Karin Wildheart

This is (one reason) it’s so important to take care of yourself and prioritize pleasure and joy in your daily life!

A bad mood – low vibration state

Sometimes life feels terrible. Completely overwhelming. You feel like you can’t catch a break, like bad things always seem to happen to you. Maybe it seems like other people’s problems aren’t as bad. Or like the whole world is going to shit. Or both.

Sometimes you’re stuck. You have no idea what direction to go. Everything feels hard and confusing. It feels like you’ll have to hack your way through a hedge (see illustration) to get anywhere, and you don’t have the energy for that. Nothing seems solvable.

A medium mood – medium vibration state

Sometimes you get a glimpse “above the clouds” as it were, and you remember that things can be good. You don’t feel like you have everything figured out, but you feel like maybe you could. You remember that you have goals, and that you can achieve them, or have fun getting closer. You remember that you have friends, people who love you.

You can see the sky. You can breathe again. You’re not bogged down and totally “going through it” — you’re floating a little bit above, like so:

A great mood – high vibration state

Then there are the times that you feel yourself above it all. Your perspective on your problems is so different. Everything feels either solvable or ultimately unimportant. You’re no longer “in it.” You can see the maze from above.

You can see how everything you’ve been through has led to where you are now, and how it has benefitted you. Life flows smoothly and effortlessly. Opportunities find you without your having to work for them.

Real-life example: the boots I deeply regretted

Earlier this year, I bought a pair of boots on Marketplace. I debated over the purchase because it was more money than I usually spend. Thankfully, I already owned these boots in a different color and fabric, so I knew they’d fit. When I first put them on, I was excited until I began to walk around. I felt a weird, hard, uncomfortable part against one of the seams on the side of the sole.

I began to feel sick with worry. I felt as if I’d wasted my money–I figured I couldn’t return them since they were bought secondhand. I also felt it would be unethical to resell them without mentioning the flaw, but if I did mention it, I likely couldn’t make back all the money I’d paid for them. I worried about this for months. I would lie awake before bed some nights feeling anxiety in my stomach and regretting my choice, sure that it had been a mistake and unsure what to do about it. Of course I never wore them: besides the issue, I wanted to keep them in great condition just to keep open the option of reselling them.

To make matters worse, I realized that the boots I already owned in this size didn’t fit me as well as I’d thought. After wearing them, my toes would hurt. This is really important to me as someone who cares a lot about shoes and foot health. At this point, I was deep in the hedge maze, unable to see, sense, or access the bigger picture.

Every so often, I would think, “It’s going to be okay, probably. I’ll figure something out.” This would be me in the middle image, able to get a peek above the hedge walls but still not sure what to do.

One recent day, the solutions dropped in so easily. I had realized pretty quickly after purchase that the painful spot in the new boot was due to a wrinkle in the insole. Today I realized that if I removed the insoles from both old and new boots, both pairs would fit me with no pain or issues. Solved. That’s how simple things can be when you’re in the right mindset. Not only are my new boots perfectly usable, but my old boots will fit me better now too.

When I was stressed out and focusing on the problems as I saw them, good ideas simply were not physically available to me. But when I saw the problem from a great personal state, suddenly I could access great ideas, elegant solutions.

What makes the difference? Frequency

When I’m “doing well” (happy, body is in a good state), I have enjoyable thoughts. This is also called “being high-vibe.” This attracts good things to me that I like. There are no terrible problems, and I easily identify solutions. When I start thinking of stressful things, I remember that I don’t have to solve them, or even think about them, and it’s easy to stop. I see infinite possibilities.

Being high-vibe is both a cause and effect of being happy and having things go well for you.

When I’m “doing badly” (unhappy, body is stressed), I have unpleasant thoughts. My “low-vibe” state attracts more problems and what I don’t want. In this state, I see nothing but problems, and I see no solutions at all. I see nothing but dead ends.

Being low-vibe is both a cause and effect of being sad and things going poorly.

There is no morality to being high-vibe or low-vibe. It’s not better to be one or the other. It’s human to fluctuate between them. Many people are legitimately uncomfortable with high-vibe feelings because it’s so expansive it can feel unsafe to someone who is used to suffering and contracting for self-protection.

If you have a monthly cycle, you can also feel very different at different phases of that cycle.

The nervous system is a key player in determining your vibe. Maybe by now you’ve heard of the different states like freeze, fight, flight, and fawn. There’s also the “rest and digest” state of relaxation and connection. When you’re in a survival state, it’s hard if not impossible to be high-vibe.

So how do you raise your vibration/frequency?

Great news! We humans are naturally high-vibe. I say naturally because you may have noticed that most people present as being low-vibe. There are TONS of factors that weigh down our collective and individual frequencies, including things like environmental toxins and limiting beliefs. Perhaps you don’t have total control, but within a given range at least, you do have a choice as to what your own vibration will be.

You cannot force your chosen frequency; you can only choose your way there. When I say it’s a choice, I don’t mean you can snap your fingers and instantly override years of body habits (habits like automatically holding on to tension, repressing grief, or replaying trauma). I only mean: it’s within your power to change this. Here are two ways:

Tend to your physical body. Figure out what works for you and do it. Is it long walks? EFT tapping? Relaxing baths? Eating vegetables while cutting out sugar? Avoiding caffeine? Supplementing magnesium? Prioritizing sleep? Workout classes? Drinking enough water? Caring for your physical state/health always impacts your mental health as well on some level. Of course both of these are intimately connected with your overall vibration.

Choose to do (say/be) what makes you feel good, and *not* do (say/be) what makes you feel bad. It is as simple as this, and yet humans find complex justifications to make it seem so difficult. Most of us enter adulthood with generations’ worth of stories as to why we should not pursue good feeling and flee from bad feeling. Stories like: “it’s selfish” “what about world suffering?” “it’s not that simple” “it wouldn’t work anyway” “it’s not safe” and many more. My experience with religion, for instance, taught me to mistrust and maybe even fear pleasure and good feelings because they were likely sinful.

A nuanced note: being high-vibe doesn’t mean feeling amazing 24/7. It’s not about trying to force yourself to ignore your sadness or darker (“lower-vibe”) thoughts/feelings. It feels light and effortless, unforced. It’s the natural result of accepting all the colors of your emotional spectrum. It is incredibly high-vibe to ALLOW your full range of emotions without trying to resist or stuff them. When we let the weather of our emotional experiences pass through us without shame or judgment, we can experience the richness of being alive, which ironically leaves us happier than if we were to refuse to feel (grief, fatigue, sadness) at all.

Meeting yourself with compassionate care (swapping out the internalized voice that tells you you’re overreacting) makes heavy things lighter. Choosing to release a story that feels bad is a very empowering choice. Being super upset yet *knowing* you can handle it and it won’t last forever is… honestly one of the most empowered things I can imagine. (I spent too many years feeling helpless to my super upset-ness and prolonging it as a result.) All of these things are super high-vibe, but none require repression or denial of your current reality.

I said we’re all naturally high-vibe. Let me add, we are also effectively limitless in possibility. I say “effectively” because you could spend the rest of your life pursuing your potential and never “reach” it–you’re an infinite being and the universe is always expanding. Each of us holds ourself back by believing we are limited and by not letting go of things that feel heavy or bog us down. Some of us have never been taught or even modeled how to let go.

Still, it’s all a choice. You can choose to stop choosing / participating in things that don’t feel good. Or alternatively to tell yourself it’s not a big deal and stay where you feel discomfort and unease.

Being genuinely high-vibe, without having to pretend it or try to force it, is within reach for every human. It’s our natural state and our birthright — to live in trust and inner peace regardless of external factors.

You can’t change everything about others or your environment, but you don’t have to in order to change and choose YOUR perspective. This is why I use such strong language about what is possible. You don’t have to wait for world peace to live your inner peace. It frankly seems a waste of a peaceful moment to ruin it by thinking about problems out of a sense of guilt, obligation, or habit. Help others if you would like to. But if you make yourself suffer in order to help, you’re not reducing world suffering.

How I can help

My coaching is all about helping you release whatever is weighing you down. Maybe it’s negative self-talk. Maybe it’s beliefs or excuses about why you can’t have what you want. Maybe it’s just old accumulated emotion and trauma your body has never released. Whatever it is, you can choose to release it and tap back into your high-vibe birthright. And I can help. My 1:1 coaching is a great place to do this work in a completely tailored and personalized way. Learn more and apply.

Photo by Michal Pokorný on Unsplash
Photo by Field Cottage on Unsplash
Photo by Ben Mathis Seibel on Unsplash