photo by cc

Our moods are one of the most contagious things on the planet, and one of the things that is easy to learn to control.  Have you ever had a morning when you woke up in a bad mood?  Or there are those days when things just feel a bit off and nothing seems to go right?  Those days happen to all of us at some point, but no matter the cause, we have a choice on how to respond, whether to give in to the mood and the off-ness of the day, or to choose to be happy, content, or just go with it and believe it will get better.

 Sometimes the day will start fine for one family member, and go wrong for another, leading to arguments, words that shouldn’t be spoken, hard feelings, and bad tempers, all because in a moment of time that person chose to share and inflict their bad mood on everyone else.  If the mood is not reigned in it can ruin everyone’s day and leave those that were there feeling sad or beaten up and trying to “fix” their attitude for the rest of the day.  I hate it when this happens; it often leaves me feeling mellow and a bit reflective.

 On days when this happens it sometimes seems the weather starts to reflect my mood.  A day that was slated to be sunny turns a bit hazy or drizzly instead.  There were some days last week where it was sunny outside, but I felt like it was raining inside because I was feeling a bit blue.

 With so many people telling us thoughts are things, and the law of attraction states that you reap what you sow, how does that apply to moods?  It’s simple really and the effect is almost immediate.  When you are in a bad mood, even if you can’t immediately pull yourself up out of it, you still have a choice to keep it to yourself, or to inflict it on others.  Like simple acts of kindness, bad moods inflicted on others have a ripple effect that can potentially affect many others far beyond your little circle.

 It’s important to teach our children this before they start slamming doors, or throwing a tantrum, they are setting the pace for the rest of their day and possibly for the other people around them.  By choosing to be in a bad mood you are also choosing how people will treat you for the day.  It’s important that this is made clear to them while they are young because when an adult that doesn’t adjust a bad mood or bad attitude it can affect far more people and the ripple effect from that encounter can, in some cases, lead to dire situations.

 Cherry Coley (c)