Editor’s Note: This is a guest post from Tim Brownson.
No matter the circumstances, you are the only one who has the power to determine your mood. And no matter how bad the mood is you find yourself in, you have the ability to change it in a split second.
Imagine you’re in the throes of a really bad argument with a loved one. It starts off as a minor disagreement, as is often the case with such things, but soon the insults are flying as you both dig in and look to defend your position.
At this point it’s highly unlikely that either of you is thinking, “Hmm, I’d much rather be loved than be right.” You are too busy wanting to win the argument, if indeed “win” is even the right word.
Suddenly, the phone rings and you both stop dead in your tracks and stare at it.
You pick up the phone and gruffly answer “hello.” It’s a very good friend from whom you haven’t heard for a while and you really want to catch up with all the news.
What do you do?
You don’t really want to take out your petty argument on them by being unreceptive and sullen, so in that instant you pass through a state change so rapid and so transformational that an observing alien who doesn’t understand people would be completely confused.
Upon hearing the other voice, all your angst, annoyance, and bitterness evaporates quicker than the rain from a summer storm in Florida.
Who did that? Who decided that you were going to feel better? Who put that extra bounce in your voice with such ease and speed?
Amazingly enough, it wasn’t the Thought Police and it wasn’t really magic — it was you.
You decided that you no longer wanted to feel angry and the other person shouldn’t have to listen to you engage in a shouting match. You made a choice to change your mood the same way you made a choice to get into the argument in the first place.
She Made Me So Angry!
As another example, how many times have you heard somebody say something along the lines of “she made me so angry” or “my boss really put me in a bad mood today”? I’m guessing it’s a lot and I’m pretty sure you’ve said such things yourself, because we all have at some stage in our lives.
The reality is, though, that statements like that are never true, no matter how much we like to think they are.
Your partner has never made you angry, your boss has never made you feel small, the weather has never put you in a bad mood, the dog has never ruined your day, and Aunt Enid has never stressed you out.
The only person responsible for any of the above is you.
Is It Raining Money or Calamity?
Imagine you’ve just won $10 million in the lottery and you’re on your way to pick up your sack of cash. Unfortunately, a few miles short of your destination, your car decides to die on you. Not only that, but to make things worse, it’s raining and you have no coat with you!
How will you feel?
My guess is that you won’t give a damn. Who cares about the car? After all, you can buy yourself a fleet of cars with your new wealth. You can even call a limo to transport you the final few miles if you want. As for the rain — well, come on, it’s only water and if it ruins your shoes, so what, because you can now get those Jimmy Choos you’ve always wanted.
Now imagine the same scenario, but this time you are on your way to a job you despise and you’re running late. You’ve been told that if you arrive late, you lose a half day’s pay, and you really need the money this month as your credit card debt is starting to mount.
How will you feel?
Both of those situations are, in effect, one and the same. In both instances your car is broken down in the rain several miles away from where you want to be. The thing that makes them different is how you interpret the ramifications and what you say to yourself.
The True Meaning of Personal Responsibility
There’s a lot of talk about personal responsibility in the self-help field, but it’s still something that a lot of people get wrong. They think taking personal responsibility means being tough on themselves, holding themselves up to higher standards than everybody else, and calling themselves out when they fall short.
The reality is the complete opposite.
Taking personal responsibility means being kind to yourself and taking control of your life from the inside out. It means realizing that the thoughts you have are 100% responsible for your subjective experience and then adjusting them accordingly.
If we say somebody made us mad, what we really mean is that we have allowed something that they’ve said or done to annoy us and we have chosen to be pissed off.
If you say that to yourself the next time you’re annoyed with something that isn’t going your way, I promise you’ll view the situation in another light. After all, you can carry on and decide to ruin your own day (one of a finite number you have on this earth, I hasten to add), or you can choose to react in a more appropriate way and one that serves you and everyone else.
Which one will you choose?
Thinking this out with my brain, I completely agree with you. But sometimes, in some of the situations you cite, we are not really thinking with our neocortex, we can’t think it through in a lucid way and we just overreact. I will try my best to take responsibility the next time something like that happens, but it’s hard to make promises, every situation can be just too subjective for each of us.
Good point, Gabriele – this was what I was getting at in my post about it taking practice to be able to do this consistently as our brain often fails us at the exact moment such situations occur.
I believe the first step is to recognize the ability to make a choice, and although I’ve seen people approach the issue from a very systematical standpoint such as making a “status” log in where they note their particular feelings concerning stress, energy and soforth during the day, I prefer a simpler approach in where I simply list the issues I’m tackling and decide point for point whether I truly care.
“we can’t think it through in a lucid way and we just overreact”
There’s a subtle inaccuracy in that which makes all the difference if you believe it.
We CAN think it through, we just tend not to. There is no cause and effect, there is only cause, interpretation, effect.
The reality is though that happens so rapidly that without really being conscious it’s tricky to intercept it.
It does take practice for sure and there will be times when we miss it, but it can be done if the will is there.
Excellent post – I recently wrote about the topic myself, from the perspective of cheating the feeling of being discontented – which tends to rear its ugly head at the worst of times: when we are stressed fatigued, which impairs our decision-making capabilities.
I very much agree with the viewpoint that making conscious decisions regarding how your react can improve how you feel.
Let’s say a problem arises; fine. The ball is in your court – you now have to decide whether you care sufficiently to take action, or whether you simply should ignore the issue and be all the happier for it. It requires a certain amount of practice, but the results of being able not to care free up an astonishing amount of mental resources.
When such situations arise, I personally try to pause for a few minutes to think – first, about what makes me calm; then, about what makes me happy. Without exception, I crack a smile at the end, leaving me standing at a very different place and better able to make a decision about the problem I was facing.
That’s a good point, we are way more likely to react negatively if we are already in a place we don’t want to be in.
It takes a lot of practice to put on a level head in these situations. I’m much better at it than say a year ago. I’m always stuggling to maintain control in a situation rather than get irrate.
I agree Todd, but because I know I am exponentially better at it than I was 10 years ago, I know it must be possible.
Timely post.
Just this morning I have been flirting with being pissed off over some car trouble. Your post reminded me that being angry is something I am choosing to indulge in, and is not serving me in any kind of resourceful manner.
Starting immediately I will proceed in a resourceful state of mind to get the challenge resolved. And I may just as well be happy also as I do so.
Thanks for the reminder.
I think occasionally anger can serve us, but it’s rare situations.
That first example is really potent and happens to me every time I’m in a conflict with my significant other. It’s amazing how a slight shift in context and suddenly I (or my partner) is just fine and dandy! 🙂
As far as how to make the shift, I’ve found it’s much more useful to change my “meta-mood” than to attempt to change my primary mood—OR—to change how I’m thinking than how I’m feeling.
For instance, rather than trying to go from frustrated to happy with a forced smile anyone can detect as inauthentic (i.e. aggressive positivity), I find it much more useful to admit what state I’m in and bring awareness and compassion to my state (at least as a first step), feeling my body and noticing the thoughts (images and inner talk) creating my experience.
From there I can either see things from a different perspective, have a conversation with my inner dialogue, or just proceed with more clarity and compassion.
I agree 100% Duffy and nicely explained.
Right on, Tim.
I got hip to this through music. Because music is such a subjective thing.
One person thinks Gaga is the best thing in the world. Another person thinks she’s the worst singer ever. Who’s right?
Neither. And both.
I realized that we can’t ever really talk about music in absolute terms. The closest we can get is to talk about our relationship to the tunes.
It’s totally the same with life. The event is what it is. Our relationship to it determines how we feel. And the cool part is we’re the one who determines that relationship.
Your pouring-down-rain/broken-down-car scenario illustrated that brilliantly.
About once per month we have our best friends over for dinner. My wife cannot get her head round the fact that they hate the kind of music we like and she always puts on a chill out album when the women would rather have Barry Manilow warbling in the background.
Surely that’s wrong isn’t it. Surely we can all agree Barry Manilow is just flat out wrong? 😉
Mr. Brownson, you will not get me to besmirch the name of Mr. Manilow. Nope. I just can’t bring myself to do it.
Tim,
Well, I find myself in a better mood in a warm and sunny climate.
By contrast, I don’t feel so good when the weather outside is cold, foggy, icy.
SAD affects people all over the world.
And the wind is nipping at your heels like a rabid dog, almost knocking you off your feet.
You feel like cursing the weather and letting the steam out of your system.
Sometimes, it may not be always upto the individual. There are forces beyond our control and extenuating circumstances.
Not everybody is a yogic master, who is able to exercise self-control at all times and under all situations and in all circumstances.
While your post is thought-provoking and well intentioned, I also feel you should make allowance for the exceptions to the rule.
Thanks for your contribution and to Charlie for publishing your article here.
And cheers to your life too.
Archan, there are ALWAYS exceptions to the rule and I regularly point out that this stuff wont work for everybody.
My first ever letter from a recipient of a free copy of How To Be Rich and Happy was unbelievably a complaint.
The guy told me that it wouldn’t work for people with bi-polar disorder.
Well yeh, I guess he was right, but it wasn’t written for such people, so there is that.
Doing what I suggest doesn’t require Yogic Master skills, just a bit of belief and a will to implement it rather than looking for reasons why it won’t work.
Powerful post Tim.
I choose happiness; I choose kindness.
Alex
I can relate to this. I use a short optimistic sentence to break me out of a bad mood. It’s changed over the years. The latest is, “Everything’s going to be all right.”
I do something similar but through a slightly different approach, visualizing the absolutely worst possible outcome in a given situation – which usually ends up in some sort of doomsday scenario.
This provides a healthy dose of perspective, and I usually end up summarizing with “this is far from the worst that could happen”.
A slightly darker twist, but effective (for me) nonetheless.
Great one Tim, I think it is important to remember that personal responsibility starts with responsibility of our mood and emotions. Clearly, being happier is a much more productive state than being depressed.
It’s crazy, not long ago I was reading psycho-cybernetics and I think something about this was mentioned on that book…
Anyway Tim, it cool how you use examples that we can relate to. Personal responsibility is something that we can all learn from, specially if we want to be happier.
I do something similar but through a slightly different approach, visualizing the absolutely worst possible outcome in a given situation – which usually ends up in some sort of doomsday scenario. This provides a healthy dose of perspective, and I usually end up summarizing with “this is far from the worst that could happen”. A slightly darker twist, but effective (for me) nonetheless.
I can relate to this. I use a short optimistic sentence to break me out of a bad mood. It’s changed over the years. The latest is, “Everything’s going to be all right.”