No need to hide under the blanket of your bad mood...

Bad moods… they tend to jump on us from “no-where”…we can sometimes wake up with one. Catch one in the middle of the day. Or sink into one in the evening.

At times we do not even know why we have a bad mood. We simply do.

Bad moods are like a repulsing-blanket we put over ourselves for a kind of protection.

We tend to hold on to that bad-mood-blanket like little children do when they hold on to their little blankie or stuffed animals.

It is an unconscious response to something (often vaguely there) unwanted and that we do not always know how to refuse it.

The core of it may very often be a pain, a vulnerability we carry as well as an old fear wrapped in a sense of helplessness.

We can look at our bad moods as an unfocused or ill-directed effort to resist and protect ourselves.

This kind of resistance can also be rooted in a lack of trust we carry towards ourselves and our surrounding. It is us not trusting that our needs and feelings have space, acceptance and validity.

As a result, we start to push everything away. Trying helplessly escape feeling hurt, the fear of expressing what we need and the echo of these kind of experiences being left unresolved in the past.

When we throw that bad-mood-blanket over ourselves and our surrounding, we hope we will be freed from what is bothering us.

We think we can get our “space” back. Our “quietness”. Our kind of relief from what we do not want to engage with. We think the hurt will go away, if we hide under that blanket.

Hiding under that blanket may enable us to get some distance we long for; A short illusion of control and ability to act and do something about it.

However, when we do so we go against ourselves.

We are the ones trapped under that blanket.

We are trapped in our fearfulness (that is often covered by anger) of not being able to deal with the issue/person/situation.

We are trapped in the idea that in the world we need to “function”-be what is demanded from us, and under the covers we are “free to be”.

Bad moods show us where we have “betrayed” or compromised ourselves in the past to better survive. Times we had to repress parts of ourselves out of fear or a need for safety.

When paying attention to those bad moods, we can find that place in ourselves still holding those defenses and convinced of being helplessness.

Instead of throwing that bad-mood-blanket over our day and the people we meet, we can transform it to a grounding, clearing and nourishing energy. An energy or a state of being, with which we can change and better deal with everything that usually causes us stress.

A state of being in which heart pain, sadness, longing or even disappointment are not stressing us, nor pushing us to frantically fight the feeling of it.

Will you dare to stop hiding under the covers?

Are you ready to stop functioning?

So let’s start:

We all have our repetitive bad moods style.

There might be specific times we feel them more.

Think for a moment when do you tend to have bad moods?

How do you become when you are in a bad mood?

Do you become irritated easily? Hate and bothered by everyone?

What are the accusations you tend to hold in your mind against people?

Or what is the guilt or shame you feel?

Do you feel heavy and helpless?

Do you tend then to sooth those bad moods with some substances? How do you try to feel better? Sugar, internet, sex…

Take a moment now to close your eyes and allow all that you have written to come again into your mind and allow and register the response you have in yourself and your body?

Feel how you hold yourself. What are the efforts are you doing in your body?

Who do you become in those moments?

Allow the memories to flood you: are there people and places that you seem to remember that were part of those past experiences?

What were you trying to avoid or protect yourself from with this effort?

Think of this state you are in as a structure that you now need to leave in the past and step away from. A structure that traps you in helplessness, stress and bitterness.

Start now very slowly to move your body, while gently breathing to take in and connect to what you feel and sense on the way, away from that structure.

Do it very very slowly, challenging yourself to stay as fluid as you can in this slowness and new control.

Your aim is to slowly and quietly leave that structure you tend to get trapped in when having bad moods. To step away from that moment frozen in time, to your current reality, your current adult capability. To a space that holds more options and openness for you than the trap of the bad mood structure.

Take your time now to do that…. And when you feel you have left that crust or shell of bad mood, stand, breathe and allow all the movements and sensations to be felt.

What do you then sense?

What is it in the situations that you are better able to meet, feel and respond to?

What old self compromising efforts and actions are you able now to let go of?

What is it that you actually want and need? And can you let it simply be without needing to immediately find a solution to it?

Give yourself time to be in that space and allow all the new sensations and options to emerge.

If there are any clear actions you see now that you can and need to do, choose when would you like to attend them.

And now mainly allow yourself to feel what you are and what you deeply want without needing to apologize for it, hide it or make it functionable.

Feel the air around you and try to open yourself up the sensation of the room and the space around you.

If you will do that few times, you will be able to step away quicker from those bad moods, throw away the holding covers and let your heart sing and feel what it truly wants and needs.

Yours,

Anna

Photo by Sdf Rahbar on Unsplash