This second installment of my blog series on Creating a Balanced Life is coming at an interesting time. With all the closures and changes that have come with the COVID-19, many people are in a state of shock and fear and with that comes a lot of anxiety and panic. Store shelves are showing signs of that panic. In this blog I wanted to address mood. In the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, mood is defined as “a conscious state of mind or predominant emotion or a prevailing attitude or disposition. A receptive state of mind predisposing to action.”1 Do our emotions really have that much power? Yes, they do. However, we do have a choice of whether to act on the emotions or not and for that matter what emotions you choose to continue to feel.
Mood comes from our thoughts. We have a thought, and most often an emotion comes along with that thought based on current situation and our past conditioning. We then either have more thoughts and thus feel more emotions or we act. These can result in positive or negative consequences. Negative thoughts and emotions may result in angry words or thoughts that lead to bitterness or resentment, hopelessness, or poor choices. Positive thoughts and emotions create feelings of calm, peace, contentment and love. These choices often cause people to act out in loving and uplifting ways. In the resources provided by the Pain Management class I took it says, “Positive thinking can help reduce negative feelings, pain, stress, and increase your motivation to make healthy choices.”2 And I will add the fact that positive thinking leads us to think beyond ourselves.
The resource materials suggest 5 ways you can increase positive thoughts and feelings. These 5 things are:
- Learn to reflect on and reframe negative thoughts.
- Participate in activities that you are passionate about.
- Spend more time with friends and family, or find new social groups.
- Learn about relaxation techniques like meditation and mindfulness.
- Ask for a referral to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy3 (or have a session with me)
I believe that being positive is a choice. Often we allow negative thoughts and emotions to give us an excuse to be negative and justify our actions because of a situation that made us angry or so-and-so said this to me and ruined my day. We choose whether to react or respond to situations. When we are in a reactionary cycle it may be difficult to change, but it can be done! The most important things are to start to become aware of your thoughts and actions and to decide to do something differently when the same situations happen over and over.
In Jin Shin Jyutsu, it teaches how we become stuck in what they call “attitudes.” The attitudes are worry, fear, anger, sadness/grief, and try to or pretense. If we choose to feel the same emotions over and over and over, we get stuck in one or more of these attitudes and it becomes an automatic response to any negative situation. We can choose to get out of that attitude by becoming aware that it is happening and choose to react differently the next time. Releasing the emotions you are feeling in the moment or releasing beliefs that keep you going back to those same patterns are important as well. These decisions help us to get into choice: a place where we don’t automatically react, but have a moment to choose differently.
I have more to say on this subject so I will continue on the next blog. This blog will be 2A and I will do a 2B.
1https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mood
2https://www.oregon.gov/oha/HPA/dsi-pmc/PCT/Mood_Mindset_FINAL_.pdf, page 2
3https://www.oregon.gov/oha/HPA/dsi-pmc/PCT/Mood_Mindset_FINAL_.pdf, page 1