Moody Currents

Chapter two

“The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes.”
—William James,

Moody Currents

“I’m in a bad mood.” What an interesting concept. I am in a mood. A mood is almost like a feeling, but it’s a perpetual one. It hangs around. It lingers. It affects how we behave and how we interpret everything around us. If I were in a bad mood, I might snap at my wife if she asks for a glass of water. Why can’t she just get it herself for once?! If I’m in a good mood, I’ll simply think, Sure thing! I’ll whistle on over to the cupboard and fill her up a cup with a sweet kiss and a “Here you are, my Love!”

A mood more or less chooses for us how we feel about inputs rather than being a feeling itself. Despite its intangible nature, we can even share a mood. We can feel it in others and it’s often contagious. If I’d have snapped at my wife, she’d be tempted to join my bad mood. If I kissed her delightfully, it might just raise her spirits to match my own. Our mood has a significant impact on the moods of others and thus also the interpretations by which others view shared events.

In such a way, I like to think of moods like they are currents and I equate emotions to waves. We have a specific current or mood and we operate from within the framework of that mood. As we go about our business, we’re splashing around and being splashed by those around us. Some emotions get in our eyes and annoy us or make it hard to see. With emotions in our eyes, we may stumble into an alternative current and get swept away by it. Some waves might bowl us right over into other currents. Some people learn to position themselves and walk with balance such that the waves won’t knock them out of their current. Such people would be considered emotionally resilient.

I remember concluding back when I was younger that we are the architects of our feelings. We can choose to be happy or sad. One specific night, I was crying about some unmemorable thing, and some internal voice in my head began asking me questions. As far as I was concerned, the voice was my own, but the ideas were instantaneous in nature. I did not think the full sentences in my mind, but simply knew the questions.

Why are you making all this noise? The voice asked. I had to think about it. Well, to express my unhappiness, of course! I was wronged! But will it help? Is it helping? Are you truly upset or are you being manipulative? I pondered again. Was this just a show? Was I being forced into this behavior? What really was the point of all the noise? I began thinking about the mood instead of being caught up in it. I looked at the mood straight on and I poked at it.

As I continued my ponderings, I realized I had stopped making my wailing noises and decided I’d best start it back up again—I was miserable after all, and I couldn’t let my parents think I’d forgotten this slight on my wellbeing. I tried to wail again but this time it lacked the same conviction: Waaaah… Waaah… Hmm… This feels very dumb, I thought, and I laughed at myself.

I felt a glimpse of amusement but I pulled it right off its pedestal. No! I am upset right now! No joy! I was in a mood—a shallow, trickling stream of a mood—a mood I could step out of—a mood I chose to soak in just so I could complain that my socks were wet—but a mood none the less! I sat in this silly mood stream when I could simply take a few steps forward toward a happier mood. It was right there. I even touched it. It splashed me playfully. But no! I fell asleep pondering this oddity.

I remembered this lesson, but it didn’t carry over well as the waves got taller and the moods got deeper and darker. I hadn’t personally learned to swim in the emotional currents. I floated around letting external events push me from one current to the next. This is known as having an external locus of control. The world happened to me rather than I happening to the world. I was at the mercy of it rather than shaping it for myself. No one had taught me the way and I had not yet learned it for myself.

I became lost in my darkness, and the thought that I could choose a new emotional current did not bring me any relief. The knowledge was itself a wave that pushed me deeper into my existing current rather than a gentle push toward a nicer one—and not just a wave, but a torrent of self-disgust. Like drowning in a pool, I knew that swimming was a thing, but I didn’t know how to do it myself.

My thoughts kept me in my state. You sniveling fool, you are choosing this! What right do you have to feel this way? Many others have it worse than you! The waves of emotion from my own thoughts would beat in my face. You know it’s your fault. Stop feeling this way. You’re worthless. Yeah, just sit there and cry. You’re weak. Wave after wave would push me deeper into my current of despair. I just had to stand up and walk forward, but which way was forward? Which way was up?

There’s no point in taking a step, it’s like this in every direction. You’ll never find the exit. You’ll never walk far enough. You know you’ll just fall back down. And the longer I sat there exhausted, the weaker I got and the harder it was to take a step as my emotional swimming appendages atrophied.

I had so much going for me with a sharp mind, great kids, a loving wife, and a well-paying job. And yet, I couldn’t escape my mood. I tried drugs, I tried books, I tried coercion, crying, and threats. They only sunk me deeper with each failure. Over time, after many years of struggling, I managed to learn just enough about emotions to manage them effectively. I began to see movement. I could now doggy-paddle the waters. Learning to swim was the only way out of my funk and swimming, as I learned, has everything to do with understanding our voices.

There is surprisingly little help with plenty of scorn for a “grown-ass man” who stands on the bottom of a pool crying out for swimming lessons. Without learning to swim and so regulating our emotions, we have no chance in selecting or cultivating our mood through which to operate—at least, not anything good. If we don’t cultivate our mood intentionally, the world will cultivate it for us as we trap ourselves within. We become receivers and reflectors of the negativity around us. Our locus of control becomes external rather than internal, and our voices will work against us.

The human capacity to understand, regulate, and articulate emotion is shockingly small for just how large an impact it has on our lives. One might think we’d give it special attention rather than neglect, and in a way, we do: we’re culturally pushed away from it with unique precision. Despite being the most important facet of human experience, it is nearly a taboo topic. As such, in respect for our culture, I intend to avoid being “sappy”—that cute little insult we use when one is being too emotionally open.

For men especially, emotional regulation is not taught, not talked about, and is a significant sign of weakness. Men don’t burden others with their emotions. Even if we did, others have no clue how to help us. We’d just make them uncomfortable and probably bring them down in the process as they recognize their own ineptitude. It’s a self-perpetuating cycle much like depression itself but on the world stage.

Love is regarded as being especially weak. I’d much sooner talk about my sadness and depression than the flittery, rainbowy, butterfly farts from unicorn butts that is love—especially when depressed. Eww. Not everyone feels this way, of course, but a significant number of people do—especially men. But why? What sense does any of this make? Why do we have voices in our heads that push us down? Why are we afraid to talk about the very things that matter most in life? Why do we shy away from the very growth and conversations necessary to heal ourselves and uplift the planet? Whatever the reasons, we should absolutely learn to overcome them.

Doctor Marc Brackett, professor and founder of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, is convinced, “We have a crisis on our hands, and its victims are our children.” In his book, Permission to Feel¹, Doctor Brackett explains the myriad ways we are lacking in emotional awareness and skill. He has made it his mission to advance knowledge and understanding of our emotions via his Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) program centered around RULER for how to handle emotions: Recognize, Understand, Label, Express, and Regulate.

Brackett’s goal, while appearing to be quite necessary and valiant, is an uphill battle. He is constantly confronted with adults and teachers who can’t fathom why this is important nor comprehend how they might add this to their already challenging list of things to do. In fact, many parents are adamantly opposed to such lessons because they sound like teaching morals to children.

Responses that Brackett received from parents often include fears of turning their boys into homosexuals, complaints that emotional intelligence training doesn’t help getting into Yale (yet it does), that this is clearly a political move of the radical left-wing Democrats, and so on.

Once political identity is evoked, one is guaranteed a significant backlash. And yet, his purpose stems from a simple concept he wishes to convey: it is wise to recognize what emotions one is feeling and learn to respond in ways conducive to success and societal harmony. He is not wrong, and these skills play quite a significant role in our success as we will continue to see throughout this book.

Left unregulated, emotions push us down while internal voices hold us there. The moods we get trapped in cause us to act in ways we wish we didn’t. We get fired up and hurt each other over seemingly foolish things, and we regret our actions later. Emotions move us and yet they often move us contrary to who we are—or, at least, who we wish we were.

Emotions aren’t all bad, of course. There is love, peace, joy, happiness, and all sorts of good emotions. And they, too, can direct us into different behaviors. When we’re in a good mood, we’re more likely to do favors for people, clean up after ourselves, share, give, play, dance, flirt, smile, and sing. Emotions move us, and without them, we’d have no real reason to exist.

If we could choose, we’d be insane to want to select the negative currents over the positive ones. And yet, in some strange fashion, it is a choice and we fail to make the appropriate one all the same because we lack understanding and skill. For many of us, we seem utterly incapable of making the choice for happier moods despite its alignment with our own desires. It becomes as if it is not a choice at all. But come on, if someone takes my lucky blue plastic bowl for breakfast, what choice do I really have but to become angry?

The mood we are in strongly dictates our behaviors along with the emotions we feel capable of choosing. In a way, we simply become our mood if we are operating on autopilot without intentional steering. So the real trick isn’t in selecting our feelings, but our moods—which isn’t as easy as selecting a shirt from our closet. We must cultivate our moods and learn to swim so we’re not pushed out of it.

Not only does it benefit us internally to learn these skills, but since it impacts our interactions with others, it has a significant influence on them and their behaviors right back toward us. In such a way, we generate the very experience around us in line with the moods we’re most often in. If we don’t learn to cultivate our mood and to swim effectively to remain there, someone else will select our mood for us. The world has many influences to select our mood, and most of them are quite destructive.

The first step in learning to shape our moods is to truly comprehend just how large an impact feelings and emotions have in shaping our reality. What we think and how we feel will quite literally alter what we experience and the opportunities presented to us. When we truly internalize this fundamental principle with how and why it works, we can see more clearly how to begin cultivating our mood and so shape our lives.