As a wife, full-time mom, part-time writer, and of course, housekeeper, here is a fast technique I've adopted to improve my mood and get a hold of my emotions. It's a method that has helped me again and again, propelling me forward and keeping me from sinking into the morass of mood.
Human nature makes it too easy for us to slip into a negative frame of mind, and the more negativity we indulge in, the deeper we dig those neural pathways in our brains. And the more entrenched we are in annoyance, anger, apprehension, disappointment, frustration, sadness, and worry, the harder it is to dig our way out.
Here's what you can do the minute you become even slightly conscious of something negative hovering in your brain:
Stop and tune in. Label what you are feeling; give a name to the emotion. Then verbalize why you are feeling this way. Even if you don't actually say it aloud, put the reasons for those feelings into words.
For example: I realize something inside me doesn't feel good. I stop. I say to myself, "I am feeling irritated, and on the way to feeling full-fledged fed up." Why? Maybe because I just realized that my eight-year-old son did not put his clothes into the hamper – again. Maybe because during supper tonight my husband answered his cell phone three times, and I wanted his undisturbed attention. Or maybe I'm feeling frustrated and apprehensive because I have a work deadline tomorrow morning, and I don't know how I'm going to achieve it. And I'm also afraid that the client won't like my work.
Tell yourself what you wish would happen right now. For example: I wish my kids always put their dirty clothes in the hamper. I wish I had more time with my husband. I wish I had finished my work already, and I wish I was more confident about my writing. I wish I could lie down right now and sleep for two days. I wish my daughter always spoke considerately to her siblings.
Accept the situation. Then add, "But I accept the situation the way it is." You can also add any other words that you find helpful, like: This is normal. So many other people around me are dealing with the same thing. It will pass. I will be okay. In the end, it will work out – just like it has so many other times.
[Note: Accepting the situation doesn't mean to passively accept life situations the way they are and never institute changes. Obviously, there are many issues that require intervention and solutions. After all, you don't want to passively accept that your children never put things away, or that there's never any time to spend with your spouse. Right now, you're focusing on this one incident, tuning into it, accepting that it happened, and moving on with your day.]
That's it. Yes, that's the whole thing. I assure you that it works. It may not immediately make you feel like jumping for joy, but it stops the negativity in its tracks, which inevitably makes way for positivity. And the more you do it, the more results you will see.
This technique is especially good if you're one of those people like me who get mired so easily in negative feelings to the point that you can't concentrate on other things.
I am not a therapist, and I do not pretend to have created this method. It came about from books and articles I read, and of course, personal experience. It began with reading about the need to empathize with others, but how we can only do for others what we can do for ourselves. So if you want to be able to truly empathize with spouses, children, parents, sibling, friends, neighbors, colleagues, and even that harassed individual standing on line in front of you, you first have to know how to empathize with yourself.
This knowledge combined with the benefits of stopping in my tracks, identifying the emotion(s), and most important of all, acceptance, has become my quick and practical method of not letting all those negatives out there get the better of me.
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