Bre Brown
- Jun 27, 2021
- 10 min read

How to Use the Emotional Guidance Scale to Raise Your Vibration

Today I want to continue last week’s conversation about emotional regulation and creating healthier neuropathways. To do that, we’re going to talk about the Emotional Guidance Scale. My new favorite topic of late!

As I’ve said before, your emotions drive your thoughts, and behaviors. In other words you’re manifesting your emotions (your energy in motion), so it’s important to continually check in with them. Thankfully, the scale I’m going to talk about will help you do this.

Emotional Guidance Scale (EGS)

The EGS is a scale (see image below) by Abraham-Hicks that helps you identify your current emotional set point; in other words, your frequency. The Emotional Guidance Scale is a list of 22 emotions ranging from joy at #1 to depression at #22, with all of the emotions in between. Each emotion has a set frequency associated with it and the corresponding frequency can be measured. As we know, the higher our frequency, the more we’re able to manifest the good things we want. To that end, we can use this scale to determine our frequency, based on our emotion, and figure out appropriate steps to increase our vibration.

The EGS was created to help you determine your set point, or your vibrational frequency, at any given moment. Whether you check-in during an argument, at the end of the day, while you’re watching tv, while painting, on your way to work, this scale was designed to give you a path to increase your frequency. Consider this guiding scale as a roadmap that will help you get from where you are when you check-in, to where you want to be emotionally, in order to manifest.

The EGS was designed to help you access where you’re at emotionally, WITHOUT the guilt of where you “should be”. In a roundabout way, this scale can be seen as way to validate our negative emotions. While this seems counterintuitive, validating our negative emotions can be an important step toward letting go of the self-shaming they can cause. Speaking from experience, this scale helped me end my cycle of self-shaming by providing a logical roadmap that showed me where I was, and which emotion I could strive for, to increase my vibration step-by-step. I couldn’t imagine getting to joy, but I could imagine improving my mood a little…

The EGS is especially helpful when you feel like joy is too far away from your current emotional state. It helps eliminate the overwhelm of your emotions so that you can get back on track. After all, what you’re feeling, is what you’re manifesting. When you want to get to joy, and you’re not anywhere close, this guide helps you figure out what to do to rise one vibrational frequency at a time—eventually reaching your goal.

Dealing with Negative Emotions

Before we go any further into addressing your emotional state, let's talk about feeling into negative emotions. Unfortunately, the idea of maintaining positivity for manifestation can cause us to try and shame ourselves out of negative emotions. This isn’t healthy or helpful. We need to acknowledge our negative emotions and hold space for them when they occur. It wont do us any good to suppress the anger we feel toward ourselves or others. Instead, address that emotion and work to release it. Bring this emotion to the front of your mind while you work through it in something like meditation, rage journaling, dancing, running, doing yoga, addressing the instigator directly, etc. Negative emotions that are ignored become stuck energy in the body. Feel them. Address them. Then, let them go.

It is important to remember that emotions are cyclical. We will always experience a range of them on any given day; that is the human experience. While the EGS exercise is helpful for manifestation, check-in to make sure you're not using this process to escape hard feelings.

How to Use the Emotional Guidance Scale

There are two ways you can incorporate this scale into your life:

1. Use it to address your set point, or your default emotional setting.

2. Use it to address your current mood so you can kick-start better feeling emotions after an upset.

Either way you intend to use the scale, the process is the same, though timing will be different. To start using the EGS, first identify what emotion you’re currently feeling on the scale of 22 emotions. This could take a few minutes as you tune into yourself, don't rush. Once you’ve identified what you're feeling, figure out what you need to do to rise up to the next emotion on the list. Example: If I’m at contentment, #7, how do I get to hopefulness at #6? Questions you might ask yourself could be:

Why am I currently feeling this way?
Am I avoiding something?
Is this an emotion that I've experienced for a while or recently?
How does this emotion feel within my body? Where is it located?
What can I do to help resolve this emotion within me?
Do I need to take a break?
Do I need to have more fun?
Do I need to engage in creativity?
Do I need to talk with a mentor?
Will meditation help? A walk? Journaling?

The idea is to brainstorm what could get you from contentment to hopefulness (or whatever emotions you're addressing in your own example). Once you’ve practiced this enough, it will become easier to ‘troubleshoot’ your emotions.

Remember: The idea isn’t to get through this exercise as quickly as possible. Many times, we need to sit in our negative emotions so that we’re not using this exercise as a way to escape them. Like the expression goes:

“What you resist not only persists, but will grow in size", Carl Jung.

If you’ve been stuck at an emotional set point for awhile, ask yourself if you’ve really allowed yourself to feel this emotion. What would happen if you’ve sat with shame or guilt for 20 minutes a day? I know this sounds counter intuitive, but this can be very healing for the soul because as your negative emotions get seen, they start to go away. They no longer have to fight for your attention by weighing you down or even manifesting physically. It would be a lot easier to raise your vibration by doing this alone, even without the EGS! in other words, if you’re looking for a “shortcut”, this is it. Do this work every day and overtime you will naturally be in a more positive emotional state.

Ok, let’s keep going. Thanks for joining me on that tangent! ;)

When you’ve successfully increased how you feel by at least one step, how can you then rise one more step toward the next emotion—such as positive expectation? No matter where you are on the scale, achieving joy is possible. Identify your current state and focus on improving your emotional frequency one step at a time. The scale is your emotional GPS; your pathway to joy.

How long does this take?

I'll be honest, you're not going to love this response. ;) Learning to develop an emotional set point of "joy" could take days, weeks, or even years of practice. Ideally, we utilize the EGS to help us create a lifestyle change, so that you don’t have to fight to get to joy. The scale encourages us to ask ourselves the hard questions about how we're feeling, something many of us were taught to avoid. Re-creating your default setting will take time and only you know how long.

As an example, if you were conditioned to experience a negative emotion as your default setting, you will have more mental habits to unlearn and more traumas to work through (with a therapist, preferably). And, if you're like me, you may be one of those people who is always "fine" or "okay", but never "great" or "angry". If this sounds familiar, then you may need to identify and work through your relationship with emoting. I remember telling my therapist once that I don't really feel... I just am. I'm here, but I'm never outwardly expressive, even when I want to be. The hard truth was that I was taught as a kid that emoting, positive or negative, was something to be ashamed of. People who were overly expressive were called "dramatic" and "attention seeking" in my family. The challenge is that you can't suppress one emotion without suppressing the entire range of emotions. There is no such thing as compartmentalizing your feelings, they're fluid. To unpack something as deep rooted as this, it will take time. And once you become aware of your traumas, you're already healing.

Maintaining Joy

Once you've shifted your emotional state, maintaining a consistent feeling of joy can bring up challenges from our past. Many of us were conditioned to experience joy in fleeting moments. Parents, guardians, teachers, society, while they meant well, they taught us their pessimistic viewpoints. This might cause us to wonder when the other shoe will drop... At the very least, society tells us to look outside of ourselves for comfort and contentment in life. But joy? That only comes with a new car, diamond ring, or kids! Right? Wrong.

For many of us, elation and joy were reserved for special occasions, surprises, gifts, etc. How often do the people around you talk about finding constant joy every day? Not just in retirement, not once you’ve “made it” in your career, not once you’re wealthy, not once you get the promotion, not once you've had kids, not once you've ran a marathon, not once you've lost 50 pounds, not once you've … [fill in the blank].

To help you get to a place of joy, and stay there, I recommend practicing gratitude. I know, I know... you're probably tired of hearing this (and I'm going to keep saying it!). Having gratitude means more than just the cute word on your Anthropologie mug. When we take a moment to tap into the feeling of being grateful for the things we have, and we allow ourselves to become fulfilled by the "enough-ness" of our lives, we're able to stay within the feeling joy more easily. When we practice this enough, we find ourselves naturally living in joy.

As an added benefit, if you're continuously checking-in to see how you're feeling and you're doing the deep emotional work along the way, maintaining joy will be something that happens naturally. Each time you make a conscious effort to practice awareness and compassion for yourself, you're making it easier to maintain a feeling of joy.

Overcoming the Hard Emotions (#s 17-22)

When we begin our manifestation journeys, people love to tell us, “Just show gratitude! Be happy! Find your joy! Don’t be negative or you will manifest negative things!” These statements are made by well-meaning people—admittedly I’ve been one of them before. Here is the thing…. if you’re at a #10, which is frustration, and someone tells you off the cuff that “you just need to find joy”, which is #1 on the scale, you’re going to be pissed. You’re too energetically different to connect with this comment. The advice, “just find joy” when you’re frustrated, will at BEST make you continuously frustrated, OR drop you down further on the scale to #11—overwhelm. The emotional difference between frustration and joy is too wide and the wrong advice can perpetuate your frustration (which isn't helping anyone).

Conceptually, we all know that finding joy would be the best outcome for our lives. No one needs to preach this to us. The trick is getting there without frustrating ourselves more, overwhelming our nervous system and causing a "fight or flight" response.

For the moments when you can’t imagine getting to joy, use the EGS exercise to focus on getting from where you are now, to the next emotion, no matter how long it takes. Going through your emotions, one at a time, will help prevent an "all or nothing" mindset that can keep us stuck. Don't worry about how far you have to go to achieve joy. In fact, throw the idea of achieving joy out altogether, for now. If it feels too unattainable, then let’s just start where you are. Find out your frequency and determine what it will take to increase by one emotion on the scale.

There is no right or wrong. On this scale, boredom is an improvement from anger. Contentment is an improvement from sadness. Hatred is an improvement from depression. Find a way to go up, one emotion at a time. When you move from depression to hatred, take a moment to celebrate that change, that improvement, and don't let anyone take away the joy of your improvement. You're now one step closer to joy. For people who haven't experienced depression, they can't understand how much better frustration or hatred can feel comparatively. When you're allowed to feel your emotions, even the hard ones, you allow yourself to heal so that climbing the scale becomes easier.

Many people struggle with depression (which is emotion #22), and many are able to find their joy at some point. I found my way through depression, while working alongside a therapist, when I began to acknowledge the guilt, jealousy, rage, anger, discouragement, blame, worry, doubt... ALL the emotions that led me to where I was... at the bottom. What helped me stay motivated was that I got myself to where I was, one emotion at a time, and I could do the same going up, one emotion at a time. All of the emotions I was afraid to feel were IMPROVEMENTS from where I was, but I was afraid to feel them for awhile.

Unfortunately, society wants people who are depressed to go from #22 on the scale all the way up to #5—optimism. This isn’t possible. The energetic difference is too wide. That’s 17 steps up the ladder from where they are! Instead, we need to celebrate anger, resentment, frustration, and blame because these are all improvements. Protect YOUR progress.

If you have depression, please seek out a professional therapist and do not take this post as a substitution. I highly recommend getting the support you need along your journey.

To Feel is to Be Human

I hope this serves as a reminder to honor your emotions and to check-in with yourself. There is no 'right' or 'wrong' way to feel. As you work your way up the scale, remind yourself that anger is okay, hatred is okay, frustration is okay, overwhelm is okay, etc. One day, these emotions could help you get to where you want to be—feeling joy, even if it means hitting every other emotion on the scale before getting there.

Every person’s path is different and specific to the things you need to experience to manifest your dreams. You’re always on the right path.

So I conclude this post by asking you: What is your emotional set point RIGHT NOW? Can you increase your emotional set point by ONE frequency up the scale? If you’re experiencing frustration, can you go up one rung on the scale to achieve pessimism? If not, what needs to change to make this increase possible? Take ownership of your experience. Once you achieve pessimism, can you go up one more rung to boredom? Repeat.

Anytime you’re struggling remind yourself that it’s not about getting to the top, it’s about going up from where you are.

Thank y’all so much for reading! Have a fantastic rest of your week. I will catch y’all next Monday! Until then, go out there and manifest some miracles.