The Compassionate Climb: Step by Step Through Your Emotional Peaks and Valleys
The Compassionate Climb: Step by Step Through Your Emotional Peaks and Valleys
The emotional guidance scale is like a roadmap for your inner world, laying out the spectrum of emotions we all navigate. On one end, you have the high-vibe emotions—joy, appreciation, freedom, love, and empowerment. These are the top of the mountain, where the air is crisp and everything feels open and expansive. Opportunities are clear, and obstacles seem manageable. On the flip side, there’s the low end: fear, despair, grief, powerlessness—those deep valleys where things feel heavy, and the way forward is obscured by overgrowth, making it hard to climb out.
The real magic happens when you realize you don’t have to make an impossible leap from the valley to the peak in one go. Instead, it’s about finding where you are on the scale, planting your flag, and reaching for just a slightly better feeling. Like a rock climber securing the next anchor on the mountain face, that one better-feeling thought is enough to pull you up. You don’t need to scale the entire mountain at once; all you need is to find the next rung on the ladder. Once you’re steady there, you keep climbing, thought by thought, emotion by emotion, until you’re breathing that fresh mountain air of joy again.
It’s a practice, really. A dance with your emotions, where even the smallest shift can lead you to a higher, lighter place. The more you do it, the more natural it becomes. Like climbing any mountain, each step builds your strength and skill. The journey doesn’t necessarily get shorter, but it becomes easier to navigate. Don’t pressure yourself to jump from anger to love in one big leap. Instead, aim to move from anger to frustration, from frustration to doubt, and so on, until you’re resting in hopefulness. Over time, the climb becomes more intuitive.
Here’s the emotional scale as described by Abraham-Hicks:
- Joy/Appreciation/Empowerment/Freedom/Love
- Passion
- Enthusiasm/Eagerness/Happiness
- Positive Expectation/Belief
- Optimism
- Hopefulness
- Contentment
- Boredom
- Pessimism
- Frustration/Irritation/Impatience
- Overwhelm
- Disappointment
- Doubt
- Worry
- Blame
- Discouragement
- Anger
- Revenge
- Hatred/Rage
- Jealousy
- Insecurity/Guilt/Unworthiness
- Fear/Grief/Desperation/Despair/Powerlessness
It’s funny when you step back and realize how different you can be depending on your mood. You can respond to the exact same situation in completely different ways, all because of the emotional lens you’re wearing at that moment. Your internal state dictates your outward reaction, and that reaction ripples outward, shifting the entire situation around you.
Imagine two versions of yourself encountering the same scenario. In one version, you’re calm, centered, maybe even joyful. Let’s say you get a text message from a friend canceling plans last minute. In this mood, you shrug it off. “No big deal,” you think. “I’ll enjoy the free time.” Maybe you even feel a little relieved to have some time to yourself.
But what happens on a day when you’re feeling frustrated, overwhelmed, or just low? That same text message might feel like a punch to the gut. “They don’t care about me,” you might think. “Why do I even bother making plans?” Suddenly, the same situation spirals into a story about rejection or not being valued. What’s different? The situation? No. The only thing that’s changed is your internal weather.
Your emotions are like a filter through which you see the world. Depending on where you are on the emotional scale, that filter can either brighten or cloud over the landscape. A positive mood gives you a wide-angle lens—offering options, alternative perspectives, and solutions. When you’re angry or discouraged, your view narrows, everything feels personal, urgent, and threatening. It’s like trying to navigate a room in the dark—you’re bound to bump into something.
This ripple effect is fascinating. Your emotional response affects not just you, but everyone around you. A calm, thoughtful reaction can diffuse tension, open communication, and even shift someone else’s mood. On the other hand, reacting from a place of anger or fear can escalate a situation, closing off the potential for connection.
The good news is that once you become aware of how much your emotions influence your actions, you can begin to shift. You can recognize when you’re at the bottom of the emotional scale, and instead of reacting right away, you can pause. Take a few breaths before responding. Reach for a better feeling thought—just a small one. Maybe you don’t go from anger to joy in an instant, but maybe you can move from anger to frustration, and that alone can change the tone of your response. Now you realize that you have the power to choose more than one response to any situation. Your reaction shapes the outcome every time, regardless of how the other person behaves. That’s the real magic. It makes you pause and reflect before blurting out a response.
It’s a reminder that we’re not at the mercy of our circumstances. We have the power to choose how we respond, and that choice is linked to where we are emotionally. By tending to your internal world, you begin to influence your external world in profound ways.
So next time, and there will be a next time—because that’s what it means to be human—notice where you are on the emotional scale. Take one step toward a better-feeling emotion. If you’re in deep despair, even shifting to disappointment is an improvement. From there, you might reach for frustration, then hopefulness, and before you know it, you’ll be back to joy. It takes awareness and compassion to look at yourself when you’re feeling low. But that’s the key—looking at yourself as though you’re the adult comforting the child within.
You know what you need to stay steady, so be that anchor for yourself as you climb toward the top of your emotional mountain. Stay rooted in what you need while you navigate the climb. It’s a challenge, but the reward of that view from the top makes the journey worth taking.
Blessings on your path.
Written by: Laresa Perlman