“I feel awful” vs. “I am learning to feel happy.”

4 steps to PASS on to a positive thought

In 2012, I noticed how Abraham Hicks was able to gradually soothe hot seaters’ feelings. I decided to discover how they did that “trick.” I analyzed several of their YouTube audio, and created the PASS process, which I’d like to share with you in detail today.

Say you just quarreled with your spouse and you feel awful. You know that, in regards to this person, you would rather feel happy. But for now you can’t say, “I feel happy!” because it’s not true. You feel awful! So what you do is- reconstruct your thoughts with the 4 step PASS process:

P ause – your current thought that you just quarreled with your spouse.

A cknowledge – your current feeling, which is “awful.”

S witch – it to a positive feeling, which is “happy.”

S oothe – construct a word tail between “I feel” and “happy.”

What is a word tail?

Example, if it’s difficult for you to say “I feel happy”, then maybe it is easier to say, “I am learning ways to eventually feel happy.” Would you agree, that this sounds slightly easier than “I feel happy”?

And, would you agree, that this sounds slightly better, than “I feel awful.” At least, you started doing something that moves you in a positive direction!

We celebrate – not the fact that we reached the high feeling, but that we started moving in the right direction. It’s a little step, but a positive one!

But wait, you say, this didn’t feel better to me. Well, then you try another soothing “tail”.

Example, “I am learning to be ready to accept an idea that I could actually begin feeling happy.”

Or, “I am becoming ready to appreciate myself for the efforts I make to eventually begin learning to feel happy.”

The word tails may begin to sound ridiculous.

Then you might be ready to find a shorter version: “I’m learning to feel happy.”

And now it sounds OK to you. Isn’t this great?

And guess what? The tail is the trick!

What you do is change your mood, not your spouse’s behavior by simply playing with words. Your mood gradually, but inevitably shifts for better!

Do you use something similar to the PASS process when you try to help yourself to feel better?