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Have you ever been in a negative mood and not motivated to do anything? Does it sometimes feel like a dark cloud is following you around? I know we all experience moments like these and sometimes get stuck and don’t know what to do. We wonder, “Why is this happening to me?”, “Why is life so unfair?”, or “What did I do to deserve this?” Let’s consider these questions while looking at 4 steps to help us feel good when we feel bad.

While it may seem useful to us to ask questions like I stated above, it is really not. There are many long answers to these sort of questions, but instead of giving them to you, I am going to give you one short one. Understand that life is a mystery and somethings you will just never know. So don’t waste your precious time and energy trying to answer questions like ,”Why is life so unfair?” Instead realize that stuff happens and one of your jobs here on earth is to learn and grow from your problems, challenges, and circumstances. I will address the other questions later in the article.

Now let’s look 4 steps to help us feel better when we feel bad.

1. Stop Complaining!

In order to feel better, one of the first things you have to do is stop complaining. Complaining seems to be a key ingredient that helps create and feed our negative feelings, thoughts, and circumstances; all of which bring about more complaining, negative feelings, thoughts, and circumstances. The way we perceive things, situations, circumstances, people, etc., changes based on the way we feel. So if we are in a rotten mood we can perceive a positive event as something negative and thus react to it in a way that is not beneficial for us. We have to be aware of this self feeding cycle and be determined to circumvent it and make it work to our benefit.

What good is complaining? Sometimes it may feel good to vent, but how useful and beneficial is this approach? A lot of people like to complain about their problems to friends, relatives, co-workers, or whomever will listen to them. This may also be called venting. I don’t consider venting to be the same thing as discussing your problems with people when you are seeking solutions or support.

Is venting good for you? Some people believe so, but it is not what I do. I believe it’s all relative. If venting is the only way you know of that prevents you from doing something worse, then yeah it is good for you. Let’s explore better ways to accomplish the same thing and much more instead of just recycling and circulating negative energy with others. Complaining typically makes everything worse than what it already is. So commit to zipping your lips and not complaining. I propose using a much better approach in steps number 2 and 3.

2. Let Go of Negative Thoughts

“We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make our world.”- the BUDDHA

Next thing to do is to let go of negative thoughts, which mostly control our feelings and then our feelings help control our future thoughts. When you have happy thoughts you will feel happy. When you have negative thoughts that are depressing, angry, sad, etc., you will also feel that way. You can also work on not having any thoughts for a while and see what that feels like by trying this exercise.

There are many things that contribute to negative thoughts such as: stress, hurt feelings, being criticized, being around unpleasant people, fear, expectations not being met, or whatever does it for you. It doesn’t really matter what the source is, what matters is your response to it. You have the power to decide what your response will be if you choose to exercise it. As Tony Robbins says in his book, Awaken the Giant Within, “Your questions are the answers.”

Refocus your thoughts and questions on ones that are beneficial instead of harmful to you. Instead of asking “Why me?” or “Why does this always happen to me?” Try asking questions like, “What can I learn from this?” and/or “What is the opportunity I am missing here?” Questions along these lines will cultivate empowering thoughts which in turn will engender better feelings.

I have aslo come to understand that all negative thoughts are a result of not living in the now, which is this very moment. Most people tend to relive their past or live in the future. Some people are unfortunate enough to do both. Either way, it is not living in the present. It is impossible to have negative thoughts or feelings when you live in the now. I’ll prove it to you very quickly. Right now, stop everything you are doing and take 10-30 seconds to see how many things you can hear going on around you right now. Try hard to hear things that are difficult to hear. What do you hear? How many things did you hear?

While you were listening for sounds, did you have any negative thoughts or feelings? Did you notice that you were not reliving some old worn out memory nor were you worried about something that you fear will happen or not happen in the future. This is because you were living in the present. If you learn how to live in the present moment long term, you will be amazed at the peace of mind and power it brings! Thoughts are extremely powerful! As the Budha said, “…With our thoughts, we make our world.” What kind of world are you making for yourself with negative thoughts?

To sum up this step, if you just change your thoughts (or even your focus), your feelings and thoughts will instantaneously change too. I will discuss some other things to do later on in this article to help you let go of negative thoughts starting with the next step.

3. Rejoice and Be Grateful

If you replace complaining and negative thinking with two new behaviors, rejoicing and being grateful, you will be amazed at how your life improves in every aspect! I wish I could do it for you so you can see the kind of life you can live by doing this. However I can’t do that, so you will have to experiment with this yourself to see what results you get.

Jyothi did a great job covering the importance of rejoicing in her article, 5 Simple Ways to be Happy! I highly recommend reading it as covers the secret to long lasting happiness. In my previous article, Being Grateful, I discuss how to be grateful and why, so I will not repeat it here.

What I will do here is cover some examples to help you see what it looks like in practice. What you do is turn your focus and thoughts away from what has got you down onto something positive about the situation that enables you to rejoice and be grateful. You can also just start rejoicing about major positive things that have worked out for you in your life. You will see the pattern in the following examples.

Example 1:

I have designated Mondays to be my cleaning days. On one particular Monday, I was not being very conscious of my thoughts and started drifting into the LaLa land of destructive thinking. I remember saying things like, “How many times do I have to clean? Where does all of this mess come from? How am I going to clean all of this stuff?” I was feeling very overwhelmed which changed my mood to a negative one.

That is when I remembered this story that happened a couple of years ago at a Halloween party we had at my house with some good friends. After the party, one of my friends started to clean up so I told her that she did not need to do that. However, she would not take no for an answer! As she was cleaning, she mentioned that she had a very small place to clean and she was very happy to experience cleaning a bigger place. Her energy was so uplifting, that I also was moved to clean.

Later on I really thought about what she said. How come she was was enjoying cleaning and I was exhausted just thinking about it? How can two people looking at the same situation arrive at vastly different conclusions? It is just our thoughts! She had positive thoughts which brought about positive feelings. I had negative thoughts, which brought about negative feelings.

So, getting back to my cleaning day, I was grateful to remember that I can change my state of being just by changing my thoughts and questions. So I asked myself, “How do I get myself motivated to clean?”  ”What’s the best way to clean my home?”  If you wait a second, you will get an answers to your questions. My answer was to just focus on cleaning one room at a time and be grateful that I have a beautiful home to clean.

By rejoicing and cultivating an “attitude of gratitude”, my energy returned very quickly. Not only did I have enough energy to clean my home, I also got more energy from my accomplishment.

Example 2:

My husband had been late to work for most of the week recently. On this particular day, he was even more late. I should say, late for him because he usually arrives to work much earlier than anyone else there. So while rushing off to work he experienced several negative thoughts and feelings. He started thinking about how often he has been late this week, and asking himself, “Why am I always late these days?…it’s embarrassing going to work so late all the time…”

These negative thoughts started to stress him out a bit but then an amazing thing happened. My husband became aware of his negative feelings and thoughts and asked himself, how can he find a way to be grateful? Then he realized, he is grateful for having a nice job to be late to! That thought instantly brought about positive feelings, which led to more positive thoughts and feelings. Before he knew it, his mood had brightened considerably and he was feeling great about life and looking forward to going to work.

You can also watch a movie that profiles this behavior in detail like, “It’s a Wonderful Life”. The movie is fantastic and really shows how low one can sink by focusing on all he negatives in your life. It also shows how it can be turned around by rejoicing and being grateful for all the wonderful things and people in your life too.

4. Defeat Your Next Negative Mood Attack

As promised, here is where I deliver some exciting and fun ways to feel good instantly that I have learned form the master of change himself, Tony Robbins! In his book, Awaken the Giant Within, he has a very useful exercise I highly recommend you do in order to be better prepared to overcome your next negative mood attack.

Sit down and write down a list of things or activities that you really enjoy and feel good while doing. Don’t stop until you have a minimum of fifteen ways to instantly feel good. This is an exercise you may want to come back to again and again until you have tons of ways!

When I made a list for myself, I realized that singing and listening to music were two easy things I could do to elevate my mood quickly. Reading was another way because it changed my focus. I love to learn, especially reading something I can immediately apply to my life. I also love hanging out with my husband and my children. Dancing brings me joy and excitement too.What did you come up with?

Tony Robbins also talks about changing your body movements to instantly to break out of a limiting state or negative mood and get into a resourceful one. For example, you could crank up the music while exercising on a StairMaster, have some fun jumping up and down on a re-bounder unit, running five miles uphill, swimming laps, do some yoga, or play some games and/or sports. You can also check out the activity list in this article for more ideas.

Conclusion:

If you are like me, then you may have been amazed at how such a simple idea of changing your thoughts can actually change how you feel and improve your outlook. It is not as difficult as many believe to instantly let go of stressful feelings and thoughts and embrace more positive supportive thoughts.

Try to be mindful today and the rest of the week of your feelings and thoughts. If you find yourself feeling pressed for time, running late for work or meeting, or whatever has you wound up in a knot, take a moment to breathe and ask empowering questions. Change your focus, rejoice, and be grateful.

You May Also Like:
• How to Let Go of a Negative Thought Pattern
• Daily Tip: Day of Giving
• 5 Simple Ways to be Happy!