I Feel Sh*t… So Let’s Change: The Gentle Method for Reclaiming the Way You Want to Feel

If you’ve ever found yourself trapped in an emotional loop — sadness, anxiety, fear, overwhelm, that flat emptiness you can’t even name — you’ll know this truth:

Talking about it doesn’t always help.
Sometimes it even makes things worse.

We analyse.
We rehearse the same thoughts.
We repeat the same story.
But the feelings stay where they are.

Why?
Because the parts of us that create these emotional patterns don’t live in the conscious mind. They don’t speak logic, they don’t respond to “pull yourself together,” and they certainly don’t work with endless rumination.

Your unconscious mind created this emotional strategy years ago — usually to protect you — and now it’s outdated, unhelpful, and running on autopilot.

So how do we change it?

We go to the place where the issue actually lives.

This article walks you through a gentle, human, deeply practical method that I’ve used personally and with clients for many years. It doesn’t require dissecting the past, reliving trauma, or trying to force positive thinking. It simply uses:

• Memory

• Imagination

• Awareness

• And your natural ability to feel good

Let’s take this slowly. You deserve that.

Why It Can Be Hard to Know How You Want to Feel

If you’re experiencing an issue — especially one you’ve had for a long time — it becomes like wallpaper. You forget there was ever anything else. It feels permanent, even though nothing inside you ever really is.

When I was at my personal worst, I couldn’t access a single memory of feeling good. I felt hollow, broken, and terrified I’d never get back.

So if you can’t immediately answer the question “How do I want to feel?” — that’s okay. In fact, it’s expected.

That’s why we begin with rebuilding your foundation.

Step One: Reclaiming Your Qualities

Take a piece of paper. Draw a circle in the middle and write: My Qualities.

Then draw lines outwards — like a mind map — and write one quality on each line.

If you’re like I was, the first one you write might be something as basic as “I can breathe.” That’s where I started. But that one quality opened the door to many more:

• I can learn

• I can teach

• I care

• I listen

• I’m creative

• I help people

And soon the page filled.

This matters because knowing your qualities builds the foundation for feeling better. It reconnects you to you.

Your self-esteem rises. Your inner confidence wakes up. And most importantly, you prove to yourself that you are more than the emotion you’re fighting.

Do this step. It changes everything.

Step Two: How Do You Want to Feel?

Take a new sheet of paper with three columns:

Left: How I Feel Now
Middle: (Leave blank for the moment)
Right: How I Want to Feel

Write a list, one feeling per line. This is your destination.

Note:
It’s not always the opposite of how you feel now.

Feeling anxious doesn’t always mean you want confidence.
Sometimes it’s calmness.
Sometimes it’s safety.
Sometimes it’s clarity.
Sometimes it’s belonging.

Let your imagination answer, not logic.

Step Three: The Middle Feeling (The Bridge)

For each row, find the middle emotional step between what you feel now and what you want to feel.

This is the stepping stone.

Why?
Because your unconscious resists dramatic leaps.
But it loves transitions.

For example:

• Now: anxious

• Want: calm

• Middle: settled, grounded, steady

Or:

• Now: fearful

• Want: confident

• Middle: capable, secure, centred

Write the middle feeling in the centre column.

Step Four: Use Memory and Imagination to Access the Feeling

If you can imagine a feeling, you’ve felt it before.

Your unconscious won’t let you imagine something alien to you.

Close your eyes.
See yourself feeling the middle feeling.
Then ask:

“When have I felt this before?”
A memory will come.
It might be tiny.
It might be decades old.
It might surprise you.

Describe the moment briefly.
Feel it in your body.

This creates a counterexample — proof to your unconscious mind that you’ve already lived this way and therefore can again.

Then do the same for the final feeling — the one you ultimately want.

Now blend it.
Imagine yourself experiencing your real-life situation while feeling this new emotion.

Your unconscious mind learns FAST from this.

Step Five: Take It Into the Future

Picture yourself stepping into that upcoming meeting, conversation, event, or moment…

…and behaving, thinking, breathing, moving as the you who feels the way you want to feel.

Your unconscious cannot tell the difference between imagination and memory.

So it starts updating your emotional responses immediately.

This is how you create change without force.

A Final Word From Me

This process is simple.
It’s gentle.
It’s human.
And it works.

But it takes effort — not heavy effort, just a few minutes of curiosity.

If you do it, you will feel movement.
Maybe subtle.
Maybe dramatic.
But definitely movement.

And that is the beginning of reclaiming yourself.

If something comes up, gets stuck, or you uncover a deeper layer — let me know. I’ll bring it into a future episode so we can work through it together.

Because real change isn’t magic.
But it is magical.