Chief Happiness Officer
Subject Reality Q&A from Steve Pavlina . com – Personal Development for Smart People
A Guide to Cultivating Compassion in Your Life, With 7 Practices from zen habits
The Pmarca Guide to Personal Productivity from blog.pmarca.com
It was tough picking only five, but those are them!
Be sure to check out High Vibe It and read/submit some posts today!
This post has 8 comments
June 6th, 2007
Lyman,
The “do something” works the best for me. Look for anything that needs doing, anything that looks fun, just move, accomplish something, even if it is just making cinnamon toast, the smell alone will get your vibe up, toasted bread combined with melted butter sprinkled with cinnamon, it’s easy to do too, if you like that sort of thing.
June 6th, 2007
Great tools, Lyman! I loved that post about the sweet potato dog.
It convinces me to stay a cat person, but I love it.
One of the things I left out was playing with my granddaughters. They’re still young enough that there is no pretence. What you see is what you get, so when they play with you, there is a pure joy that is infectious.
June 6th, 2007
Steve: Oh, great, now I’ve got to go out and get some cinnamon before work! It’s been years since I’ve had cinnamon toast!
But seriously, it does work wonders, doesn’t it? Just move… and keep moving.
Rick: I found that post about 2 weeks (?) ago, and I still chuckle whenever I think about it… especially when our girl grabs something out of the trash and goes running when she see’s me!
June 6th, 2007
No one makes me laugh like you do. For me that is the “SECRET!”. In the face of ongoing money troubles, a dog who always thinks she is STARVING, and the bipolar roller coaster, we find things to laugh about every single day.
I am so lucky to be your wife.
June 6th, 2007
Lyman,
Great list! I really appreciate your mentioning “reaching for a better feeling thought”. I know that you’ve commented about a post on that topic on my site–but I just can’t express enough how empowering it is to know that sometimes blame, or anger, are a step up–so glad you are talking about this too.
Cardin Lilly
June 7th, 2007
tracy: I love you too, hon. And I’m pretty lucky as well.
Cardin: It still seems strange to me to say “blame” would be a good thing, but in this sense it actually is. Intellectually I know that I’m 100% responsible for my own reality, so it doesn’t really fit – who is there to blame if I attracted it? I’m still working on completely integrating that belief, but for now, I just know that it does feel better, and I’m not meant to stay there.
Thanks again for starting the game.
June 7th, 2007
When Cardin contacted me about HighVibing, the dog was complaining that he was, you got it, starving and the cats decided they didn’t want their food, even though I kept telling them it tasted just like mouse. So he ate the cats’ food and they munched on his and everyone was mildly happy. My point? With all the happy chaos, I forgot about vibing. Gotta get on that.
Good tools, Lyman!
June 7th, 2007
LOL and thanks, Carolyn! I look forward to your vibing!
Trackbacks