How do you want to feel? How would it feel to have your ideal day? How would the most beautiful morning feel to you? Peace, tranquility, a hot cup of tea, an invigorated body, sunny mood, having a lot to look forward to, good news?

Sit down with yourself, and consider for a moment what would it take for you to engineer that kind of a day. Yes, it is not up to Facebook to tell you how to feel, and it is certainly not up to the news to tell you what you should fear. It is 100% totally up to you.

The question I asked above, is not easy to answer by some. Times are uncertain, things feel uneasy, life is confusing. If you are like me and frequently experience anxiety and panic about things that are beyond my control, can you afford to feel the way you naturally feel? Can you afford to allow nature, mood swings, hormones, and other people to dictate how your day will be? I know that I cannot afford it.

Each day, like most people, I wake up with a pain, a belly ache, my face swollen, feeling fat, and my mood spiraling down into an abyss. This is especially likely when the sun is not out, and I anticipate a mailbox full of bills, emails, notices, and bad news. But, as soon as my feet touch the floor, I decide how I am going to feel. I engineer my day.

How do I want to feel? For that question to be answered powerfully and effectively, I cannot think nor allow myself the time to notice nor dwell on any of my issues. I don’t even glance at my aching shoulder because that ache is not how I want to feel. Imagine if I considered that ache for 30 minutes, imagine how I would feel after that.

How I want to feel is eager for my day to begin. I want to feel as optimistic and invigorated as if there was sunshine on my face. I want my body to feel energized, light, fluid, I want to experience a full range of motion with ease and flexibility. I want a ton of energy. How would my body and mind feel if I was full of energy? I want to feel powerful today. I will make the right decisions, the ones that are in my best interest and highest good without feeling torn about whether I could, should, or how would other’s feel if I did. I feel certainty that I can do that.

Rather than start your day in front of a computer, and allow yourself to absorb the prognosis from the news or Facebook, engineer your own prognosis for your body and your mind. Forecast how you will feel, and actually feel it as you are deciding.

Can you imagine how powerful it feels when you are the only decider of how you will feel? Can you imagine how strong, motivated, excited you will be when you realize that no one else can tell you? Can you imagine how it feels when your physical body starts following instructions that you gave it?

Each day I tell my body how it will feel. I meditate, and I get into the feeling that I want to experience, and I stay in that feeling as long as it feels great. Again, you don’t have to meditate, you can simply decide. If this sounds ridiculous to you, try it now. Choose the best feeling that is easiest for you to feel. Pick your easiest subject. For me, it is animals, especially wild ones. I have had some experiences encountering lions and tigers in the wild, and those were my highest, most blissful states I ever experienced here on earth.

Do not pick a subject that you feel a lot of resistance. For example, don’t force yourself to feel good about your financial situation if that subject gives you anxiety. I assure you, that the more you practice how you will feel, the easier it will become to choose how to feel even about the most challenging subjects. You will naturally be able to do this later.

For now, pick your favorite thing that makes you happy: sunshine, beaches, kids, baby animals- whatever automatically puts a smile on your face, that’s what you will feel intentionally. Stay in that feeling as long as it feels great.

Notice that when you can engineer how you feel even for 5 minutes, how does that chosen feeling effect your physical body. How does your heart feel holding that baby, or kitten in your hands. How does your mood feel when a butterfly lands on your shoulder?

You just succeeded in deciding how you will be. Sit down, and create a little time and space for yourself to decide how you will feel. Pick up a journal and start writing how you will feel right now, how much you will enjoy this morning, how your body will feel invigorated today, how your mind will respond to all information it has to process today. Who will you encounter?

I have a few nasty coworkers who make me not want to pick up the phone. I dread them. How can I feel better about myself while dealing with them? (I am not asking how can I feel better about them, they feel nasty to me. Instead, I am considering how can I feel better while dealing with them). I can choose to not absorb their negativity, I can choose to not listen, I can choose to direct the conversation where I want it to go. I can choose to structure our calls so that we don’t have time to talk about what makes them so miserable. I can choose mentally how I will feel when they make my phone ring. Rather than feel that practiced feeling of dread and stress, I will practice a new feeling. That new feelings is of a woman in charge, a woman with important things to do, a woman with no time for mindless chit chat, a woman with an agenda, a woman who can effectively direct them to do what needs to be done.. How would I feel if I decisively directed them to get their own projects done? I would feel empowered, I would feel firm I would feel strong, balanced, level-headed, I will feel powerful as soon as I talk to them today.

We decide how we feel. Unfortunately, most of us get lazy, sit our asses in front of the screen, and rather than take charge of how we feel, we lazily let TV, social media and our grumpy friends tell us how we should feel.

You have the power in every moment to decide how you will feel Now. I wrote about this in a previous post, but I have been battling anxiety since childhood, and in 2017 I spiraled down into depression. I crawled out of this without drugs. How did I do it? I accepted how dreadful I feel, I stopped resisting it, and then, moment by moment, minute by minute, I practiced changing my feeling. No, in that state you cannot change how you feel about that tax collector knocking on your door, but you can choose how you will feel when that hot shower loosens every muscle in your body, you can practice a blissful feeling for 2 minutes, yes you can.

When my mind and body refuse to follow me into bliss, I turn on some carefully chosen music. It is the music that makes you dance, it is the music that makes you sing, it is the music that makes you run a marathon that will guide you toward a better feeling. I never allow myself to listen to music with sad, disempowering lyrics of betrayal, loss, or sadness. I only listen to what makes me feel happy, blissful, powerful, skinny, energized, successful, positive. What you put in your brain is what comes out. You cannot smile listening to music of loss and tragedy.

Your input will always match your output. If you want a better output, spend 30 minutes each morning (you know you have the time), inputting better feelings. Your brain is a computer that you have programmed since childhood. Write a better program.

If you have pesky children who don’t give you 3 minutes to yourself, sit them down and have them write or dream about how they will feel today. Pay attention to how easy it is for a child to imagine, and how quickly they respond emotionally to things that feel good to them. If a child can do it, you can do it.

Some people begin their day with prayer. If you know how to pray effectively (without begging, pleading, whining, needing), then you may have recognized the power of engineering your day, even your life. God is not a lottery ticket, nor a genie whose job it is to make your wishes come true. You may have noticed that she does not respond to begging, nor whatever you feel entitled to. God helps those who help themselves. God responds to your knowingness, your feelings of worth, your peace, your open heart, your grace. You have to feel it first. Yes, you have to do the work on yourself.

Like everyone, I now have more time to myself than ever. And like everyone, I am wasting a lot of my time. Wasting time, does not feel good, eventually I will spiral down into something I do not want to feel.

I carry my journal with me everywhere I go. I sit under a tree behind the museum, and I write how I will feel all day long. When something comes up, like that 3pm call with my cranky coworkers, I spend as much time as it takes, to decide how I will feel ahead of time. 90% of the time I successfully engineer a more positive interaction with them.

As you practice this, you will see that your body will also feel how you practice. Your employees will also feel what you tell them to feel. Your mind will feel immediately more powerful knowing that it is YOU who instructed that feeling.

Imagine how people will feel about you when they notice that their instructions do not effect you. This Goddess only feels how she wants to.

S