Moving up the scale of emotion

Dear Jan,
I have been trying very hard to access my joy, but find it almost impossible. I've been depressed this past year, struggling with it, and while I do make progress sometimes, I can't seem to find and hold my joy. I know that joy is so important if I want to have the life I've always dreamed about. I truly want to be vibrating higher so I can manifest the things I want and so I can just feel better!
Not being able to find and stay in my joy makes me feel like a failure. What am I doing wrong? And what can I do to change it?

Thanks for any help you can give me.
C.T., Florida

Dear C.T.,
First of all, it's wonderful that you are so committed to reaching for joy over and over and over again. That commitment and tenacity are essential ingredients in retraining yourself to access the state of joy on a more permanent basis for yourself. So what I already know about you is that you know deep inside yourself that joy is where you belong!

Having said that, it's important for you to know that it's difficult to jump from depression to joy and hold that high vibration. It's not impossible, but it is hard. In order to make it easier on yourself and start creating some success with this, I suggest you break the task down into manageable chunks.

You can start by thinking of emotions as existing on a kind of ladder. If you are starting with depression, sadness, or a similar emotion which is low on the ladder, it will be much easier to reach for, say anger, than joy. Anger is a higher vibration than depression or sadness, can be empowering and makes you feel better. Then from anger, you may find that you can reach for worry, which is an even higher state, and again another step or two closer to joy. Then you might be able to find frustration, and from there boredom, and from there contentment. As you keep progressing this way, reaching for the next step on the ladder, you are effectively and systematically raising your vibration very nicely. It may take some time, but it will get you there!

The entire journey toward joy becomes so much more managabe and do-able this way rather than trying over and over to make that leap from down low on the emotional ladder to the highest rung, you see? This allows you to become better and better at consciously choosing your state of being one or more rungs at a time, and finally arriving at joy! And you get to feel successful along the way, which is its own higher vibration added to the emotional mix.

This process will work for you no matter what you are feeling, no matter what state you are in, to improve your ability to allow yourself a more positive emotion, a more postive experience, immediately. And you will be learning a valuable life skill. So, choose any thought you can find that will bring you a feeling of relief from the lower emotion, and hold the strong intention to find an emotional place that feels better, not perfect, just better, even a little better. It can help to do this process out loud or on paper for a while til you get the hang of it.

Keep holding strong to your inner knowing that joy is your birthright and that you hold all your joy inside of you, ready to be accessed at will, once you know how to climb that emotional ladder!

Warmly,

Jan
The Every Day Joy Coach
www.EveryDayJoy.com