The Bad Mood You Can’t Break
I want to talk a bit about “The Bad Mood.”
You know the mood. The one that feels heavy. You can feel it in your chest and also in your head. Have you ever noticed the sensations in your body when you are in this space?
For me, my chest feels heavy, my eyes tired, and my head's under pressure. Sometimes I even feel it in my throat.
Interestingly, if I notice the actions I want to take, I am usually looking to be mad at someone else or pick a fight. Makes sense to me because this is saying that I am not interested in processing my emotion, but rather avoiding it. When we avoid emotion, it just gets more intense. The intensity causes us to believe our negative thoughts even more. It can be quite the downward spiral.
So what do we do?
I always say that the first best move is to just recognize what space we are in without judgement. Admitting that we are feeling a negative emotion, drop the judgement, and instead be curious. What if we didn’t judge and we were just curious?
Once we release the judgement, we can often expand our minds to identify the thoughts that are creating our mood.
If we don’t release the judgement, we may have thoughts like: “I have to do everything,” “No one wants to help me,” “I didn’t do good enough,” “I am not enough,” “Why don’t others show me more love?” “Why can’t I be like Sally?”
However, if we drop the judgement, we may have thoughts more like: “What if nothing has gone wrong?” “How is this happening for me?” “How do I choose to feel today?”
With curiosity comes questions. The questions that we avoid asking ourselves because maybe we don’t want to know the answers. “Bad Moods” are opportunities for growth. They can help us figure out what it is that we want and desire. Again, many of us avoid this because we are afraid that our desires might can’t be met. So, maybe easier to just ignore.
Perhaps a bad mood is an invitation to ask: What do I want and need right now in this moment? Redirecting to the moment right here and now is less intimidating to navigate.
As I sit here now… in one of those moods… I choose to allow the feeling of “unsettled.” Disappointment is also creeping in. I just allow it. I remain curious. The intensity of the feeling starts to decrease as I consider my curious thoughts.
Right here and now, I choose to believe that nothing has gone wrong. While the feeling has not gone away, I am now more open to consider other possibilities. How do I want to remember today?
I think I will sit with these questions a bit longer. Sometimes we aren’t ready to pick a new uplifting thought and feel better. And that is ok. This is how we process emotion.
Don’t rush out of it. Recognize. Be Curious. Decide what you need right here and now. And, don’t be afraid to find out.
Being human is a gift that I am so glad to share with you…