Yesterday I wrote about paying attention to good feelings when they
arrive, often unexpectedly. I find that attending to a good mood seems
to prolong it though it's important not to desperately grasp onto it -
otherwise you take the "good" out of the good mood. A few times
yesterday I spotted myself about to step into a poor-me mindset, not
for any compelling reason but simply as a habit. Because I was being
mindful of my mood, I spotted this and the move into negativity simply
vanished. This morning my mood was darker - I likened it to a dark
thundercloud with flashes of lightening, fuelled by the relentless
arrival of bills, a daunting to-do list for the next couple of days
and so on. By simply being mindful of the thundercloud - located in my
stomach! - I seemed to keep it in its place, neither too much nor too
little. Now, following a supervision session with a very warm, genuine
client the good mood has slipped back in and the thundercloud has
become a few white clouds dotted across a blue sky. Without
mindfulness of this morning's negative feelings - mindfulness meaning
being aware of the feelings without getting into a story in my head
about them - I might well have thought myself into a bad mood which
even the supervision session could not have penetrated. I hope the
good mood sticks around for a while but what really matters is that
it's here right now.
