How do you feel most of the time? Are you joyful, appreciative, content, and hopeful? Or are you frustrated, angry, overwhelmed, and maybe even depressed?

Is there connection between how you feel most of the time and how you see the world?

If you don’t think so, I’d ask you to think again!

Every feeling you have is either a derivative of love or fear. Like opposite ends of a magnet, the feelings that you have are moving you closer to one pole or the other. Where you spend most of your time is reflected in how you experience life.

While many people think their feelings are out of their control, this isn’t actually the case. What you are feeling is tied directly to what you are thinking.

You may believe that what you are thinking about a situation is etched in stone. The situation is the situation after all. It’s either good or bad, right? How could you possibly think something different about it?

You begin to take control of your thoughts and emotions when you recognize that what you think and feel is a choice.

This doesn’t mean that you won’t face a situation that feels so bad that changing your thoughts simply is not an option in the moment. I would say it is pretty impossible to look at a child or animal that is suffering and change your thoughts in the moment to be all holly jolly. And I don’t think you’re meant to do that.

But the solution will not be found in continuing to focus on the problem. People tend to just lock on to how horrible the problem is, and like passing a wreck on the highway, they can’t tear their eyes—or thoughts—away.

But if the problem is on one side of the mental coin, the solution is on the other, and you have to begin turning your thoughts and focus to the solution side of things.

This means focusing on what you do want. How do you want things to look? How do you want children and animals to be treated? What would resolution look like to you? Then lock on to those thoughts like a laser beam.

If you feel so strongly about a situation that you literally can’t shift your thoughts about it, then as often as possible, figure out how you can take your mind off that topic. You will not be giving it freedom to get worse if you give your mind a rest to think about something that you do feel good about.

Letting go of your grip on worry and stress—even for a minute here and there throughout your day—can actually help you see solutions that you otherwise would have missed.

This is where it’s helpful to tap into your spiritual beliefs. You can feel a sense of relief when you put your mental burden in the hands of a power bigger than yourself, that understands the story behind you and to come, that has such a broad perspective that the solution is clear, and that has the capacity to create the Universe and that will use all of its resources working on your behalf.

However you can get there, a feeling of relief is all you need to strive for. Trying to jump from depression to joy will just bring you crashing painfully to the ground. The small step of a feeling of relief is all that you need to move you closer to the love-side of the magnet.

And the more you step your thoughts towards love, the more you love your life and see life as wonderful, abundant, and joyful.

What can you do today to alter your thoughts to create a feeling of relief? Do that, and repeat.

Together we can do it!

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