When our three sons were little, they were only allowed to use one bathroom, in the far, far corner of the house. Friends, we are going to need a lot of laughs this week! Whenever I ask my Mood Meter app to help me shift my mood, the two responses I almost always get are 1. Think of your favorite joke, and 2. Smile for one full minute. Surprisingly, these words of advice work better than you would think. At the very least, we have an interesting and lively week ahead of us. That says a lot for a year in which a lot of us would describe as somewhat boring and subdued. Let the games begin!! May the odds be ever in your favor!
A few weeks ago, I downloaded the app, Mood Meter, on to my phone. I had read an article about it, and I was curious to experience it myself. The Mood Meter app was created to help people develop better self awareness and emotional intelligence. Basically, how it works, is that you log into the app, and you map your mood, on a four quadrant graph, as shown above. Each color quadrant is divided into smaller squares, so you can better pinpoint, your exact mood. Then, if you would like to try to shift your mood, into an even better feeling place, the app gives you tips on how to do it. (I noticed that “smile”, is a prevalent suggestion.) You also have the option on the app, to type a few words about what is going on in your life and current situations, which very well might be contributing to your current mood.
Last week, was a really cruddy week for me. A lot of things happened that kept my mood in the blue quadrant. (or if I am going to be emotionally intelligent and brutally honest with myself, I should say that I allowed a lot of my life’s circumstances to keep me in the blues) To give you an idea about how tough last week was for me emotionally, according to the mood meter, 64% of the time, I was in the blue quadrant, as opposed to 6% of the time, during the three weeks previous to last week.
Now, of course, I have just been checking into my Mood Meter app randomly, whenever it struck me to do it, without any real rhyme or reason. I have been trying to post my moods at various times of the day, in order to give me clues about what times of day that I tend to feel better. For 23 days in a row, I never missed a day of at least checking into my Mood Meter, at least once or twice. Yesterday, though, I didn’t check into the Mood Meter. I broke my streak. 🙁
I reflected on this fact of missing my check in yesterday, and even without graphing my mood on the Mood Meter app, I came around to some pretty good self awareness. This week has been a much better week for me, emotionally and materially, than last week. Yesterday, was a wonderful day, connecting with my family throughout the day, enjoying a nice lunchtime walk with my husband and our dogs in some comforting, cooler fall weather, and then capping the day off, by meeting some of my closest friends to watch the sunset on the beach. It occurred to me that the proverb “It’s Better to Lose Count While Naming Your Blessings, Than to Lose Your Mind Counting Your Troubles!” (Rev. Run Simmons) totally applied. I sheepishly admitted to myself that I have a tendency to take all of my blessings, and all of the bounty in my life, for granted. It seems that I am quick to question, “Why me?” when troubles come around (and then quick to dot my Mood Meter with a lot of blue dots), but I never seem to question “Why me?” for everything in life which I have been gifted. Overall, my blessings have always, always outweighed my pains. And often, my so-called “pains” have turned out to be blessings in disguise, in the long run. I just took a pause, right now, right before writing this sentence, and I made a point of logging into my Mood Meter and logging my mood, in the far right, of the bright yellow quadrant. I am beaming thinking of one of my wonderful daily blessings that makes me so happy and excited and content- communing with you, my dear readers. I am grateful for you. Thank you for being a constant yellow dot, in each of my days.
