How to Raise Your Vibration (Part 2: Programming)
Subconscious beliefs often secretly program our frequency. How to level up your mental game and change your vibrational frequency.
*For your listening pleasure there is also an audio version of this article read by the author. It may include a few sidebars ;)
Updated April 2024
Wind-Up Toys & Invisible Programming
Let’s explore the layer of our being created by our mind. Perhaps the trickiest to see and the most persnickety to reign in. The patterns of our mind are often invisible to us. We’ve been running them so long they blend in to the background of our life like beige furniture.
We add color to that furniture when we question why we do things, challenge our existing beliefs, or actively run through our values to see if they need updating. Without that, I imagine we may look like little wind-up toys to aliens. Motoring through life, little bundles of programming bumping in to beings with different programming.
If our programming doesn’t match, we may start asserting our perceived superior programming to the other. Usually neither is convinced to make any changes, and the toys motor on their way. We rejoice when we find a toy with similar programming, and we motor with them for a while.
Yes, it’s a somewhat dystopian narrative. I don’t think I’m above it. Try and discuss some food additives the FDA has approved with me, and I will start to blurt upset programming. Sentences I’ve repeated ten times before.
We all have programming. Ways we predictably respond to stimuli that can be repeatedly triggered. There’s nothing innately wrong with them. However, most people would probably prefer to cultivate a higher consciousness over a reactive consciousness.
Usually programming is formed around things we care deeply about, have researched extensively, or bring up strong emotions around our values. They key is to observe ourselves and catch when we are drifting out of the present moment. Stuffing trail mix in our pockets, preparing to ascend to our soap box.
Programming is comfortable. It’s often somewhere we feel secure. Confident in ourselves, our beliefs, our knowledge. That is wonderful. All of us live our lives in programming to varying degrees. We just want to go there only when necessary so we can stay in the present moment, and have an awareness of when we are responding to life from a place of programming.
Often we start to pull out that cozy sweater of programming when we feel threatened, challenged, or triggered.
In that moment we can also choose to pause (and instead of putting on the sweater of protection) notice that when something gets us worked up it’s like a neon arrow pointing to something in ourselves we can work out.
It’s a bit less convenient to look at life through that lens. However, doing so will help us live a more peaceful, less reactive life.
How to Identify Subconscious Programming
It’s not to say we can’t have things we care deeply about, values worth communicating, or things that annoy us, it’s just to note that getting riled up drains energy. If we can communicate strong feelings in a mindful, less triggered and conscious way, not only are others able to hear us better, but it reserves our vital energy.
We bring the programming conscious instead of slipping unconsciously in and out of it when certain buttons are pushed. Developing this awareness is how to enhance your vibration in the mental vibratory layer.
One way to catch programming is to monitor the level of agitation or emotion in our responses. Present moment reactions typically carry emotions that are in line with the experience. Responses from programming tend to come from a more agitated place. One that sounds more like a monologue than a conversation.
If we catch ourselves repeatedly revisiting certain conversational topics, are we interested in talking about something else? Do we have any updated views around things we are passionate about? Can we catch ourselves having entire conversations, or reciting paragraphs of material we know we’ve said before?
The more we notice these moments and update them with fresh material, the more we are online in the present moment, and can achieve a higher vibration. Simultaneously, keeping ourselves from going stale is how we expand in to a higher consciousness. Routines are easy. Expansion is rewarded.
“The hardest battle you will ever have to fight is between who you are now and who you want to be.” ~Anonymous
Have you ever watched two people talk and gotten the sense there’s no unique thought happening? Just each person describing a well-worn point of view? The degree to which our mental body can increase its vibrational frequency is equivalent to how often we can push the boundaries of ourselves, and evolve in to something new.
Anxiety Can Hurt You… and Help You
Many roots of anxiety can be traced to patterns of the mind that stem from fear. For example, imagine things that could go wrong in a situation so you can have a plan to prevent them. A win for preparation that ratchets up anxiety. Have a tendency to worry about things that could go wrong.
Translation: emotionally experience a bunch of disasters that probably don’t happen. When something starts going wrong imagine it won’t ever end. Imagine you must do something to fix it now, even if you don’t have a plan.
P.S. if you don’t act now it will get worse.
Take action from a place of fear, or other emotions that lead to lower frequency bandwidths. Rush things. Those of us who have experienced anxiety could probably drag this list out so long with relevant examples we’d all be laughing (even though it’s sad).
The point is, this is the mental vibratory layer at work. Addressing thought patterns and weakening reflexive responses can elevate our vibration in the mental layer, and even influence the vibration of future timelines we travel down.
Anxiety isn’t even the bad guy. It’s an emotion that’s often attempting to orient our attention toward things that can increase our frequency if we fix them. Anxiety can enhance our life if we let it. When we pop pills to deal with anxiety instead of get curious about what it’s communicating we often miss opportunities to elevate our vibrational frequency.
Erase Your Stories & Elevate Your Frequency
If we typically get upset when someone cuts us off in traffic we notice the pattern. Pause. Do we want be dragged in to this reaction every time we’re cut off? I believe we are more powerful beings than that. Expanding in to a higher consciousness is about finding ways to be less reactive.
Allowing reactivity wastes energy. Instead, we can question why we get mad when this happens? Do we have a belief someone cutting us off is trying to teach us a lesson? Is purposefully being rude? We can’t control someone cutting us off, but we can control the story we tell ourself about why it happens.
Usually stories are what trigger reactions, not the events themselves. The way I’m mapping it, our stories trigger emotions. Emotions carry vibrations. All the rapidly oscillating and slowly oscillating vibrations in our body collectively create our vibrational frequency.
I was driving with someone once who got mad when they were cut off. At the same time he said, “I hate when people have no respect” I said, “I wonder if they are trying to get to the hospital.” Most likely neither were true. I’m sure we’ve all been tired and cut people off on accident without ever knowing it.
Our stories dictate the feelings we experience. Anger or empathy. We can even play games and give ourselves ridiculous reasons why people cut us off. Laughing in traffic is better than swearing. If you are playing with your stories consciously you are aware of what’s going on, and this awareness can help tune your mental layer and raise your vibration.
“Although you may not always be able to avoid difficult situations, you can modify the extent to which you can suffer by how you choose to respond to the situation.” ~Dalai Lama
We tell ourselves stories all day long. Why someone didn’t text us back. Why we didn’t sleep the night before. What our partner really meant when they made that comment. If we can’t prove it, it’s a story.
When we’re ready to find a higher consciousness we want to delete as many stories as possible. We want to get as close as possible to reacting based on the present moment, instead of our skewed perception of the present moment.
To shift our vibration we want to be aware of our own storytelling, and be able to play with it. Be an active participant in shaping the stories, not letting our mind tell us all kinds of junk likely based on fears and old experiences.
We want to observe our mind and interact with it, instead of being passively influenced by it. What the ancient yogic texts refer to as becoming the Witness.
Sneaky Semi-Conscious Values Often Rule Our Lives
Certain values tend to dominate the direction of our life. Habits and routines based on our values determine our day with little room for inspiration. Imagine Felicity, an economics professor who values efficiency.
Her morning consists of instant oatmeal, Keurig coffee, a workout timed to the minute to be a half hour (done at home to save drive time). The morning commute follows the exact route every day because there’s the least traffic. Cool. Nothing wrong with it. It’s just acknowledging that this person’s life is somewhat bound by efficiency.
A whole scope of experiences are blocked off by the value of efficiency above everything else. Felicity may yearn to relax. She can’t quite see that unless she changes her values and ranks ease higher, she will continue to subconsciously maximize efficiency- and feel the same way she’s always felt.
Finding a higher consciousness often starts with acknowledging we can do things differently, and not being afraid to change.
If we imagine ourselves as a vibrating cluster of programs, values, experiences, and wisdom, the question becomes how often are we making fresh decisions? Thinking and communicating in a non-habitual ways? How often are we running an old pattern of responding? My article on vibrational frequency charts shows how to program high vibration beliefs in chart #3 if you’d like to upgrade your mental software this month.
If we are just running routines and programming it’s kind of like nobody is home. Life is in danger of becoming a repeat of what worked for us yesterday.
“I can’t go back to yesterday because I was a different person then.” ~Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
Felicity likely had a period in her life where being efficient helped her immensely. The habits stuck, and now it’s how she lives all the time. Even though it may now be hurting her. These are the kind of things we can miss if we aren’t actively looking at our mental layer. Some values deserve a lifelong pedestal, and some have expiration dates.
Let’s pretend Felicity never came to value efficiency so highly. Here’s what her morning looks like valuing ease.
No longer feeling the need to outperform her co-workers she takes a lunch break, and uses it to work out, freeing up her morning. Not needing the boost of caffeine to push her productivity unreasonably high, she’s drinking green tea and notices she sleeps better with less caffeine in her life.
She takes 15 minutes to sip tea on her balcony. Breakfast is still oatmeal, but she takes the time to cut up fresh strawberries to put in it, and eats it while reading Vogue instead of while doing her hair.
With a slower pace she’s more relaxed, and her lower back isn’t bothering her so much. She drives a few different routes to work because she notices it keeps her from zoning out. Same Felicity, slightly different life depending on what she values.
Neither is better than the other. Each version just reflects her values back to her. She can even literally feel the difference in vibration and values in her body (low back).
This is how to raise your vibration in the mental layer, and it often benefits the physical layer. Examining values and being aware of the life they create for us. Is it the life we want? If not, updating our values lets a new set of experiences into our life.
“Part of getting to know yourself is to unknow yourself—to let go of the limiting stories you’ve told yourself about who you are so that you aren’t trapped by them, so you can live your life and not the story you’ve been telling yourself about your life.” ~Lori Gottlieb, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone
Updating values can be uncomfortable. It’s also annoying to wait through an iPhone update. Yet, the phone runs better afterward. We are no different. Mental programming updates are synonymous with an elevated vibrational frequency and higher consciousness.
If you want to explore your vibration I work with people interested in just that. A popular option is updating your mental programming. So fun. I invite you to visit my website.
*This article is the second in a multi-part series. Travel backward to the first installment: How to Raise Your Vibration (Part 1: The Soul) or forward to How to Raise Your Vibration (Part 3: Inner World).