At the moment I’m really at a funny point of my experience, because I can totally tell that it worked because there’s some areas in my life where I just don’t believe the negative beliefs anymore. But on the other hand I was in such an upward spiral, those days what I was talking about, I mean how long is it ago? 10 years ago ? And I didn’t do any different so how did I manage to really watch my thoughts and contradict them I don’t know so now the challenge is a real hard one for me, because I know how it feels when you’re in the upward spiral and I can totally tell that I’m on the brink of it, but I’m not there yet.

To kickstart this process, I’m setting up a simple alarm as a reminder, about six times a day. Over the next week, I’ll document my experience and share insights in a brief article or post about how this approach is working for me.

In 2024, I’m setting a challenge for myself: to kickstart the upward spiral every day. I plan to employ techniques previously mentioned on this site and seek additional strategies to achieve this. The concept of an upward spiral is familiar to me; I’ve experienced it multiple times. For instance, almost nine years ago, I went through a phase of intense euphoria. While I occasionally re-enter this mode, sustaining it has been challenging. Despite a fulfilling life, complete with health, strong friendships, meaningful relationships, a passion for my hobbies, and the freedom to pursue work that interests me all the time, the reason for my inability to maintain this state eludes me.

Therefore, I’m not only challenging myself but also extending this challenge to you, especially if you’ve experienced or been close to an upward spiral. This challenge is particularly relevant for those who have already discovered their purpose, yet wonder why it hasn’t been the springboard to constant joy and passion they expected. Through this journey, I hope to either consistently inhabit the ‘Appreciation Mode‘ I detailed in another chapter or at least identify additional factors holding me back. Stay tuned, and let me know if you’re on board.

MakeBelief is a theory of positive emotions and flourishing. Our mission is to help individuals unlock their best selves and live life to the fullest by harnessing the power of positivity. It can be said in one sentence:

It is about the ratio of postive and negative thoughts you display during the day.

Esther Rittner

We offer a range of strategies designed to tip the scales in favor of positivity, ultimately leading to an upward spiral of wellbeing. When you reach the tipping point, you’ll find yourself in a state we call Appreciation-Mode, or A-mode, where gratitude and happiness become second nature.

If you think happiness as a sustained state exists, you know there´ s a door to go through. If you got the key you perceive yourself as an expert to the upward spiral. Display a door and maybe even door and key, to show others where you are at right now. Our “Door and Key” community is an exclusive gathering of like-minded individuals who are passionate about this secret.

The MakeBelief community holds a groundbreaking secret that could transform your life in ways you never imagined.

All the years I did not see the connection, but now it is obvious: a daily meditation routine is essential for me. If you want to control your thoughts, you need to be there! Fully aware.

Awareness is the key and is essential to use the stragegies in a specific amount to elicit A-mode.

It is very easy. You add positive thoughts every time you detect a negative thought. I called that the “Carrots vs. Donuts- Strategy” It is highly trainable and very easy if used frequently. There were years in my life, I did that easily, almost without effort. I guess, if you are not facing life events, you get into that upward-spiral much easier, than if you have many interuptions in your life, that are severe and essential for your self-worth.

So what makes the mind wander and not stick to the strategy? What happend when I felt uncapable to use it stubbornly and consequently? Why did I not go through with it all the time.

Awareness gets sucked up by anger and fear

If you are in a stage where you are angry about something or fearing something thoughts go south. Especially if you are in extreme fear you can not focus anymore. It is like a fast current that takes you somewhere you don´ t want to be. Even if you are a skilled meditation practitioner it might be very hard to get out of that stream of thought.

Now I figured out, that if I mediate every day again, the waters of thoughts get quiet and very clear structured. I might only talk for myself, but it seems that mediation only three times a week is not enough to get into A-mode.

Get into A- Mode and then…

Once you are in A-mode, there´ s no need to put in effort in any way anymore. Appreciation-mode is a constant state of gratefulness and appreciation and therefore feels like a constant mindfulness mediation of loving kindness.

The last years I have been struggeling a lot to set up my homepage and working with wordpress. I really wanted to do it on my own, but I remember it was so hard sometimes and I didn´t know what I was doing. But after it felt like this for quite a while, I experience an amazing shift.

“It´s too easy”

Lately I caught myself a couple of times detecting a problem and solving it straight away. I am in that stage now, where it becomes truly easy. I don´t even know when that happend. But I can easily apply changes and everything is just workung the way I want it.

It seems like all the energy I put in there is now paying off. It seems like the energy that I invested is now eliciting ease. It is as if you had to push a cart up the hill and once you reach the peak it just gets rolling.

I just had an interesting idea: what if any energy you put somewhere is paying off? What if there is no waste of energy there? I like the idea of every single minute I invested, every article I read, every energy I put in the thought of improving the lives of others just amasses to this huge energy outbreak one day.

It often feels to me that I am very close to the peak. I can feel it is still harsh and going uphill. But then there will be a peak and a huge amount of energy will be released. I take this as an experiment and I will put much more energy in interesting stuff, stuff I want to learn and stuff I am passionate about. Putting energy in there is thrilling, too especially when I know, there will be the time where I just lean back and watch the avalanche.

It is happening again

The same situation is suddenly so different. It is happening to me again. I am getting more and more into a very sustaining, postive mode. Seems like I am back in the upward spiral. Everything is easier and I am highly motivated. The little disturbances don´t bother me.

For example, I have been visiting a friend to help me replace a broken bulb of a car headlight. For he was checking on a lot of stuff, we did this and that and he overlooked something that wasn´t in place. When I wanted to drive back home, the motor wasn´t running poperly and something else (a sensor) was broken.

My mood was still very good, and it was obvious that this won´t bother me. I was rather interpreting this positive, for it was clear, I am gong to visit my friends next week again to replace the sensor. This just made me smile, because they have a sauna and I love that.

Engage with thrilling things

In moments like this it is so obvious: you get into a postive mode and the uplifted feeling is just carrying you through whatever happens. I also found out, that once the mood is really great and I feed my mind with things I am really interested in in that moment, I tend to get completely thrilled. On my way there I was listening to an interview with a nutritional psychiatrist on the platform Impact theory . It is such a great interview and I just got more and more excited about those news and my motivation was over the top for doing some more research on nutrition and I was planning to change my diet and fantasizing about that.

I am aware, that in normal mood things like that are entertaining and interesting to listen. But when I am in that very postive state (A-mode) it is fun and thrilling and lifts my mood even more. I get so excited about stuff, I am feeding my mind constantly and learn very rapidly. And it is fun!

Get into good mood and then…

It is true: get in the good mood and then do other stuff. You´ll be in extraordinary positive mood and everything you look at will just give you more to appreciate. And this is nothing you can see from the outside. Of course you can see, this person is motivated and thriving. But that´s just the byproduct. The means to becoming motivated is finding positive feelings and being thrilled about something and you will find more and more thrils and satisfaction.

You can´t start feeling better, when you are looking at the downside

This is very important to know: if you are spending your time focusing on the negative, it will impact your mood and the next following thoughts. I know you are right that it is horrible. I know you want to fugure out what actually happend. But this is getting you to a place where you can´t find the solutions. You´ve got to stop it!

But is it possible to stop a negaitve thought?

Many times it is not. Some weeks ago I had to make the experience how it feels, when fear and thoughts that accompany feelings of fear entirely uncontrollable. I couldn´t believe it. Before that I thought of myself as an expert of meditation- but suddenly nothing was working anymore. I lost grip of everything I knew before.

It is about the ratio postive to negative thoughts.

Now I am recovering very fast – it is so thrilling- and this is why:

I refrain from thinking about the past situation. I switch to other topics and do anything to get back into feelings like “everything is fine”, “nothing needs to be changed” and “there´s nothing you have to solve right now”.

Create your world

These days you hear it at lot: some people say you can actually create your world. Although it is still perceived as esotericism by some it is not like that at all. Our reality is not what we always believed it is. The truth is, we got much more influence on what is happening than we were taught.

When you wish for something, you will get it. It is amazing and it works like that. It´s a bit like the bible says: ask and it is given. It is so easy. So what is keeping us back?

The mechanism

“No” you might reply now. “I wanted so many things I didn´t get. That is not true!” But that is just because you did not know how.

You need that positive feeling of appreciation and trust when you think about it and then you get it. Always! The neurological expression is the heart coherence (I already mentioned it in the post Straight flush for positive thinking). Whenever you feel appreciation, joy, love you´ll have a certain pattern of brainwaves and that is all you need to know.

With meditation and exercises you can also get into that state and it seems to have too much impact for us to really get it straight away. Dr. Joe Dispenza who is using that is even said to cure cancer and Parkinson. You can create your body even more than we thought.

Creating the physical world

If you believe that, you still might think: “Ok, influencing your own body might work, that is still kind of logical, but influencing matter? Really? Isn´t that far fetched?”

I´d say: not at all. The latest fiindings in physics are so thrilling that it is crysal clear for me. Of course it is still just a handful of scientist prefering the following explanations. But it is the only available answer for me until today that integrates quantum theory. Check on Tom Campbell and his MBT (My big toe) theory for that.

I am giving you a very intuitive summary here, just that you can check for yourself. I´ll name the essence and implications only, because not everybody is into physics so much that I could go deeper.

Former natural sciences

What we´ve learned in school about natural sciences is based on the following assumptions: Time is linear, so there´s causality. Consciousness derived from matter. So there was this evolution and then the human being derived from other beings and at a certain time we developped some kind of consciousness.

Everybody was talking about it but nobody took it too seriously: Physicists found out that time is not really linear. And also quantum mechanics finds that the result is different whether somebody is looking at it or not. To be honest: If you don´t ever doubt the assumptions in the former paragraph you haven´t payed attention! This is not working if we thought everything was just matter and stable. It is not working! Now physicists even go “oh” and “ah” and “how amazing”. But it is not really amazing. It just seems like magic because our model of the world doesn´t fit!

A model that might fit

Tom Campell (MBT) and others figured out something that is surely to mention. If you´d chose the assumption that life could be a virtual reality you can explain all the findings in quantum mechanics. Still people are denying that. C´mon folks, it doesn´t mean it is a virtual reality, it means that findings are explained best by this model. We might never be truly capable of understanding what reality or existence truly is. But I think that is the closest you can get today.

You create your world

Taking that into account, it is possible that your thinking and your expectations have far more impact than we ever thought. Tom Campbell says, we are just interpreting data streams into reality, so the more ambiguity there is the more impact we have.

Just try it

You might still not be concinved, but the truth is: the old model is not bearable anymore. Consciousness is very likey to have a big impact. So why not giving it a try? Get yourself into really positive mood, meditate, appreciate, love, celebrate and then visualize goals and wishes and see what happens. Don´t believe anybody who is saying this is not scientific. Any science is still lacking to explain quantum effects. It is eqally non-scientific to deny that kind of impact.

Happiness is a matter of focus

Happiness is all about focus. Last week a smart colleague of mine inervened when I talked about my happiness, stating: “You only think you are happy, because you don´t realize when you are not”. From her perspective my positive focus seems to be illogical.

I really had to laugh. I know that a very positive attitude is always meeting with criticism and I get what they mean, but still… I asked her: “you are accusing me of being happy, just because I don´t let all the hard facts in?” I get what she´s saying but I also don´t get it. The reproach directly adresses to the basic requirements of happiness: positive focus.

I think of the opposite view straight away. There were many times where I watched others and it seemed, they are happy but they don´t realize it. Imagine a person, getting up in the morning. It feels too early because the person has to go to work. Maybe it´s in the winter and it is still dark outside. The person might be thinking about problems of the world, might have issues with relatives and diseases. Maybe the person has a back ache. Now I see this person walking along with a colleague laughing at his jokes. I think instantly: Wow this is a happy moment. Somebody made you laugh. You are in this existence…capable of so many things. You got poeple who look after you. You got a job that pays you and you got a lot of free time you can do whatever you want. Isn´t that amazing? We are so free.

Now you can see what side you are on. Can you feel into that? If not: you are not alone. I´ve got the impression that societys prevailing mood is gloom. We get trained into negative focus and are used to it. But you can easily replace that thinking once you know that. Of course you can enhance your thinking also with my method, by changinge the ratio positiv to negative thoughts as mentioned in the how it works section.

A fun experiment I´m doing is “seeing it through the eyes of former generations”. It helps you focus on positve achievements and your advantage compared to other generations. It is a fun thing to do and makes me laugh so many times.

Last week I´d imagine to take my forefathers to the ATM at lunchbreak to buy a salad, avocado and strawberries at the market. I was standing at the ATM pretending to have a conversation in my mind: “Now look, I just shove that card thing in there and then I push some of these little nubs and then money comes out”. My greatgreatgreat grandmother seems to say: “But how? Is that machine making money?”. Me: “No. It is actually my money. There´s other people keeping money for me so I don´t have to carry it around”. Granny: “But how do they know how much money you have? And is this really YOUR money”. “Too hard to explain now. You might think it´s magic, but it´s not. They know the exact amount I´ve earned and they fill these machines with money …they are all around and I can take this money out wherever I want.” Granny just can´t believe it. “And yes. It´s my money. I earn a lot of money.” “But why do people give you so much money…you work 20 hours a week and you almost always leave on time. You are just a mother with no husband and three kids”. “Yeah granny. Great society these days. I studied many years and society values my work…you can be very lucky these days if you were able to study or learn something you like. Lets get some of these perfectly red and sweet strawberries and some salad.” I move on explaining my greatgreatgreatgrandmother what an avocado is and where it comes from and she is filled with wonder.

It is a fun experiment and helps to mentally get away from these tiny little things that don´t work. To focus on the positive will make you happy. Of course it works better in better mood, but never forget: Mood and thoughts are interacting all the time. Thinking more positively wil make you have a better mood after a while. Just try it!

Unchanged effort

Today I realized that focusing on good things will always be the same. You can only do it now, but you have to, if you want to suceed. It is allways the same thing: it remains unchanged effort.

Of course there are situations full of chaos or pain, where the main focus is to change the situation. That will always be there: life throwing things at you, you have to deal with. But that doesn´t happen very often. Most of the times no serious, life-threatening situations occur. Most of the times there is no big thing going on, but you in your daily life or you in your free-time pussyfooting around. That is the time I want to talk about. Because it is the time that determines everything. Whether you thrive or you stagnate, whether you enjoy or complain, whether you celebrate or you whine. It is very important what you think in those times.

Recently I wondered, why I can´t do it sometimes. I must say, I have been sloppy in my meditation practise. There were times I practised at least 5 times a week, now I am down to 5 times a month I guess. I also did somthing like writing down what I have and what I want. That always turns out really postive. Once you started that and you get into detail you get into a really good mood place. But I did that lesser and lesser. I ended up in a place where everything was fine, but me, because I didn´t realize what is positive in its fullness. I ended up in a rather mediocre mood-state.

Decide focusing on the good things

I decided to focus on the good things again. Although I have been very far on that path, I have to put effort in it. I had times where it worked so automatically that I stopped maintaining my habits. And it is true: once you are in A-mode you don´t need mediation or exercises for being positive. You are appreciation in person. But when life throws stuff at you, you have to react to, you will need a certain time to come back to the neutral place. And then make it your main aim to get that positivity focus again!

I now had my divorce done and everything is fine. I even bought the house of my ex-husband. That makes me really happy. There are so many reasons to be happy now. Just the fact that I, a woman, that has seperated and lives with her three kids, gets the money from the bank and can live a free and self-determined life! That is so great. Think of all the former generations of women, deceived and bleeded by a male society, having nothing and having to little time to work because of raising children! I feel so privileged and I know I am, living that free life I always wanted. I can do whatever I want in my house.

Positive thinking needs effort

But I was in a neutral stage. What happens is, that you catch yourself thinking: “I have so much to clean, it is such a big house” or “so much work to do”. But I do know how it works! I know I can also focus on the good so thoroughly, not noticing the negative aspects at all. I´ve been there. (Just practise the strategies I mentioned on the How it works-page). It can all be so easy and action results from inspiration only. But it is a matter of the mind. Of YOU focusing on the good. First step: realize that it is about focusing. Step two: Do anything and I mean anything on a regular basis, what fosters your positive state. For me that means: getting back into meditation practics again and very important: write down everyday what is good in your life. Go wild: name anything, starting by how your skin or your eyes work, to what is in your fridge, to what you already achieved in your life.

This will always be unchanged effort: no matter where you are in the future, whether you own a bussiness, or whether you turn very rich, if you are a grandma, or if you live in a new city. You can always focus on the good things and it will never be harder than right now. It will be rather less effort if you get used to it, but never more.