Moods…
Shall We Keep Them Going?
By Maria Khalife
There’s been a lot said about moods and I know you both hear and use the word “mood” in your everyday life both at home and at work. “Isn’t Miss Thing in a foul mood today? My child is in some kind of tickled pink mood. Who rained on his parade today? Don’t bother me. I’m in a nasty mood. I can accomplish anything I want.”
(For the full multimedia experience, visit: OM Times August 2010 Edition)
I did a bit of research about moods on the internet and there are just tons of different ways to consider moods, and I’m going to choose this definition from Wikipedia to define what I mean by a mood. A mood is a relatively long lasting emotional state. Moods differ from simple emotions in that they are less specific, less intense, and less likely to be triggered by a particular stimulus or event.
From my internet search, there seems to be some disagreement about how many basic moods there are, so I’m going to add my take on the topic to the mix. I think there are just two basic categories of moods: happy moods and sad moods.
I believe that your moods are created by the thoughts that you think. If you predominantly think happy, healthy, wealthy, successful thoughts, you will enjoy happy moods. And if you think basically thoughts about I can’t, life is tough, and they have more than I do, you’re unfair, and you will have sad moods in your experience.
Moods are habitual, based on the habitual thoughts you think. If you don’t like being labeled as moody, you need to think different thoughts. I don’t believe an individual can move from sad to happy at the snap of a finger, but you can begin to move your sad thoughts (the ones that create your unhappy moods) to a staging area where you ask what I like to call Possibility Questions.
- Do you think it’s possible to change this uncomfortable mood?
- What do you think it might take?
- If I were to think some happy thought, what would it be about?
- Do I really think my WHOLE life is unhappy?
- What about the color of my slacks? At least I like that!
- Can I find one small thing to be happy about?
- Can I find another?
- Can I build a habit of seeing things more positively?
- If a positive person looked at my life, how would they see it?
- What would a positive person do to change my life?
- Can I find a positive person and ask them?
Changing My Moods. I once saw a bumper sticker on a car in California that said “Look for the good and praise it.” I loved that thought. Let’s look at some ways you can look for the good and change your moods from unhappy or sad to something better.
