Getting in the Mood: Happiness in 4 Steps
Everyone has been in a bad mood. Every one of us at some point has reacted to something negatively only to find ourselves trapped in that negative headspace. It’s often our mood that becomes the lens through which we view the rest of what the day has to offer. We tend to convince ourselves that our mood exists to influence us, when it’s really the opposite that is true. When we begin to hone the skills to not only control our moods, but to choose them, we feel a sense of empowerment over our lives we have never experienced before. Acquiring these mood-shifting skills really comes down to implementing the following four steps.
Step One: Receive
The first step in turning your bad mood around, is simply accepting its existence and identifying it for what it is. Where did it come from? What triggered this negativity in the first place? Was your much-needed “me-time” put on hold again because of your child’s school vacation? (Why do they always seem to be on vacation?!) Did your spouse leave a pile of dirty dishes in the sink again? (I literally JUST emptied the dishwasher!) Don’t worry about psycho-analyzing the situation, or about justifying your response to what happened, or looking into boarding school for the kids. Just simply identify where it began and call it what it is.
A bad mood is more than where it came from. Connect to your body and notice how your bad mood feels. Begin to describe the physical sensations related to negativity you are experiencing. Is there tension in your neck or shoulders? Do you feel pressure at the base of your head? Do you feel stimulated by anger or depleted by disappointment? Being able to identify the physical sensations associated with your bad moods will enable you to recognize and respond to them more readily in the future, and help you to better identify the strategies that work best for you to make that happen.
If you could replace the negative energy with positive energy, what physical sensations would that cause in your body? Would your forehead soften? Would your neck and shoulders lower and loosen? Would your head begin to feel lighter and clearer? Try to imagine what the opposite of your bad mood would feel like.
Contrary to popular belief, the most difficult part of getting rid of a bad mood, isn’t turning it around. The truth is most people sabotage their efforts to feel better before they even get to that point. The most difficult part of getting rid of a bad mood, is first deciding that you don’t want to be in one. I realize that sounds absurd. I mean, who would want to be in a bad mood?!
We have all met someone who always seems to be in a bad mood. These are the people who can’t seem to catch a break. They always have something to complain about, and some explanation of why the world is clearly conspiring against them. And while it may seem completely illogical to us that someone could want to feel so awful all the time, it’s important to realize that there is a payoff for them when they behave this way. People who behave as though they are victims of circumstance don’t behave that way because they enjoy the feeling of being a victim. They behave that way because they are addicted to the feeling of being perceived as a victim by others. The attention and sympathy they get from others in response to their “plight” is what gives these individuals a temporary fix. But, in order to change a bad mood into a good one, we have to first take responsibility for the effect it has on our behavior and relationships, and decide that our intent is to make the conscious choice to improve the way we feel so we are able to get the most out of our lives and relationships.
Feeling better isn’t about eliminating negative feelings, it’s about shifting negative focus. The formula is simple. When we feel bad, we are focused on the negative. If we can shift our focus to the positive, we create a clear path for our feelings to follow.
Step Two: Respond
Now that we have received and identified our bad mood, we can explore strategies to shift our focus. We can do this by either increasing our positive focus, decreasing our negative focus, or a combination of the two. Different techniques work for different people.
Decrease the negative:
Decreasing negative focus requires us to challenge our thinking. It requires that we ask ourselves, “Is it true?” Does my child no longer love me because I asked her to take the trash out? It sounds kind of absurd when you put it that way. But sometimes, even when we know it isn’t rational, it still feels so…yucky. We need to own that! We need to say, “I don’t want to feel how this is making me feel anymore!” Now that we’ve identified the cause of our bad mood, and the degree to which it’s based (or not based) in reality, we need to address those yucky feelings it’s causing within us. We accomplish this by using healthy distractions.
Increase the positive:
Slow the fuck down! Sometimes we move so quickly from one experience to the next that we don’t give ourselves enough time to consider and resolve how the things we do make us feel. Then, by the time we realize we’re in a bad mood, detangling how we feel to identify the source seems impossible. This can be remedied by simply slowing down. (“But I have so much I need to get done!”) Let me reassure you, the key to getting things done is not speed. It’s intention. Slow down and allow yourself to feel from one experience to the next. You will accomplish more from a place of positivity in the long run.
Identifying the positive distractions that will work best for you means tailoring them to your yucky feeling and using them to create the opposite feeling.
Are you tense? A massage might be just the thing you need to smooth out that tension and put your body at ease. Don’t have a personal masseuse or an extra hundred bucks? A hot shower or bath might work too! Add some aromatherapy with your favorite essential oil. Find a free “body scan” or progressive relaxation video on YouTube and grab some headphones.
Are you frustrated or angry? Use that pent-up energy and move your body! You don’t need to run or kickbox the aggression out but moving your body by walking briskly outdoors will give you a much-needed dose of Vitamin D, fresh air and will create feel-good hormones that will dissolve your bad mood naturally!
If your bad mood feels more like disconnection or distraction, listening to some guided meditation (again, YouTube is a treasure trove of free resources), or an inspirational speech can realign and motivate you to think bigger.
Perhaps your bad mood has you feeling sad or unappreciated. Maybe it feels like all your efforts are going unnoticed. This is a great indicator that you need to focus on self-love. When we find that we are relying solely on the appreciation and approval of others, we put our feelings at the mercy of their focus. You should know, other people are rarely focused on what’s in our best interest from one moment to the next. (Hey! Look! A squirrel!) When our self-worth comes from within us, it becomes a resource we can tap into as often as we need. Self-love is about taking care of ourselves the way we so effortlessly take care of those we love. Speak kindly to yourself. Be reassuring. Treat yourself! Do something that makes you happy simply because it makes you feel joyful. Watch that terrible movie that cracks you up. Sing out loud into a hairbrush in front of your mirror because it makes you feel like a rock star. Buy a magazine! (Are those still a thing?) Treat yourself to the kind of experiences you encourage other people to do when they feel as meh as you feel right now! You are not an exception to those strategies! They can work for you too!
Step Three: Reframe
You are not defined by your negative experiences, but your well-being can be affected over the long-term by incorrect responses to your bad moods. Bad things happen to people who expect that bad things will happen. Good things happen to those who expect better. To accept bad moods as an inevitable part of your experience is to welcome them into your experience. Think of your bad mood as your opportunity to check in with yourself and reframe your experience in a way that is beneficial to your well-being and the way that you are allowing other people to experience you. Life is imperfect, but our emotional state is flexible. When you learn to reshape how you respond to that imperfection you are setting an expectation for happiness. Expect happiness, and you will find happiness.
Step Four: Reach
Happiness is a choice, not a reward for something you have accomplished. You deserve to feel happy as often as you’d like to. Give yourself permission every morning to do the things, and to practice the strategies that work best for you. Practice those strategies as often as necessary to improve the quality of your life. Our power over our bad moods comes from the continued reaching for something better. Never stop reaching.
When a bad mood hits (and it will), just remember the 4 R’s: Receive, Respond, Reframe, Reach.
And when you’ve got those R’s down, consider three more:
Reevaluate, rebuild, and redefine.
With Love,
Mel
