The 28 Day Challenge
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Day 24 - Good & Bad Moods

What do you know about your moods? Answer the following to get a better insight:-

  • What triggers bad moods for you?
    • Mainly worry/anxiety or the feeling that just as I reach a kind of momentum in whatever task I might be engaged in, I have to stop (ie other commitments, work, etc.)
  • What can you use to trigger bad moods?
    • The sense that someone else ( eg my partner) mightn't be doing as much as I'd expect to alleviate the above. Also, and i think this happens more frequently, when the worry etc, which I've buried, is brought to the surface by someone stating the obvious, eg 'aren't you concerned about that?' or 'has it occured that this mightn't be a great situation?', or, 'At your age jobs aren't easy to come..blah blah'. You know the kind of thing.
  • How can you change a bad mood into a good mood?
    • By trying to put the worry/anxiety into some sort of perspective. Half the time it's because i feel I should be worrying or being anxious and when i'm not - eg if it's a situation that normally would produce that kind of response - I worry because i feel i should be. So I feel guilty if I'm not worrying. I try to unfocus the concern. It's like a kind of mental version of blurring the eyes.
  • How does it feel to know that you control how you feel?
    • Given that I like control, quite comforting.
  • Why do you choose to have bad moods?
    • As I've said, I choose to have them because in some perverse way i feel i should be having them.
Day 24 - Good & Bad Moods
1 How did you feel? Still not in real control just yet. I think that's going to take time and concentration.
2 In what way did you find the challenge useful?
Remember even if the challenge was negative this is an excellent learning for yourself.
At the back of my mind I've considered these issues but I've never really put them down in black and white. In doing that I can get a better perspective on the mechanisms of control.
3 What insight did you gain? Moods are controlable and are not a fixed response to a given situation.
4 What did you learn about yourself? I feel i should worry, and i feel that must naturally produce a bad mood in which someone is ultimately (not necessarily me) to blame in some way, if only for not alleviating the situation.