It is easy to let thoughts get ahead of where you are sometimes. I'd like to say that when this happens it is because I'm working the positive energy in my life to build up to the things I want, but more often it is a process of trying to redirect the negative depictions for the outcome of whatever situations happen to be at hand. When you spend the first part of your life always preparing for the worst, the cycle is mostly unconscious, until the realization of what is happening comes over you. Once I identify that I'm behaving, thinking and feeling in ways that don't promote something better, it's an all-out tussle with myself to get back on track. This time, it is very much my own energy that is off, causing my discontentment. It has certainly been one of those days.
I am of the mind that not having to battle with depression or other mental ailments is a blessing. I rarely get in a space that I cannot find my way out of, and this has always been at the top of my list for ways to snap out of a funk. Another effective practice on that list is to remember that I don't have to lock myself away and sit with the mood by myself. Much as I am inclined to spare everyone I know and love from my less than stellar and upbeat self, my nearest and dearest are there for the shit as well as the fun times.
At some point over the last year, it became clear to me that I had long been enlisting a range of tactics for turning my mood around when it soured. Some of them worked well and I've continued to utilize them, but a few were counter-productive, to say the least. Actually, what I find worse than falling into a blue state of mind is the fact that I will still reach for those ineffective tools before I get the chance to stop and analyze what is at the root of it all. When I do that, I risk falling deeper into a mindset that only stands to undermine where I want to be. I have never been comfortable being emotional; specifically, sadness. No one particularly likes that one, but all too often I replace the bummed out thoughts with chastising ones, and that doesn't pave the way to a lighter mood. At all.
When I have a day like this, it is best to just give myself a time out and remove unrealistic expectations from my head. The negative mood may have crept up on me without warning, but it doesn't mean it will turn and tuck tail just as quickly. This was not a brief moment that a change of view and loud music could eradicate, so I brushed off my inner critic and leaned on a couple of friends. The second conversation I had turned out to be just what I needed, as not only did I have the understanding and support of a much-loved friend, but we were able to relate to one another. Just removing the isolation a bad mood can create was an immense relief. Having that conversation while I looked out over the ocean, taking in one of my all time favorite sights amplified the effects. A good friend and the ocean air can make just about anything better.
For me, the sooner I can press pause and take in what my mood is and where it comes from, it is easier to make the best use of tactics I have acquired to generate a better one with stronger, more positive roots. I might not be 100% myself at the moment, but I'm slowly finding my way back to space I'm most comfortable in. Tomorrow is another day and I have every intention of starting it out with happy thoughts. I know that it isn't that negative thoughts will never occur, but that I have enough positive directions to seek a route out of the gloom they create.
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