So in an earlier article we separated bad feelings into two categories: the sort-of-bad feelings and the REALLY bad feelings. The reason for that was because how you deal with them is going to depend on how far gone down the hill you are. Down the hill? Yes, down the hill. Abraham has a neat way of describing how the law of attraction works. Imagine a hill. Now imagine a car on top of the hill. Yours or your mom’s. Actually because of what we’re going to do next you might prefer to make it your mom’s. Now imagine pushing the car down the hill. See? Aren’t you glad you decided not to use your own car for this exercise?

What happens? At first the car starts moving really slowly. In fact unless you’re watching for it, you might not even notice. At this point, stopping it from going down the hill is easy. You can just stand in front and stop it with your body. If you don’t, it picks up speed and now you definitely can see it move. It goes faster and faster—this is called momentum—and pretty soon, it’s zooming along at 200 mph. Stopping it now is much harder and standing in front of it would not be the best idea. The easiest option is to wait till it comes to a stop on its own. Just like with your mom’s car, how you deal with bad feelings will depend on how far gone they are.

Sort-of-bad feelings. Turning the situation around when it comes to baby bad feelings can be as easy as noticing that you’re not feeling so good. That might be enough to make you change courses. A simple option when you notice this is to think of something else. It’s like changing the channel when you don’t like what’s on TV. Or you could do a mini meditation. Take a deep breath and try not to think of anything for a few minutes. Clear the air. This is also the kind of situation that is perfect for some of the games and processes we’ve introduced—the ABC Game for example or the Wouldn’t It Be Nice If Game. Your thoughts are still close enough to neutral that you are able to reach for positive words and possibilities that will make you hop up and down with joy before you know it. Same with the Breadcrumb Trail of Excitement. It’s also a good way of distracting yourself. Acting on your excitement is an effortless method for removing focus from negative thoughts.

Really bad feelings. Here is where things get more challenging. Abraham recommends not even trying to do anything to stop the momentum at this point. The equivalent of letting the car come to a natural halt would be getting a good night’s sleep and waking up with a clean slate. If you have enough awareness to take care of yourself while your feelings are out of control, take a nap. It will have the same effect as that good night’s sleep–pressing reset on your emotions. Another option is meditation. You might need more than just a few minutes when your feelings are this tangled up though. Try 15 or 20 minutes. It’s hard to concentrate on really positive thoughts when you’re caught up in the momentum of negative thoughts so many of the games mentioned on the blog would simply be too challenging to play and might just result in frustration and hopelessness instead of helping.

Moral of the story? Pay close attention to how you feel so you can detect bad feelings while they’re still small and weak.