Mood Management

What?  Do people manage their moods?  Don’t moods just develop on their own?  Don’t you just have to accept whatever mood comes over you?  Don’t you just have to wait until your mood changes? 

That is your verbal system speaking.  That is its job.  It speaks.  By itself, it doesn’t do much else.  Your verbal system can have some influence on your moods.  But unless you give it some guidance, the influence is more likely to be bad than good. 

Listen to that talk about what you can't do.  It is the voice of the Canter.   Don’t you find it depressing to think about what you can’t do?  

Nothing to be done.

If you keep thinking that way, you could make yourself depressed.  Talk yourself into a black mood.  Get to feel really gloomy.  Because you realize that you have no control over your moods. 

Ok.  I didn’t sneak that one by you, did I?   You noticed that I told a story about how you could talk yourself into a bad mood.  Right in the middle of claming that you can’t do anything about your moods. 

We call this trick “Confuse-a-Canter”

There are stories about how people can talk themselves into good moods.  That’s called self-talk.  Or, to be more impressive, self-affirmations.  That paragraph we stuck at the top of the page is a (mocking) example of negative self-talk. 

Use your feelings or your feelings will use you.

One advantage of the self-talk story is that it is cheap.  Unless you listen to an ad that offers to sell you equipment or audio files to tell you how good you are.  But then, that wouldn’t be self-talk, would it?  That would be sales-talk.  Maybe not depressing.  Maybe just costly.  Of course, costly could be depressing later.  Buyer’s regret, you know. 

Another clue here.  Buying can influence moods.  But paying your credit card bills can be depressing.  So now we cut to the chase. 

Can clichés influence mood?

Your moods are mainly driven by what is happening around you in the moment.  So if you want to influence your mood, take control of what is happening around you.    

1. Learn to recognize your moods.  Develop Self-Awareness.

2. Notice the experiences that give you the moods you want.  Common happenings that favor moods you want are:
Humor
Exercise
Games
Exciting activities
Social activities.