I read a passage in a book recently, describing mood contagion.
Mood contagion says that when a person walks in the room, we can automatically sense if they are sad, angry, anxious, or upset and unless we are very mindful, their negative mood can overtake ours. Similarly, if we are happy or joyful, we can project that to others.
I agree completely. Many times I have heard myself say, “Oh man, it’s Monday,” or “the weather is awful,” when really I should be saying, “I get to go to work and support my family,” or “After work, the kids and I really need to build a snowman.” It’s really about perspective.
Likewise, there are two ways to look at mistakes. The first is to deal with failure by blaming, whining, complaining, making excuses or giving up. The second is to persevere and try again, gather myself, examine the situation and adjust.
I choose to stay in my lane, and process, give my best, and refuse to let failure become a permanent state for me. I get up and move again. I choose a positive perspective and a positive mood.
I need to add something crucial here. Always be kind to yourself. We are all perfect the way we are, even though we all have room to grow.
Being realistic rather than a perfectionist helps me more than anything. I have become very good at looking at my day in retrospect and putting a check-mark on the day. I remind myself that, to date, I have gotten through 100 percent of my days, good and bad.
I would rather get a gold star (just like in elementary school), of course, but sometimes just getting through the day with the best attitude possible is an accomplishment. Be kind to yourself no matter what! Your mood is contagious with you as well.
As many of you know, I have six children. Two of them are now grown and one is a teenager. Three of them are small.
A while back my teenager made a misstep as they all do. (I did.) With all my children, when they behave in certain ways or do certain things that are unacceptable there are consequences of course.
When they misstep we impose short consequences and then we move forward as we should. We don’t dwell. In this particular case with my sixteen year old, I actually used the word “grounded” for the first time with her. I told her she was grounded.
She knew she should be and she simply said, “OK.” A few days later, she asked if a friend could come to the house for a short period of time or if that was off limits still.
I paused.
I told her I would think about it and get back to her. The reason: I didn’t even really know what I had grounded her from. I hadn’t attached any terms to it. I said she was grounded and she said “OK” and I guess we made assumptions that we each understood what that meant.
Actually putting it in perspective, she accepted that she had messed up and she owned it. She did the right thing by not whining, blaming, complaining or making excuses. She adjusted and we moved on as we are both supposed to do when we are less than perfect.
And during this time period, we didn’t treat each other any different and we still maintained our positive attitudes towards each other because we love each other.
What it comes down to is this, in my opinion, my perspective is best when I look at it realistically and with a positive attitude.
Even though bad things will happen each and every day I try to keep my mood in check.
I try to see possibility, adventure and opportunity and solutions. I am quicker to forgive others and myself for mistakes and move on.
I don’t have a file in my brains called “All the Things That Could Go Wrong” or “All the Things People (Including Myself) Do Wrong.” Instead, I try to remind myself of the words of Tom Stoppard who said, “A healthy attitude is contagious but don’t wait to catch it from others. Be the carrier.”
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