Vibrational emotional scale

Key takeaways

The vibrational emotional scale ranks 22 emotions by frequency, from joy at position 1 down to despair and powerlessness at position 22.

Positions 1 to 7 are high vibrational, positions 8 to 14 sit in the middle zone, and positions 15 to 22 are low vibrational.

Nobody skips a stage. Moving up the scale means one adjacent step at a time, helped by reframing, journaling, or breathwork.

Pabau’s digital forms and client portal let your practice send this worksheet daily and file every response in the client’s record.

The vibrational emotional scale is a 22-position ranking of emotions, from joy at the top to despair at the bottom. Its value in session is precision. A client who can name their position can also name the next one up.

Coaches, therapists, and wellness practitioners use it to replace the sad-or-happy question with something a client can act on. The worksheet above turns that into a daily habit. You log a position, pick one technique, then log where you landed.

Below you will find all 22 positions in order, the three zones they fall into, and a prompt for each one. The final sections cover the admin side of managing a therapy practice, from sending the worksheet to reviewing months of responses.

What is the vibrational emotional scale?

The vibrational emotional scale, created by Abraham-Hicks, ranks emotional states from the highest vibrational frequency to the lowest. Joy, appreciation, empowerment, freedom, and love sit at the top. Fear, grief, despair, and powerlessness sit at the bottom. Twenty-two distinct positions run between those two extremes.

The premise is that every emotion carries its own frequency, and that the frequency shapes how you experience what happens to you. High frequencies such as joy, gratitude, and love line up with resilience and wellbeing. Low ones such as fear, anger, and guilt line up with stress and resistance.

For practitioners, the scale works as both a diagnostic and an intervention tool. Asking a client whether they feel sad or happy rarely captures where they are. The scale gives them a position to point at, and psychology practice software can hold that position alongside the session note.

The 22 emotions in order, from highest to lowest

The Abraham-Hicks emotional guidance scale sets the order below. Knowing it matters, because it tells a client which shift is realistic from where they are standing.

1. Joy, appreciation, empowerment, freedom, love — the highest vibration, and alignment with what you want
2. Passion — enthusiasm and aliveness
3. Enthusiasm, eagerness, happiness — optimism and forward momentum
4. Positive expectation, belief — hope and confidence
5. Optimism — a generally positive outlook
6. Hopefulness — lighter than despair, still searching
7. Contentment — peaceful acceptance
8. Boredom — neutral and slightly disengaged
9. Pessimism — doubt about the future
10. Frustration, irritation, impatience — tension and blocked momentum
11. Overwhelm — feeling flooded
12. Disappointment — unmet expectations
13. Doubt — loss of confidence
14. Worry — anxiety about future outcomes
15. Blame — anger directed outward
16. Discouragement — loss of momentum
17. Anger — resistance and reaction
18. Revenge — the wish to hurt in return
19. Hatred, rage — intense resistance
20. Jealousy — insecurity about loss
21. Insecurity, guilt, unworthiness — negativity turned on yourself
22. Fear, grief, despair, powerlessness — the lowest vibration, immobilization and hopelessness

One detail surprises most people. Anger ranks higher than fear or despair. A client stuck in powerlessness can find more agency by moving into anger, because resistance still assumes change is possible. From anger, the climb toward steadier emotions opens up. Skip that step and the shift rarely holds.

High vibrational vs low vibrational emotions

The zones do not overlap. Each of the 22 positions belongs to exactly one of them, which is what makes the scale usable in a session.

• High vibrational emotions (positions 1 to 7) align with openness, expansion, and trust. They support cognitive flexibility, resilience, connection, and problem-solving. Joy, love, and appreciation are the highest. Contentment and hopefulness still count as high-vibration states, even when they feel quiet.
• Low vibrational emotions (positions 15 to 22) align with contraction, resistance, and self-protection. They trigger fight-flight-freeze responses, narrow attention, and shut down connection. Fear, despair, and powerlessness are the lowest. Blame, anger, and jealousy still close off possibility, even though they feel more energized than fear.

The middle zone runs from position 8 to position 14, boredom through worry. Clients here feel stuck without being acutely distressed. That makes it the hardest zone to leave, because there is little pain pushing them to change.

Regular check-ins are what get clients moving again. A weekly review of logged positions shows movement they cannot feel day to day. The map below shows which zone each position falls into.

The Hawkins scale vs the emotional guidance scale

A second framework maps consciousness rather than day-to-day feeling. David R. Hawkins set it out in “Power vs. Force”, ranking states from 1 to 1,000. It serves a similar purpose to the Abraham-Hicks scale, but the structure and the thinking behind it differ.

For daily emotional wellness work, the Abraham-Hicks scale is the more practical of the two. It names granular states a client recognizes. The Hawkins scale is broader and more philosophical, which suits long-term development rather than a weekly check-in. Plenty of practitioners use both, one for sessions and one for patterns.

How to move up the scale, one step at a time

The common mistake is trying to jump. A shift from despair straight to joy fails, because the nervous system has nothing to hold on to. Incremental movement is what makes the scale work.

1. Identify your current position. Use the 22-item list to pinpoint where you sit right now. Be honest. The scale works only when you name where you are, not where you would like to be.
2. Find the next position up. Position 22 covers fear, grief, despair, and powerlessness. The step up from there is insecurity or guilt at 21, then jealousy at 20. Each one is adjacent, so your nervous system can reach it.
3. Use one technique to bridge the step. Journaling, breathwork, gratitude prompts, and reframing all work. Each targets the single shift you are making now, not the one five steps ahead.
4. Spend time at the new position. Let the nervous system settle. You might hold the state for minutes, hours, or days, and that is normal.
5. Then find the next one. Repeat the process. Over weeks and months, these small shifts compound into steadier wellbeing.

Clients who skip steps often slide back down, because the nervous system never finished integrating the last one. Reviewing a month of logged positions tells you who sustains a shift. It also shows who needs more support at one particular point on the scale.

Practical techniques to raise your emotional frequency

• Reframing. When a client is stuck in blame or anger, ask what else the situation could mean. That shift often moves them from blame at position 15 toward doubt or worry at 13 and 14, which feel lighter.
• Gratitude prompts. Ask what there is to be grateful for, even right now. Appreciation sits at position 1 alongside joy, so gratitude gives the client something at the top of the scale to pull toward.
• Breathwork and somatic release. Fear and despair lodge in the body. Box breathing, humming, or shaking activates the parasympathetic nervous system, which can move a client from frozen fear into anger. Anger is intense, but it carries more agency.
• Journaling. Unstructured writing about how you feel lets a stuck emotion move. It also clears space for the next position to show up. Prompts for each zone follow below.
• Nature and sensory grounding. Time outside, or attention on water, music, or movement, re-engages the parasympathetic system and lifts a client out of the lowest positions.

Journaling prompts to shift your emotional state

Match the prompt to the position, not to where you want the client to end up. Starting too high is what makes a prompt fall flat.

• From fear, grief, or despair (22). “What is one small thing I could do today that might help?” This starts to hand the client back some agency.
• From insecurity or guilt (21). “What would I need to believe about myself to feel slightly less bad?” This invites self-compassion.
• From anger (17). “What am I angry about, and what outcome do I actually want?” This turns the anger into intention.
• From worry or doubt (13 to 14). “What is one thing I do know is true or possible?” This anchors the client in the present rather than a projection.
• From contentment and above (7 and up). “What am I grateful for today?” or “What brings me joy?” These sustain a high-vibration state instead of chasing the next one.

How to use the worksheet day to day

The download above is built for daily use. This is the routine that gets the most out of it.

1. Log a position each day. Morning or evening, name where you sit on the 22-position scale and write it down. Patterns show up within a couple of weeks. You start to see which situations pull you down and which shifts come easily.
2. Pick one technique. Choose a single option for the day, whether that is reframing, a gratitude prompt, breathwork, or journaling. One technique done properly beats five done lightly.
3. Record where you landed. After using it, note the new position. Did you move one step or several, and how does the new state feel?
4. Review once a week. Read back the week’s entries. Which techniques worked, and which positions keep coming round again? Use that to customize the practice.
5. Bring it to your session. If you work with a coach, therapist, or wellness practitioner, hand the completed sheet over. It gives them concrete data instead of a summary from memory.

For practitioners, medical records management keeps every returned sheet in the client’s file, so a month of positions sits next to the session notes. If you want a shorter daily version, the emotional check-in worksheet covers mood and four written prompts on one page.

How Pabau turns daily check-ins into a client record

Most practices hand out a worksheet on paper and hope it comes back. The client fills in three days, loses the sheet, and the next session opens with “how have you been?” all over again. None of that leaves a record you can review.

Practice management software like Pabau changes the delivery. The worksheet goes out as a digital form on a schedule you set, and the client completes it in the client portal on their phone. Their answers land in their record, not in a folder on your desk.

From there, automated workflows send the daily reminder and chase the responses that never arrive. You can also flag a client whose logged positions have not moved in three weeks. Session time goes on reading the pattern instead of rebuilding it.

The outcome is a client who can see months of their own movement, and a practitioner who can point straight at it. That is a far stronger case for carrying on than any single session gives you.

Send the check-in, store the answers

Pabau’s digital forms and client portal deliver this worksheet on a schedule and file every response in the client’s record. Reminders chase the clients who forget, so your session starts with the pattern already in front of you.

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Conclusion

The scale earns its place by being small. One position, one technique, one honest answer about where a client actually sits. That is a much lower bar than “think positive”, and it is why clients keep doing it.

Print the worksheet and use it yourself for a week before you hand it to a client. You will learn quickly which prompts feel forced and which ones land. That is worth more than any explanation of the framework.

The trade-off worth remembering is that tracking only helps if the sheets come back. Book a demo to see how Pabau sends this worksheet on a schedule and keeps every response with the client’s notes.

Continue your research

Want a shorter daily version? Emotional check-in worksheet puts a mood checklist and four written prompts on a single page.

Clients who cannot name the feeling? Emotion wheel worksheet gives them precise language for a vague feeling.

Tracking mood over weeks? Daily mood chart template plots the pattern that a single check-in cannot show.

Need something for the lowest positions? Grounding techniques worksheet gives clients sensory options when fear or despair has them frozen.

Building a regulation plan? Emotional regulation checklist turns the techniques above into a routine you can review in session.

Frequently asked questions