What’s On The Other Side of This Mood?

That depends on the choices I make.Photo by JK on Unsplash

I am not in a good mood at the moment.

There are multiple compounding factors to this. For context, please allow me to lay them out here.

I did not sleep well last night. I was having stress-thoughts (dreams? It’s so seldom that I recall dreams). These were about the insane, infuriating state of the nation, the world, my medieval reenactment society, the health and welfare of numerous of my friends, and a bunch of other things I have absolutely ZERO control over.

Then, sitting down to do my morning reading, the fiction I’ve been struggling to read through keeps disappointing (I am finding none of the characters likeable or sympathetic. Also, the world of the story itself is unpleasant). The nonfiction I’ve been struggling through (but finished) just is not inspiring, enlightening, teaching, or doing much of anything for me.

So, this mood I am in? It’s an unpleasant blend of distressed, sleepy, annoyed, irksome, frustrated, uncomfortable, angry, scared, and generally negative. I’m in a lousy mood, and my headspace is all sorts of discombobulated.

My day is only just beginning. Hence, my question: What’s on the other side of this mood?

That depends on the choices I make from here

There are three primary options in front of me. There are secondary and tertiary options, and probably more than that, but these three are the main ones.

Stay in a bad mood. Doomscroll social media, watch the news, keep slogging through the fiction I’m disliking.Ignore it all. Put my head in the sand. Go back to bed and hide from the world. Set myself on autopilot and just slog through doing strokes in the Egyptian river (you know, de-Nile).Choose alternatives. Take action to alter my headspace. Go for a walk. Meditate. Blog about it. Choose a new book and stop forcing my way through this fiction. Watch something that makes me laugh.

All of these are choices I can make. Or not. This is where nontoxic positivity comes into play. I’m not talking about ignoring the negative or my lousy mood. That does me no good. It does nobody any good. I do have the option, however, to turn from facing the negative end of the flexible cylinder to face toward the positive end.

Remember, it’s not a coin with positivity and negativity on either end. It’s a flexible cylinder, flexible because sometimes what’s positive becomes negative and what’s negative becomes positive. However, you, from your mindset/headspace/psyche self, can make choices and decisions about where you place yourself upon it.

That’s what I get to do now.

Photo by Emiliano Cicero on UnsplashWhat’s on the other side of this mood?

If I don’t desire to stay in this lousy, no-good, negative mood, I need to make choices and decisions to change it.

That starts with active conscious awareness. Mindfulness is placing yourself into the here and now and choosing and deciding anything and everything that you can.

This might appear selfish because it can ONLY be done for you. You cannot choose or decide on anything for anyone else. Hence, if I’m in a lousy mood, I alone can change it.

That starts with awareness of the world outside of myself. I gain that by exploring my senses – sight, sound, taste, touch, hearing, and extrasensory. (Extrasensory is where the idea of the “mood” lives, frankly. That’s because it’s utterly intangible but still impactful.)

From there, I need to look within. Inside are my thoughts, feelings, intentions, approach, and actions. If I’m allowing my subconscious to do the driving, then I’m not actively, consciously aware of these.

Becoming aware is easy. You just need to ask,

What am I thinking?What am I feeling?How am I feeling?What do I intend?Is my approach positive or negative?What am I doing?

All of these can only truly be answered in the here and now. You, and you alone, can know them because only you are in your head, heart, and soul.

Via your senses and your active conscious awareness, you can choose what’s on the other side of any given mood.

Is it really that easy? Yes. However, it takes time, effort, and desire to change while simultaneously accepting what you can and can’t (do and don’t) control.

Choosing what’s on the other side of this mood isn’t hard

It’s all about practicing active conscious awareness of your thoughts, feelings, intentions, and approach to direct your actions.

When you recognize and acknowledge your mood, particularly if it’s a negative one, you empower yourself to choose and decide if you want to stay in it, pretend it’s not a thing, or change it. Knowing that you’re the only one in your head, heart, and soul, and that you can use mindfulness here and now to change yourself, you ultimately get to decide and choose what’s on the other side of a given mood.

This empowers you, and your empowerment can empower others around you.

Consciously choosing your approach to life towards positivity or negativity – from the vast cylinder that exists between them – shifts life in a way that opens greater dialogue. From that broader dialogue, you can recognize, explore, and share where you are between the extremes and how that impacts you here and now.

Choosing thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions for yourself employs an approach and attitude of positivity for realizing amazing potential and possibilities for your life.

The better aware you are of yourself here and now, the better you can choose and decide what, how, and why your life experiences will be. When you empower yourself, that can spread to those around you for their empowerment.

Thank you for coming along on this journey.

This is the five-hundred-and-ninety-sixth (596) entry of my Positivity series. I hope that these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, reblog, and spread the positivity.

Please visit here to explore all my published fiction and non-fiction.

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