To Switch or to Clear?

Our weekly Secret Focus Group has been buzzing with questions, thoughts and attractive energy!  If you've seen The Secret
movie (or read the book) you'll know there's a lot of emphasis placed on feeling good.  ‘Like attracts like' and by feeling happy, we
attract more happiness into our lives.

For those who haven't yet bought into the Law of Attraction, you can look at this at a number of levels.  You can notice that when
you greet people with a genuine smile they generally give you a smile back and you can test the part your attitude plays when you
go to a meeting or event.  From there you can start noticing the synchronicity that occurs when you are feeling happy and
relaxed.

So all we need is to know how to be happy!  There are a whole host of materials written on this subject and no shortage of experts
with advice.  Where we often go wrong is by thinking that our external environment has to be good in order for us to feel good.  
We are the managers of our feelings taking responsibility for our mood is the first step.  When we master our own emotions, we're
no longer reliant on our external environment for our mood.

Mastering our emotions involves building our awareness of what makes us truly happy and learning what to do when we're feeling
less positive.

As I see it, a danger for those who are new to personal development and watch The Secret is they become tempted to deny and
push away unhappy feelings.  Unfortunately the feelings are still there and will still influence our attractiveness, even from the ‘back
seat'!  So the first step in managing our feelings is to become alert to them.

The next step is not to resist them, judge them as wrong or try to forget them.  Allowing them to be will enable you to fully assess
them, hear any message they may be giving you and prevent unconsciously layering (feeling bad about feeling bad!)

Once you are feeling them fully, you have 2 options - to switch or to clear.  Most of the techniques shown in The Secret are about
switching- they are easy to do any time and any where and involve things like recalling a happy memory, listening to uplifting
music, singing etc.  These are techniques anyone can experiment with.

The other option is to clear.  If switching is like chopping the top of the weed whenever it grows, clearing is like pulling it out by the
roots.  Chopping the weed may weaken it and destroy it over time, pulling it up is more direct.  Clearing means we really need to
get to the bottom of the feeling and completely resolve and heal the pattern.  We may be able to do this on our own with
contemplation, meditation and forgiveness processes or we may want help from a therapist or alternative practitioner.  If it's a deep
emotion, like grief, this may take some time and involve both switching and clearing.

As our positive thoughts are so much more powerful than our negative ones, we can afford to spend some time really focusing on
our feelings and then deciding what switching or clearing path to take.  This is very different to dwelling on the past and repeating
our grievances because we are exploring our feelings with curiosity and acceptance.  When the feeling releases, we feel our energy
shift and positive happy feelings return.  We've opened ourselves to attract the new, and made space for beautiful flowers to grow!