How aware are you of the moods you experience? Sure, you notice bad moods and other powerful emotions, but are you sensitive to the mood that’s predominant in any given moment of your life?
You might want to consider this concept in your journaling. Becoming more attuned to your current mood is a smart and efficient way to keep things balanced.
Here’s what I mean. Strong emotions bring about moods that possess us. Other, less insistent moods pervade all the rest of the time. Since we are always under the influence of one mood or another, it’s useful to see how this reality shapes our days - and even how we can rise above it.
- Say you are not much of a morning person, and you awake every day to a loud alarm clock. As your image in the bathroom mirror slowly focuses, what precisely is your mood?
- When you climb in the car for your commute and as you complete the usual trip, what mood prevails?
- Suppose you get some work done before the deadline, and you know you’ve done a good job. What mood comes over you?
- What’s your mood when you talk with your friend, when you pay for groceries, when you walk to the bus stop?
- What mood came over you today after supper? What is your mood right now?
Journal your recollection of the day. What moods came and went? By keeping this kind of record, you can start using moods to understand yourself and your perceptions far more easily.
- The jangling alarm clock leaves me feeling anxious, even fearful.
- My commute is actually when a peaceful mood comes over me, because it’s the only time I have all to myself.
- When I’m successful in my work, it makes me feel ubër ambitious and creative.
- Time spent with my friend Annie always brings on a giggly mood.
- Right now my mood is confident, maybe a little devil-may-care.
By making note of moods as part of your journal writing, you objectify them. I’m not saying we should try to become immune to moods; that is probably impossible anyway.
But if you know you’re being influenced by a mood, then you know it will pass. You don’t have to be fatalistic about it, or be a slave to your moods. You can engage with them with care and interest. But, with journaling practice, you can also learn to let them go whenever you wish.
- Despise your obnoxious alarm clock? The fear it instills is merely a mood.
- Love your infrequent quiet times? Recognize the mood and figure out how to reproduce it at will.
- Wish you could be more successful? Learn to build up productive moods and minimize feelings of discouragement.
- Enjoy time spent with friends? Recognize the quality of the mood such time brings you so that you can even more fully appreciate it.
Want to control your moodiness and feel more able to face whatever challenges may arise? Your pen and journal will show you how!
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