When Moods and Circumstances Collide

Moods are infectious, good or bad. Have you ever noticed that, not only can a mood color the entire day but it appears to shape the circumstances of that day? Yet they don't really. The circumstances can be exactly the same but how I interact with them varies.

In a good mood, I observe different things than I do in a bad mood. I am looking for people, events, circumstances, colors, smells, sights and tactile sensations that delight me. And I find them. Once, a stranger followed me ten blocks because I was wandering along singing to myself. He eventually stopped me and said, "Why are you singing?" I answered, "I'm happy." "Why?" he asked. "I just am. No reason." He left smiling himself and shaking his head.

In a bad mood, my head is down and I am seeing very little, except I am listening in my own head to a negative, self-doubting, blaming conversation about how badly the day has started, and how I expect it to continue that way. And, if I stay there, the day and its circumstances WILL unfold as I predicted and one thing after another will go wrong.

But how can I shift from a bad mood to a good mood? I have discovered a few actions that work for me. Listen to inspiring music or motivational CDs. Watch a great movie. Lift my head and look around. Walk or dance. Observe my husband painting. Read a book. Talk with my 97-year old grandfather about his life. Go to a book store or library and browse. Be in Maine. Play with my nephews and nieces. Hold a baby. Blog. Learn something new. Tutor or lead my book group at EHS. Sail. Visit with my family and friends. Travel. Do something, anything that makes me happy. The faster I notice and stop wallowing, begin striving up, the easier it is to get happy. Sometimes I try one thing after another, if I'm deep in a blue funk, until my mood shifts and I feel like the sun came out (it may have been out all the time) and I am joyful.

The power in observing that moods and circumstances interact and collide is that we control, to a degree, our own reality. Not the circumstances themselves but how we live into them. Then we have choices and are not powerless to define ourselves in our own lives.