Getting High on Recovery

This is the way to lift your destructive moods

___

Today, I wish that I could just take my moods and flush them down the toilet.

A mood has hit me and it’s just unexplainable.

You can put labels on your moods, like angry or sad or pissed off or reflective or happy. Today I feel all of that. It’s tempting to try and eliminate your moods. But they are a part of you.

Do you have a bully-mood?

Today, I’m going to stick it to my mood because it’s nothing but a schoolyard bully trapped inside my skull. If I listened to this bully-mood, I would call in sick and just stay in bed. I would shut down and shut out the world.

The more you listen to a mood, the more powerful it becomes. Moods can pull you out of the moment and get you stuck in your head. And then they have you.

Mood – a frame of mind, being in the mood (willing to do something), an emotional condition.

Moods are a part of life. In fact, difficult moods, suffering, pain and even dark thoughts – they all part of the human condition.  We live in a medicated world where moods are frowned upon unless they are happy and optimistic. Sadness, feeling blue, gloom, depression and grief are okay for a day or two. But when they stick to you, we all want to reach for a pill, wanting only to feel good again.

Is our pursuit of happiness making us unhappy?

Moods can come on you like a tornado at night. Suddenly they are on top of you and they are powerful. In recovery, unpredictable and overwhelming moods can throw off your plans and make choices seem so difficult that you just want to give up. And the difficult thing about moods? They are both powerful and unpredictable.

Moods are different than clinical conditions that remain with you for weeks, months and even years. Moods will pass. Clinical conditions don’t, and if you have a dark, or anxious mood, flashbacks, or intrusive thoughts that won’t leave you, I suggest that you talk to a mental health professional.

If you are reading this, you are in recovery. It may be from drugs, alcohol, depression or anxiety or something else that has you down. Tornado-moods are a powerful triggers. They tear apart your resolve and they can make you want to return to old ways of thinking, behaviors that are unhealthy for you, or back to the booze, or the high.

Moods lift with action

When a mood overcomes you and tears you up, don’t make it worse by getting all angry at yourself.

The answer to a troubling mood is not found in a bottle of pills. Even Psychiatrists will tell you that pills won’t make you happy and they won’t make your moods go away. Most times, moods and will pass on their own. Medications can help when you have a dark and lasting depression or debilitating anxiety.

Medications can be life-saving, but they won’t take your moods away. What medications can do is give you enough clarity so that you can do the work that you need to do. Taking action is the only thing that can lift your moods. But this is hard to take, because when a mood is upon you, all that you want to do is retreat. Doing what feels unnatural will lift you out of your moods. Go ahead, feel shitty, but do it anyway.

Where you look determines what you see.

The 1% solution

I would like nothing more than to kick my moods into the toilet and watch them get sucked down into the porcelain vacuum. But until that happens, I won’t let them wreck my plans, my work, or my day. Life is too valuable to allow something that you cannot see or put into your pocket take you for a ride. Recovery means that you make choices to improve your life a little each day. You don’t have to do anything radical to change your mind or your mood. Often all that it takes is just making yourself a little different: A 1% change today can make your life 99% easier.

If you relax and give yourself permission to only improve a little each day, then a good habit works. It’s permission to improve. It’s also permission to fail. Because when you first start something, you’re on day one. If you want to succeed at anything, you have to give yourself permission to fail twice as much as you thought you would. If you insist, I need to change RIGHT NOW, then it won’t work. You’ll only get worse. James Altucher

If you enjoyed this article, you will want to check out some of my other writing:

Are We Addicted to Happiness?

Depression is Like a Monkey in Your Mind

10 Rules that Guarantee Unhappiness in Your Relationships and Your Work

I write articles about wellness, leadership, parenting and personal growth. My hope is to deliver the best content I can to inspire, to inform and to entertain. Sign up for my blog if you want to receive the latest and best of my writing. If you like what I have to say, please share my work with your friends.

Lastly, if you like my writing, you can click here to vote for my page on Psych Central’s list of mental health blogs.

Keep it Real

Photo by David Goehring