I have a melancholy temperament. This doesn't mean I'm sad all the time, but I do tend to easily fall into bad moods. When a bad mood hit me, I used to wallow in it, but lately I've learned to do some self-examination that helps me feel better.
I did this last week. It was the end of the school day, and I was in a black mood. When I realized that I was upset, but didn't know specifically why, I began to rewind through my day to figure out what exactly went wrong. I finally narrowed it down to something the principal said to me earlier in the day. From there, I decided that it probably wasn't intended to hurt my feelings, and that I should probably not let it ruin my day. After that, even though I still felt bad about that particular thing, I was able to segment it off from the rest of my life, and move on with a better attitude.
Knowing the reason why I am sad, upset, or angry has helped me to address the issue specifically. It also keeps me from blowing up on other people because I have failed to deal with my own problems. I don't know when or why I started doing this, but I highly recommend it.
You may have been doing this all along, and wonder what kind of weirdo I am. I'll just admit that I am way more likely to ignore my feelings than to address them. For me, this is a big step.
Do you have any other strategies for dealing with bad moods? (Well, besides eating chocolate.)
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Hmm, this is a great strategy. I must say that I have never imagined you to "blow up" at anyone. Maybe I'm just so pleasant all the time that you couldn't bring yourself to do such a thing!! ;) Ha!! Now, let's see if we can get my grump husband to do this from time to time? Oh, nevermind, he'd probably narrow it down to something ridiculous that I did!
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