What Influences Your Vibrational Frequency?
How to use the rings of frequency influence to raise your vibration, and how we often prioritize the wrong things when trying to improve our lives.
*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
What Creates a Human’s Vibrational Frequency?
In previous articles like my series on How to Raise Your Vibration, I explain how we can directly impact vibrational frequency. Today we’ll explore external elements that may hold sway over our frequency and vibration without us even knowing.
In the first ring, the collective frequency of an individual is primarily composed of vibrations from their thoughts, emotions, organs, beliefs, values and other components central to the individual. This includes feelings generated in the world by our actions, as well as our actions themselves.
Taking it out to a second ring, we have vibrations from the environment we live in, food, friends, job, media we consume, and other regular elements in our lives that impact frequency.
The third ring is compiled from the vibrations of financial investments, things we buy, charities or political campaigns we support etc. If we were talking about SEO I’d call this layer our backlinks. Threads of semi-persistent connection to the world around us that disclose information about us and our values.
We typically keep the same financial investments for some time, or buy groceries with a similar vibration every week. What we consistently link ourselves to affects our vibrational frequency.
We’re largely impacted by not only the frequencies of the organizations we link with, but how our links align with our beliefs and values in the primary ring.
When we don’t have alignment our frequency begins to sound less like a concert violinist and more like a fifth grade violinist. It’s still a song… but barely. Alignment with self through actions produces clear notes.
The fourth ring is events of ephemeral influence. A friend’s birthday party, movie, vacation, or sports event. Every event has a collective vibrational frequency created by attendees that temporarily blends with our vibrational frequency. This frequency influences us even after we leave (sometimes we even have to shake it off).
The collective totals from all vibrations in these rings determine if we are primarily a high vibration person or a low vibration person.
How many more rings can we expand outward before influence stops? I suspect it’s more than we think. So if we look at how to raise your vibration- most impact comes from the inner rings. Frequency impact declines as we move further from our center, but is still present to varying degrees.
Now, I understand most of us don’t want more things brought to our attention needing brain power. We’re struggling to live decent lives in a fast paced world. Just trying to remember the difference between free range and pasture raised eggs. To put energy toward contemplating rings of vibrational frequency influence? Just no. Plates are full. I get it.
Yet, what if plates are full of things we’ll come to realize aren’t as impactful as we think?
I like to assume nature gives us clues about how we exist; patterns we see in nature can be found within us. Think of a tree trunk, or rings in a geode, telling the story of what influences us. What if society has accidentally, in our struggle to evolve, prioritized the wrong things?
What if the very activities we are banking on driving us forward and improving our lives are doing the opposite? We’ve just been going too fast to notice.
How to Increase Your Frequency With Counterintuitive Behaviors
When I first stepped out of the game (read: corporate life) to try and find some meaning in life I felt wildly uncomfortable. It was like sitting down during a marathon and watching everyone run by me. It felt like a serious disadvantage, but I just refused to work so hard for a semi-fulfilling life anymore.
I’m a huge fan of the Tim Ferriss life philosophy that if we want to experience extraordinary results we need to be willing to do what others consider too uncomfortable. In his book I highly recommend, The 4-Hour Workweek, he offers exercises to help overcome the uncomfortable. One asks you to lay down on a busy sidewalk.
Taking it very seriously, a few years ago my parter of the time and I splayed like snow angels in Sydney’s CBD on the way to dinner. We snorted with suppressed laughter as people literally stepped over us to make the crosswalk. Awkward AF? Yup. But afterward I felt I could do anything.
The person I laid down with has, from a business perspective, accomplished more in his life by 40 than multiple entrepreneurs could in lifetimes. He is the only person I know who thought he might own a condo in the Philippines he forgot about.
Doing the uncomfortable often exemplifies any effort to vibrate at a higher frequency because it pushes comfort zones outward. Expansion. Focusing on things many consider a waste of time can have huge value because they are the blue oceans.
This is where I see value in learning how to elevate your vibrational frequency. It can be ignored for other things deemed more important, but I sense there is a cost.
The things we consider important- did we even decide they were important, or did we let society and group mentality tell us what to focus on? Did we decide our path, or did we follow a prescription of what those around us were doing?
The impulse inside us to stay with the herd is STRONG. When we step outside that impulse there’s a dope vibrational life waiting for us.
Watch kids looking for Easter Eggs. Little ones follow the older ones, looking where they are looking. The kids cluster. We often assume those who have gone before us have more wisdom, and mimic what we see.
Yet, an adult watching the egg hunt can see if a kid strays from the herd there’s a bunch of eggs literally sitting around in an area no one is exploring.
The first kid to find it will cry out and experience glory. Others run to the place shoveling the remaining eggs, and the stragglers may get one.
There are diminishing returns when we follow the herd, and great returns when we forge our own path. I try to remember my life could look like an egg hunt, I just can’t see it.
“I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough to confess my errors and to retrace my steps.” ~Mahatma Gandhi
When I was 19 I had a major wreck on the freeway. Pouring rain, I spun across multiple lanes of traffic to crunch against a guard rail. Just the kind of accident people love to stare at. As I stood (in complete shock) on the side of the road I saw the cars slowing down. Eyes bugged out, people peering through foggy car windows gawking at me. I felt like a zoo exhibit.
In that moment I swore I would never make anyone else feel that way. I resolved to look the other way when I saw accidents, and give people privacy in such a vulnerable time. In a way I was “lucky” enough to have this experience. It kept me from a low vibration behavior I could have accidentally done for decades if I followed the herd.
This is where I suspect people can sense behaviors that lower vibration; we just don’t call it that.
Most people tut and seem to know staring at an accident isn’t the best thing to do. But do you notice how often people chide that traffic is going slow for everyone to look at an accident- and then still look at the accident and comment about it as they go by?
We can’t blame anyone. They are simply following the human curiosity impulse. Incredibly natural when one has never been the one stared at.
How to increase your frequency is often about redirecting impulses. Reprogramming ourselves for behaviors that aren’t intuitive. If they were intuitive, everyone would have a ridiculously strong frequency, and I imagine the world would look pretty different.
With accidents, there’s a vibrational difference between following the curiosity impulse, and sending a little prayer while looking elsewhere.
Vibrational frequency is a new frontier. I’m suggesting those who try and learn how to vibrate at a higher frequency will benefit immeasurably, because there will be so many who will not. They will stay looking for Easter eggs where everyone else is.
“99% of people in the world are convinced they are incapable of achieving great things, so they aim for the mediocre. The level of competition is thus fiercest for 'realistic' goals, paradoxically making them the most time and energy-consuming.” ~Tim Ferriss, The 4-Hour Workweek
So, if we look at how to elevate your frequency using these rings of lesser influence the main benefit is broader rings are an easy lift.
While less impactful, these are approachable places to start working on vibrational frequency. (Versus say, reprogramming deep beliefs, or working out emotional trauma.) Let’s take a look.
Here’s an absolutely random list off the top of my head. I’m not endorsing or deriding anything. Just examples of how we can make seemingly inconsequential choices that link us to different vibrational frequency bandwidths.
Sending holiday cards, watching porn, eating at chain restaurants, having real hard wood floors, arguing with people in 280 character spaces, taking vitamin A, choosing a dog breeder, eating pasture raised chicken, killing bugs, buying stocks.
There’s nearly endless elements we can tweak in each ring of frequency influence, with varying degrees of potency. Let’s explore a few of these smaller ones.
Exploring A Few Vibrational Frequency Influences
I remember being in the house of a professor I greatly respected. We walked in to the kitchen and found her three year old son stomping on ants marching in from outside. “Desmond!” She admonished, “We do not kill ants in this house!” I paused. What else was she going to do with the ants? I killed ants. Gah! Did I need to look at myself?
Many of us believe that because something is small it’s insignificant.
We want to be mindful of actions encouraged by our beliefs, as actions are one of the most potent vibrational frequency regulators we have access to.
There’s a frequency difference in slowing down our life to relocate a bug outside, and smashing them because it’s quicker and easier for us.
I’m not high and mighty here. I smashed a spider last week I thought would get away. (It’s all idealism until I realize they can jump.) Yet, I acknowledge that moment of impulsiveness, repeated regularly, would impact my vibration.
My comment about hard wood floors might be puzzling some. If we want to change our frequency it helps to be sure our environment isn’t fighting this goal. Even very subtle low vibrations over time add up to resistance. Materials in our environment all have their own vibration which can diminish or amplify our frequency.
Many of us would agree we feel calmer in a forest. Hardwood floors are a tiny forest in the house. When we have a variety of natural elements in our lives we tend to feel more balanced. Is there a fireplace? Can we hear rain fall on a sky light? What is the cement to greenery ratio in the neighborhood?
Access to natural elements expand vibration, and the more removed we are from them frequency suffers.
Buying stocks is akin to supporting a company, or in the case of an ETF, also the company that administers the fund. These are chances to link ourselves with entities that share our values. We want our frequency clean.
When we support things we don’t align with to make money this introduces static into our frequency.
Imagine being watched by an omnipotent being, “I don’t get it. Veronica genuinely cares about the rainforest, but invests in companies that put palm oil in their products to make them cheaper, and who aren’t even close to implementing fair trade practices.” This is what static looks like.
Imagine how Veronica could shift her vibrational frequency if more areas of her life aligned to support her values. She would magnify in a beautiful way.
We link up to opportunities, ideas and people of similar vibrational frequency to us. It’s called resonance. So when we warp our frequency to make money, supporting companies we would never associate with otherwise, we are messing up our frequency. What we attract will match our messy vibration. It likely won’t be fulfilling. We may even wonder why some things just aren’t working out for us.
Alignment sends a clear signal. No matter how much work we do in the external world every vibrational frequency level links to a different version of reality. If we don’t focus on how to vibrate at a higher frequency we can't experience success higher than our frequency- no matter how hard we work in the external world.
“But until a person can say deeply and honestly, "I am what I am today because of the choices I made yesterday," that person cannot say, "I choose otherwise.” ~Stephen Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Some readers may be thinking, “So what?” These sound like little things, and people can’t seriously be expected to research the background of every company we associate with.
I agree. We can’t do it all. We shouldn’t spend excessive energy examining every little thing that can damage or expand frequency. Trying too hard can backfire if our body constricts with the effort, and constriction diminishes vibrational frequency.
As Jordan Peterson puts it, “Results in life can come from a thousand small decisions.” Trying just a few tiny things compounds.
I’m offering the idea that slowing down and paying attention to what’s influencing our vibrational frequency is worth something. Yes, it’s extra effort. But what effort might dissipate from our lives if we enhance our frequency? What is the opportunity cost of dismissing vibrational frequency?
If you want to explore what’s influencing your vibration visit my website to see if any of the popular topics pique your curiosity.