I recently told you about a friend who needed a daily reminder to breathe, relax, and get out of her head. We decided to make her car be her sanctuary. After all, remembering is usually the hardest part. No big deal, this is only because we’ve been living a different way for so long.
This naturally leads to our own Self becoming our sanctuary. As in, you don’t need a car or anything else. It’s within you. If this sounds awesome, it is! And it’s true. Let’s be real, though, because we really have been living a more stressful way for a long, long time. So here we go… Low moods still happen. And they’re okay.
The main thing to understand about the work that we do here at A Clean Mind is that we’re feeling our thinking, 24/7. We’re not feeling the world directly because that’s not possible. We’re feeling our thinking about the world. There’s always that layer of thinking. And this is huge! Also know that a feeling is not separate from a thought. It’s actually just what that thought feels like. It’s the same thing, just a thought. And a thought has a feeling quality to it. That’s what we’re experiencing all day long.
So if I notice that I’m in a low mood, the first thing I do is, you guessed it, take a breath and relax! Then I look at my thinking. Most of the time, I’ll see right away where the mood is coming from. I’ver been worrying or something like that. If I relax into it and then simply stick to the facts of the situation, the feeling usually follows suit. Much of our thinking is invisible, though, so sometimes we don’t see it in the moment. When this is the case, that’s actually just fine. If we’ll simply let the mood be there and not hold on to it or make a big deal out of it, it’ll move faster than it would otherwise. There’s no need to overanalyze it or anything like that. I’d just see it for what it is and move on. Moods go up and down; that’s just what they do. When we see that they’re coming from our thinking, we can often see it right away and change our thinking. But when we don’t, we can still just let the mood be there and it’ll move on when it’s time.
I noticed that I was in a pissy mood a few weeks ago (pardon my French…) It was like I was wearing a cloak of badness. If that’s a word. Anyway, I didn’t really see exactly what the thinking was, but I didn’t make a big deal about it. I just noticed it, relaxed, let it be there, and went on with my day. I got a good night’s sleep, woke up the next day, and it was gone. No big deal. That sure feels better than resisting it, which is really like holding onto it. Holding onto what you don’t want. Just relax and let it be there. It’ll move.
Another word on when we don’t see our thinking… It has to always involve resistance of some kind, like the thought that life shouldn’t be exactly as it is right now. Since life already is that way right now, I’m going to lose that one every time. Byron Katie said this in a wonderful and hilarious way: “When you argue with reality you lose, but only 100% of the time.” I love that!
So there we go folks. When you start too see your thinking as the cause of your experience, you start to tap into the great power that’s inside of you all the time (yes, even when it doesn’t seem that way). And feelings flow through you more rather than getting stuck. Your overall mood rises in general over time, but we all still have low moods. No big deal. And there’s never been a permanent mood of any kind. So we can really relax and not make a big deal about it. There’s great power in this, people! I feel truly lucky to have learned this and also to be able to share it with you. And not to be too cheesy, but a song that I really love just came on at the coffee shop as I type this, so I’ll leave you with that. It’s called Luckiest Man by The Wood Brothers. Enjoy! http://bit.ly/1oyhTi4