The A E I O U to Happiness

A – Acknowledge, Accept, Allow

Acknowledge what is happening Now.  You’ve become aware that you’ve been triggered, you’ve become agitated, angered or annoyed. We can get caught in a downward spiral. So, we want to pause and Accept that this is how you are feeling, Now, at this moment. All we have is Now!

Allow yourself to feel all of this. Be with the circumstances in the Now, Being fully present. Focus on feeling the sensations in your body. Relax into feeling the pain, discomfort, emotions and breathe! Emotions or physical sensations may intensify, tears may fall, old memories may pop into your mind. Accept whatever shows up and just allow it to Be without judgement. Make a mental note or write down any new information, i.e. new emotion, physical sensations or old memory that arises. And remember to breathe!

E – Empathy & Compassion, Emotion, Energy

Drop into your heart by taking your focus to your heart, imagine that you are breathing in Love into your heart and breathing out fear and any other ‘negative’ emotion.

Have Empathy & Compassion for everyone in the situation, starting with yourself. Be your own best friend and ask, “What would Love do?”. It helps to remember that everyone is doing the best that they can with the resources that they have.

Emotion is energy in motion. Emotions are neither positive nor negative. They just are, until we ascribe meaning to the sensations that we are experiencing through our 5 senses. They can alert us to situations that are in alignment, or not, with our values and beliefs or when someone has crossed our boundaries.

Everything is Energy. Emotions such as anger, desire, fear, grief, apathy, guilt and shame are emotions that cause us to contract and vibrate at a level of 150 and below (Dr D R Hawkins’ Scale of Consciousness). Shame vibrating at a level of just 20. Emotions that are expansive in nature such as Love, which vibrates at 500, Joy at 540, Peace 600 and Enlightenment 700-1000, increase our electro-magnetic field. Being at a level of consciousness higher than 500, i.e. Love or above, is vastly different than Being from below 150. As Human Beings, others feeling our vibration energy. Have you ever heard people say things like, “She just light up the room” or “I just had a bad vibe about the guy” or “You could cut the air with a knife”? You’re instinctively tuning into the energy vibration of others.

So, how do you raise your vibration? Answer: by doing the inner work and taking your energy off the things that lower your vibration. So that you can use that energy to create your new reality! Where your attention goes, energy flows. Even unconscious attention, the things running in the background, your unconscious pre-programming, inherited family patterns, inner child wounds, etc., all the things that you’ve been pushing down with your coping mechanisms and distraction techniques.

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them” - Albert Einstein

Some change is easier than others. What I really mean by that is, some changes you can do yourself and other changes you need help with. Once you get to the level of Identity Level Change Work and above you need assistance from another person, such as, a Therapist, Healer, Sharman, Practitioner etc. Below are the Logical Levels of change. The Field/ Universal Consciousness/ Divine Energy/ God being the highest and Environment being the lowest.

• The Field/ Universal Consciousness/ Divine Matrix/ God
• System/ Consciousness (Family, Society, Workplace, etc.)
• Identity
• Belief
• Capability
• Behaviour
• Environment

The Field is where miracles happen, or serendipitous events occur. Changes made at the environmental level are not very productive, for example, you may know someone who goes from job to job, but the same outcomes occur.

I – Introspection, Inner Work, Intention

Your thoughts create your feelings which leads to your reaction. Look closely at that word: Re-Action. Most of the time you are reacting from the pre-programming of your unconscious mind. Your unconscious mind’s job is to keep you safe; it has no judgement of what is “right” and what is “wrong”.

Thinking about the past can cause emotions such as grief, shame, guilt, anger etc. which can lead to depression. Thinking about the future can cause worry, fear, dread, nervousness, overwhelm, etc. which can lead to anxiety. Many people never really Be in the Now.

Doing the inner work can be confronting at times but well worth the effort. Many decisions and beliefs about yourself and how the world works are formed during the Imprint Period before you were 7 years old. (Majority before 3yo).

Good News! Examining your beliefs in your unconscious mind then using various techniques you can re-write your programming. New beliefs lead to new outcomes/results, allowing you to create a life that you truly love.

As you bring to light your unconscious pre-programming, you may notice that you have opposing values. What do I mean by this? Have you ever heard anyone say something like; “On one hand I think I should do this, but on the other hand I think I should do that”? or “Part of me thinks it’s best to say something, then another part of me says, no keep out of it”? These language patterns are revealing what is known as a parts conflict or crossed purposes.

Some techniques that can help you access and reprogram your unconscious beliefs are:

• Meditation
• Mindfulness
• Hypnotherapy
• Neuro Linguistic Programming
• Neurological Re-Patterning
• Neuro-Meditation
• Family Systems Work
• Family Constellations
• Inner Child work
• Energy Work
• Results/Life Coaching
• A Course In Miracles
• Prayer
• Sharmanic Work
• 12 Step Programs
• Alcoholics Anonymous
• Art Therapy
• Qigong
• Tai Chi
• Psychotherapy
• Psychology
• Counselling, and more

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them” - Albert Einstein

Some change is easier than others. What I really mean by that is, some changes you can do yourself and other changes you need help with. Once you get to the level of Identity Level Change Work and above you need assistance from another person, such as, a Therapist, Healer, Sharman, Practitioner etc. Below are the Logical Levels of change. The Field/ Universal Consciousness/ Divine Energy/ God being the highest and Environment being the lowest.

• The Field/ Universal Consciousness/ Divine Matrix/ God
• System/ Consciousness (Family, Society, Workplace, etc.)
• Identity
• Belief
• Capability
• Behaviour
• Environment

The Field is where miracles happen, or serendipitous events occur. Changes made at the environmental level are not very productive, for example, you may know someone who goes from job to job, but the same outcomes occur.

O – Outlook, Objectively Observing, Openness

What is your outlook on life? How are you showing up? Everything is energy. What vibration are you operating at most of the time? Do you have an Attitude of Gratitude? Do you have an Open-Heart (Expanding) or a Closed Heart (Contracting)? Are you asking empowering questions (e.g What’s my next step? Or How can we create a win/win situation?) or disempowering questions (e.g. Why did this happen to me?  Or Who’s fault is this?)?

One of the quickest most effective ways to change your attitude is to keep a Gratitude Journal. Write 3-5 things that you are grateful for each night just before going to sleep. In a very short amount of time, you will retrain your Reticular Activating System in your brain to look for the positives in your world. Your mood will change, and your sleep will improve. Give it a go for 3 weeks and notice the difference.

Mind your language: words also are energy and have their own vibration. Next time you catch yourself saying “I should have…”, replace the Should with Could and notice the energetic difference.

Effective Communication includes active listening as an integral part, which is an art. Listening well and deeply means going beyond what is said by listening for feelings, restating, summarising what you think you heard so that the other person feels heard and understood. Asking questions, clarifying, paraphrasing, reflecting back to the other person while remaining neutral (not re-acting to any emotional triggers and remaining unattached to the outcome) so that you understand fully.

One of my favourite sayings is: “I know you think you understood what I just said but I’m not sure you realise that what I just said isn’t what I actually meant.”

U – Ultimate You, Unique, Unattached

Ultimately what do you want in your life? Clarity is knowledge, which is power! Take some time to write out your perfect day focusing on the results that the day will give you. For Example, Happiness, Joy, Love, Adventure which gives you Excitement. If you are wanting a new life partner, don’t go into specifics of ‘he has to be 6’2”, blue eyes, drives a Jeep, is earning…… Instead, write about his nature and values etc. ‘he is kind, loving, respectful, balanced, communicates well, etc’

You need to know where you are as well as where you want go. You don’t call a taxi or an Uber without a pick-up address and you don’t get into the car saying to the driver “Take me anywhere”.

BE, do, have. Working backwards from that short statement;

What do you want to have / achieve?

What do I have to do to have that?

What am I to Be? What qualities and attributes do I want to embody but more importantly, what Vibrational Level do I want to Be?

I originally learnt this form of goal setting more than 30years ago, from a group in Perth, The Energy Circle, associated with a Franciscan Friar (hence all the “F’s”), Fr Justin Belitz. He ascribed to setting goals in 7 Areas in the Wheel Of Life:

• Faith
• Family
• Friends
• Fitness
• Finance
• Formal & Informal Education
• Fun

You may like to change the Wheel of Life or find one that you prefer. Some people like to split Family into Immediate Family and Extended Family. You may prefer Physical Health and Mental Health. There are many versions available on the internet.

So, going back to “A”: Acknowledge where you are. The Wheel Of Life can be a useful tool to see where you are right Now. It can also highlight possible roadblocks, crossed purposes and parts conflicts. However, don’t freak out if your Wheel Of Life seems to have a flat tyre. You may have a valid Values reason for this. For example, a young mother who has a toddler under 2 and is pregnant with twins may have to give up work for health reasons. This is in line with her values of Family and Fitness (health) goals but her goals to keep working for another 2 months goes against her Finance goals. Looking at the bigger picture she checks her Values and they are in order. (n.b. there may be a block here, a Self-sabotage pattern but be your own best friend, have “E”:Empathy for yourself. Then if Finance issues continue to be a problem do some “I”: Introspection, inner work to uncover and resolve then the unconscious Self-sabotage pattern around money).

Goal Setting: The secret behind the movie and book “The Secret” is: How am I BEing; what vibrational energy am I BEing. We are Human Beings, not human doings. Actually, I believe we are Divine Spiritual Beings having a Human experience.