Half of our life lost in our thoughts, so we might as well choose good ones—the ones that make us feel good.

Are you tired of sleeping with scarcity? Or, do you sleepwalk through life because of a total lack of rest? Has apathy become your default drug of choice? Is “I need to make more money” your monthly mantra?

In the audiobook, Law of Attraction, Abraham, as interpreted by Esther Hicks, argues that our forward progression is inevitable, and as we begin to accept our expansion as a given, we free up space to draw our true desires toward us.

We are never finished.

As it is in yoga, where new dimensions of poses continue to open up (and elude) us, it also is in life: There is always another list.

How many times have you said, “I’ll be happy when…” When could be when you procure a new job, when you reach a certain weight or when you secure a loving relationship.

When when arrives, we create a new, longer, more expansive list.

When we see something we want—a new automobile, a vacation, a yoga pose, a house, etc.—we should simply make a mental note or “collect that data.” And we should do so without judgment, of ourselves or others, and without a big story about our worthiness or entitlement. Instead, we should do so with appreciation and gratitude.

This has become an incredibly funny joke in my household. Yesterday I sent an email to my spouse with a Groupon for Fiji. The subject line was “Let’s collect that data.” And the other night at dinner, as we overheard a heated conversation at a nearby table, we both laughed. I put my fingers in my ears. “Let’s not collect that data.”

In Ask and It is Given, Esther Hicks explains that we have but two emotions—those that make us feel good and those that make us feel bad. We give them many different names—anger, frustration, fear, greed—but they essentially fall under one of these two umbrellas.

When we feel good, that is a direct indicator of our strong connection to our source. And, by the same token, when we feel bad, we’ve lost our connection. The signal is weak.

What if we focused on the thoughts that made us feel good?

I know—sometimes we feel like we are powerless over our thoughts. And certainly, we think something like 60,000 per day. According to a recent Harvard study, we spend 47% of our lives lost in our thoughts.

Oh my.

That’s right, half of our life lost in our thoughts, so we might as well choose good ones—the ones that make us feel good.

Here are three tips for feeling good:

1. Pause to feel. Let’s stop looking to check things off our lists. Let’s stop searching outside of ourselves for the joy that only truly resides within us. This requires that we pause to feel. I use yoga to put my streaming thoughts on pause and to connect to the abundance that resides within and around me. I use it to feel good.

2. Fill up. When we do not feel good, let’s not berate ourselves. Step away from the chocolate, booze, internet, etc. You wouldn’t get angry at your vehicle when it is low on fuel. You’d fill it up. Reach for something that brings you pleasure—a nap, a walk, a book, an animal. View the process of determining what brings you pleasure with the zeal of an explorer. Unlike our vehicles,  which require unleaded every time, what we need differs from day to day.

3. Collect joy. When we find ourselves lusting in wonder at what it would be like to live in that majestic home, to travel abroad or to hold a handstand in the center of the room, “collect that data.” That which we are attracted to lies within us. We are mirrors to one another. Meditate on how it would feel to experience that data in the physical realm.

Brene Brown says that joy—not fear—is our most terrifying emotion. When we experience joy, it is foreboding because we feel like it is fleeting or that we are unworthy. Let’s stop postponing joy.

Knock, knock.

Who’s there?

Somebody’s home. Wake up. That’s your life knocking.

Kick scarcity to the curb. Send apathy along her merry way.

You are enough as you are. You are more than enough—we all are. We are magnificent, beautiful and worthy of our deepest desires.

Amber Shumake lives in a suburb of Ft. Worth, TX—over twenty miles from the nearest yoga studio. Gallivanting the metroplex in her Jeep, she rides topless while rocking out to spiritual podcasts. She calls Karmany Yoga, the donation-based studio where she teaches, “home.” Trading one compulsive addiction for another, she currently prefers backbends to drugs and tea to coffee. Uniting yoga with therapy, she wipes away sweat and tears, illuminating others to their beauty—breath by breath. A born writer, she encourages others to revise the life stories that no longer serve them and dreams of marrying her partner, writing a book and changing the world. Connect with her virtually on Facebook, Twitter and her blog www.BackbendAddict.blogspot.com.
 

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Assistant Ed: Stephanie V./Kate Bartolotta