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Managing your mood April 11, 2007

Posted by Han in : Personal Development , trackback

Many people like to be with someone who is positive, optimistic and cheerful. Nobody likes to be with someone who is gloomy, negative, boring or pessimistic! What about you? Which category of people you belong to? Some people are gentle and they are nice to be with. Where else others are like volcano or land mime! You do not know when it will explode.

Such kind of people will often have difficulty getting along with people. Sometimes it is quite a sad thing because they themselves don’t even realize that they are having such a problem or even if they knew it, they have little control over their mood. I would like to share some practical tips in managing your mood.

1) Realize that your moods are an expression of what’s inside of you.
You can’t help being depressed or down. It comes automatically. Note that you did not choose to be depressed. You cannot turn off your mood with a button. It’s there naturally.

2) Find the root cause of the problem.
The person inside of you is angry, anxious or depressed about something. Many of the mood disorders cases are resulted from stresses during young age. This could be due to parental divorce, fear of abandonment, parental alcoholism, criticism and verbal, physical and sexual abuse.

3) Do not blame the culprit.
Parents went through many difficult circumstances as well. They have tried their best to raise the child. You can roughly tell what happen during childhood from your relationships in your later life. If you attracted to people who don’t praise or criticize you, then you can be sure that criticism or lack of praise was part of your upbringing, even if you totally forgotten the actual incidents.

4) Identify what is triggering your mood swing.
Often we bring in our childhood behaviors in our current relationships. Feelings of anger, fear, shame and guilt from the past may be being triggered by the actions, behaviors and feelings of people around us. Sometimes the trigger can be very small: a tone of voice, the clothes someone wears, an implied criticism, a raised hand or an unexpected touch.

5) Work out how you can avoid these triggers.
Of course, you can’t ask somebody to change his or her mood. You can, however, tell others what you need them to do in order to avoid situations that provoke you. These “needs” must be very specific and describe actions rather than feelings or thoughts. Otherwise, people won’t be sure what you want them to do.

6) The most important thing to remember is that you can’t change yourself!
God can. Commit your life to God. Pray for healing from the past, verbal or physical abuses. Forgive those who have hurt you. Next, make a conscious effort not to be affected by it. When you are not feeling good, don’t talk too much, smile more often and give thanks to God.

If you have some other ways to keep your mood under control, please share with us.