Elevated emotional set point

I hope it’s not too annoying that I keep interjecting other stuff in between installments in the story of finding my soulmate, but life keeps happening, and I’m feeling the urge to share my latest realizations with you. I’ll get back to the story SOON!

I’ve had the chance to practice unconditional joy in more-challenging-than-usual circumstances, and test out my frequency-raising techniques over the last couple of days. I’m pleased to say that they work! (Of course, you have to remember to use them.) But more exciting to me is that, despite a litany of woes, I did not tank emotionally as I might have in the past. My emotional set point is definitely higher these days. Without going into great detail, my challenges included cold, gray, damp weather for days on end, it’s felt like there’s a hatchet embedded between my skull and neck (vertebrae C-1 and C-2 have gone out over and over, despite chiropractic adjustments), my 83-year-old mother in North Carolina, who has endured more physical suffering in the last couple of years than anyone should have to, has developed yet another seriously painful problem (and I’m not there to help my sisters take care of her), I found out some sad news about a couple Rick and I care about, and our dog, Roly, has had a “hot spot” that wasn’t responding well to the treatment I was using to help him (thankfully, it seems to be better today and I’ll tell you why in a minute). And there are a few other things that I won’t even mention.

At any rate, any one of the aforementioned things might have depressed me in the past, and surely the whole pile of them would have knocked me down. Oddly, though, even though I’ve felt sadness, and a bit overwhelmed at life in the duality matrix, it’s been a more detached sadness, and my basic sense of well-being has remained intact, even as I wondered if I am nuts to continue to proclaim the message of hope I’ve been given to share with the world. I was trying to explain this to Rick tonight, but couldn’t quite express what I meant—I’ll try again now: It’s as if I were skating on the edge of despair, and my logical mind wanted to take me on into the deep, dark abyss, saying, “Julia! Look at all the stuff that’s messed up in the world. You’re crazy if you think there’s a way out of this vale of tears,” but a wiser me—a me that was immune to my logical mind’s grim deductions—was standing a ways away from that edge gently calling me back, and keeping me tethered so that I wouldn't fall in. I was more detached from what was going on than I might have been able to be before and it was all just less upsetting somehow. The only explanation I have for it is that through practicing deliberate joy, I have raised my emotional set point so that even the traumatic times are not as traumatic. This is huge.

I was reading an interesting article by Daniel Goleman on this topic of the “emotional set point.” I was going to try and tell you all about it, but it would probably be more effective for you to read it yourself. The bottom line is this: while it’s been thought that your basic default setting cannot be significantly changed and will always revert to the same set point over time after either a euphoric event or a tragic event, there is evidence to show that meditation raises your set point. Since meditation is communion with your Spirit, it is very similar to what I’m talking about. I don’t think that it’s meditation per se, but communion that raises your joy level. In my spiritual practice, I do some meditation, but when I really experience shooting up in frequency to the joy space is when I’m engaging my whole brain in loving God In Me, which is something that is easy to forget when you’re in the midst of your “stuff.” So it’s doubly important to practice on purpose when things are easier. Today, after a few days of not really doing the things I know raise my frequency, I finally snapped out of it, got motivated to turn on happy music, sniff some “Joy” (essential oil blend), dance around to the music, and exercise, all of which raised my frequency even more. Interestingly, my vertabrae seem to have spontaneously gone back into place.

Now to tell you about Roly. Just as I was about to throw in the towel and take him to the vet, I came up with something that helped. I had a sudden inspiration to give him some colostrum last night, along with L-glutamine. Now, neither of these had any direct relationship as far as I knew to the problem he was having (raw, infected “hot spot”), but I followed my guidance and gave them to him, and by morning, the spot had decreased in size to about a fourth or less what it had been, and he’s left it alone all day. It has healed significantly. I should mention that I was getting frantic before I came up with that idea—having tried everything I could think of—and only when I surrendered it, did I hit on the thing that worked. What do you know? Surrendering to your Spirit—works every time.