How Do I Feel Better Now When I’m So Unhappy with My Life?

I always hear how you have to FEEL good and focus on what you want in spite of what’s going on in your reality.  No body can really give a good explanation on HOW to actually do this in the midst of always struggling and hating everything you have to do to survive.  Sure, I have tried to feel good anyway…but that only lasts until something happens AGAIN to keep me where I’m at.  How do you truly feel the way you would like to feel if you had your ideal life when it is far from ideal.

Love this question because it allows me to talk about one of the most confusing aspects of ‘manifesting’–it may be a verb but it’s not an action. There really isn’t anything here I haven’t said before in some way, but we need that repetition so I am happy to repeat myself! My answer to this question will either clear up some of the confusion for the person who asked it, and others with a similar issue, or further frustrate them. I hope it is the former! 

The ‘How’ Isn’t What You Think It is

When we ask ‘how’ to do something, we are usually talking about what actions to take to accomplish a specific goal. Understandable question. But ‘inner work’ is not something we master in an action-oriented way. It is not something, if done correctly, will produce a particular result. There is nothing we can ‘do’ to guarantee any sort of change. The mind doesn’t like this answer but trust me, it’s good it doesn’t work this way. 

‘How’ we make internal shifts that translate to changes in our external reality will never be achieved in any meaningful way by action. This is why many people who develop very diligent routines and rituals, who have done countless programs and seminars over the years, find themselves no better off than when they started, much to their dismay and frustration.

I can’t tell you the relief I felt when I realized, at the core, this was not an action-oriented process. I was so sick of always feeling like I had to be ‘doing’ something, learning some approach. These days, unless something deeply resonates, I  confidently take a pass, knowing that if it doesn’t speak to me intuitively, it’s not for me. I know there is no inherent power in the tool, technique or modality, in and of itself, so I’m not missing out on anything.

Manifesting is not about what we are ‘doing’ it is about what we are ‘being’. As far as the ‘how’ is concerned, we don’t want to be asking ‘How do I get X, Y or Z?’ We want to be asking ‘How do I become the person who would naturally ‘align’ with X, Y or Z?’ 

There is no action that can make us shift internally in any way because the state of our inner world is determined by nothing more than what we choose it to be. Words like ‘energy’ and ‘vibration’ are just fancy words for feelings, and our feelings are determined by our perceptions, by our belief system. 

We choose those things, and we don’t need to ‘do’ anything to facilitate the ‘choosing.’ We choose to change our belief system or we choose to keep the one we already have. It is as simple as that. There are no tools, techniques or strategies that can make us change our minds. 

Various ‘actions’ may support this core action of ‘choosing’ in that they help us get into certain states of mind where we are more amenable to the various teachings exposing us to these new beliefs and views of the world and ourselves, by reducing our stress, evoking some sort of ‘positive’ energy and the like.

But again, these actions in and of themselves have zero power to make us change in any way. So if you find there are things that help you feel more centered, more ‘positive’ and the like, make use of them. But just don’t assign them a power they don’t have. 

A Key Shift in Thinking You Must Embrace

Like awesome question-asker noted, she says it is really hard to feel good in the midst of her current unwanted circumstances, and she may succeed for a bit until something else happens she doesn’t like, and the resistance and bad feelings come rushing back. 

Genuine, lasting, consistent shifts in our emotional state will forever elude us so long as we believe our circumstances are responsible for our feelings. This line of thinking will keep us trapped in a never ending cycle of negativity because the ego thought system operates in such a way that it will CONSTANTLY find things in your reality it doesn’t like. 

Your job isn’t to feel better ‘in spite’ of what is going on in your life, it is recognizing what is going on in your life has nothing to do with how you feel. Your mind will make an excellent argument against this idea, and you can decide to stick with its belief that the outside is responsible for your feelings. You will get to be ‘right’ but you will not be happy. 

Like I said earlier, the crux of all this spiritual ‘work’ is nothing more than conscious choice. Our perceptions are our only problem, and we choose our perceptions. And the choice between believing our circumstances are responsible for our feelings, or that our perceptions of our circumstances are responsible, is one of the most important choices we will make, because that will impact so many of our subsequent choices.

The thing is though, if we are willing to consider the true problem isn’t our circumstances, but our stories about them, we must take the next step of actually looking at the story, looking at the perception we are currently holding. 

This seems obvious, but our mind is really good at sidestepping the most important aspects of this ‘work.’ It thinks intellectually accepting an idea is sufficient to ‘fix’ the issue. But simply buying into this idea, without taking it any further, won’t provide the emotional benefit it is supposed to provide. 

This is where it can get messy and icky because it will force us to admit to things we don’t want to admit to, to feel feelings we don’t want to feel.

So why are you upset about things as they are now? Why are you upset about being single? Why are you upset about having a particular health problem? Why are you upset about your professional situation? 

Why are you upset you didn’t get that promotion? Why are you upset you don’t have more money? 

What is the situation making you think about you as a person? What does it make you think about your future? If things didn’t change, if you didn’t get what you wanted, what would that mean? What images are you seeing in your mind when you think about these issues? 

One of the biggest ‘energetic blocks’ for people is the inability to change their feeling state in the midst of their unwanted circumstances. The only reason this seems so impossible is because we believe the circumstances are causing the feelings. 

When we no longer believe that, this all-important aspect of ‘energetic transformation’ becomes much easier to achieve. You realize the problem was never what you thought it was. You realize nothing needs to change first for you to ‘manifest’ what you ultimately want most, which is to simply feel better.

You will no longer feel compelled to follow the well-meaning, but essentially bad advice ,of ‘acting as if’ you were already happy with your life and you already had what you wanted. This usually amounts to nothing more than denial of your current emotional state, and keeps you from looking at what needs to be looked at to effect any meaningful change in your circumstances and feeling state. All this ‘faking’ creates a lot of tension and just exacerbates your feelings of lack. 

You enter a state of surrender to the moment (which the ego mind wrongly interprets as resignation) and are willing to embrace your reality as it is now, understanding it is nothing more than a neutral reflection of your dominant beliefs, perceptions and emotional state, all of which you have the power to change. 

You are willing to look for the lessons, you are willing to see how what is happening may be serving you, how it can actually help you get to where you want to be. It is flushing up things from deep within, that can now be looked at and released.

From an energetic perspective, resisting where we are now, being so upset about what we don’t have, all that icky energy of ‘need,’ serves no positive purpose. Accepting your circumstances as they are now does not mean giving up on changing them, it simply means understanding all the energy that comes from being ‘against’ them doesn’t help. 

Again, if energy and vibration are simply fancy words for ‘feelings’ holding onto any belief that doesn’t make us feel good won’t help our cause. And now matter how much you think it may be true, believing our circumstances are responsible for our feelings, believing certain things must happen for us, or we don’t get to feel better, does not feel good in the slightest. The ego thought system is not very ‘manifesting-friendly’ because nothing it believes feels good. 

Changing the Goal

So long as ‘feeling better’ remains not the goal in and of itself, but simply a means to an end, that end being ‘manifesting’ something your ego mind wants, it will be a very bumpy, frustrating journey. 

We all start in this space–how can we not when we are conditioned deeply to believe changing the outside world in various ways is the key to feeling all the good feelings we want, and getting rid of all the bad feelings we don’t? I know that is where I started. 

But at some point we start realizing this isn’t true. At some point we start realizing what we are really after is emotional healing and wellness, and anything in the world, anything outside of us, cannot provide it in any real, meaningful, lasting way, whether it’s money, a relationship or a better job. At some point we realize we need to shift focus from the external to the internal. 

Most of us however, won’t apply these ‘realizations’ in real time. We will still allow the ego mind to dominate the journey; we will be afraid to ‘give up’ on all the stuff we want, even as we realize getting it isn’t the answer. We are so used to our attachment; we are basically addicted to our sense of need and dissatisfaction, to wanting, to using the present moment as nothing more than a stepping stone to some future goal, to acquiring ‘more’ than we have now. 

And a tension within will start to grow as we continue to put all our efforts into ‘manifesting’ this or that, even though we now realize we are putting our attention in the wrong place.  Again, we are up against very deep conditioning and this can be a process. 

And while we may not pivot immediately, once we start more deeply internalizing all these spiritual teachings, we see at some point we will have to make a choice as to when we will abandon the path of solely focusing on the external and embark upon the path of the internal (which will naturally affect your reality in all sorts of ways ego mind will find pleasing since ‘mind’ is the true level of cause)

Again, it is all about conscious choice. We choose where to put our focus. We choose whether to keep embracing the ego thought system causing all this pain, or switch over to the ‘spirit’ thought system, which heals this pain in all its forms, from attachment to self-loathing to unresolved trauma to holding other people responsible for our feelings.

We can choose to focus within, where both the problem and the solutions lie, or we can choose to keep operating under the delusion that changing the outside is the key to happiness, and continue to do all of our ‘personal growth work’ in service of getting ‘stuff.’ 

We can choose to explore our perceptions and be willing to embrace ones that can provide immediate emotional relief, or insist our circumstances are the cause of our bad feelings, and we cannot possibly feel better until things change. 

The Stuff Still Comes

As a fellow human, I get how real this world feels, I get how we value certain things within it, that we believe we have certain needs that must be met. This is why I address ‘energy work’ in the context of ‘manifesting’ plenty.

I hope that by reassuring people that  focusing internally doesn’t mean ‘giving up’ on changing your life and your circumstances, it will allow them to shift their attention here, and get what they ultimately want (emotional wellness.) I want them to understand walking this path will not have the implications the ego mind believes it does, because it sees a false choice between pursuit of ‘happiness’ and pursuit of your stuff. And if it thinks we can only choose one, you know what it’s going to choose. 

If the level of ‘mind’ is the true level of cause, the deeper transformations that will come from focusing more internally, will have no choice but to dramatically impact your life. 

And speaking from personal experience, it changes in much better ways, and much more easily, when you stop making the outside your primary focus. The less I concerned myself with the outside, the more easily and seamlessly it changed in ways the human ‘me’ found pleasing–I haven’t totally released on the external world and all my ‘preferences’ so I get it. 

But I have reached a point where I have largely let go of the delusion that any change in my circumstances will make any real difference in how I feel. I may still ‘want’ certain things but I don’t take it all so seriously anymore. The value I have placed on things like money has changed dramatically ,and I no longer hold any ego ‘wants’ so precious and dear because I know those things are meaningless insofar as impacting my well-being. 

The more ‘surface’ level changes we make in our energy courtesy of how a teaching like the LOA is usually presented is kind of ‘child’s play.’ We may get stuff, but we sell ourselves short. There really isn’t any consistency. We will end up taking more action than necessary, action we probably won’t enjoy. Because changing the outside isn’t the answer, even if we get all sorts of stuff, we still don’t feel all that much better, so what’s the point? 

All of our emotional ‘ick’ is the biggest ‘barrier’ to aligning with different circumstances–it isn’t that we aren’t being ‘positive’ enough, it isn’t that we are using the wrong tools and techniques, it isn’t that we aren’t being clear or specific enough about what we want, it isn’t that we are doing manifesting ‘wrong.’ 

All of our human ‘wants’ are stemming from some sort of emotional pain. We want what we want on the outside because we believe these changes will minimize these bad feelings. If we are willing to explore the real root of these feelings–our perceptions of our past and current circumstances–we break free of our ego mind’s delusion that changing the outside is the antidote to this pain. We see we have total ‘control’ in healing this pain because it stems from a story we created and chose to keep believing all this time. 

So dealing with said ‘ick’ will have more effect on your external world than anything you can ‘do.’ Action in its various forms is not ‘manifesting.’ It is about what we are ‘being’ not what we are ‘doing.’ If energy and vibration are just fancy words for ‘feelings’ then emotional healing will have a dramatic effect on your circumstances. 

How could feeling whole, perfect and complete as you are have a negative impact on manifesting a relationship? 

How can feeling genuine gratitude for what you have now lead you to receive less?’ 

How can being detached from various outcomes make it more likely for ‘bad’ things to happen? 

How can the feeling that comes with trusting in God, the Universe, or whatever your preferred term, to support you, lead to creating more problems in your life, rather than solving the ones you have now?

So long as you are alive, you will be ‘manifesting’ and feeling better now, regardless of what you have, or don’t have, will have zero downside to this, I promise. Prioritizing emotional healing over simply trying to attract what you don’t have, is actually the easier way to change the outside. Trust me. 

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