I’m sitting here on a Monday looking out my office window. It’s currently 18 degrees outside under gray skies. I’m searching for something to talk to you about that you might find of some interest. I’m not finding it.
Things feel kind of flat this morning. The Sunday masses, RCIA class, and two baptisms are all done. Covid concerns are popping up every where it seems. The cold and gray will be here for what? 3? 4 more months? I’m starting to get into a mood. Ever happen to you?
So let’s talk about “moods”. Webster is always a good starting place: “Mood: a temporary state of mind. A pervading quality of feeling at a particular moment.” They come in all shades, don’t they. Good ones, happy ones, sad, bored, excited. But the ones we talk about the most, are the bad ones. (Just like the news we watch on TV, good news doesn’t get the headlines.) We expect to feel good/okay in the normal course of things and pay it no attention. It’s the bad moods we’re most aware of.
I think it depends on how old you are to see how bad moods can affect us. Remember when as a child, you took sick to your stomach?, Christmas failed to bring a new bike?, a rainedout baseball game? The world was about to end.
Teenagers collapse at the sign of a pimple, a “C” in English class, being laughed at in the cafeteria, getting snubbed by the “in group”. Later on in life, disappointments with work, a failed relationship, ones “status” compared to others can send us off, not just to a mood, but to a permanent way of viewing life as a disappointment.
Combine that with the way we are wired (some have a natural tendency to see life’s cup as half empty) and soon we discover there needs to be a governor that regulates and disciplines our moods. Otherwise they carry us off. Our feelings begin to tell us who we are.
With age, we begin to discover that’s not true. We’ve been up and down and all around enough to realize “this too shall pass”. Think back. Aren’t you glad you didn’t act on your first impulse? You didn’t quit whatever; you didn’t make that angry phone call; you waited till the mood passed. And it did pass. Didn’t it?
So here are some tips from an old man about how to deal with bad moods.
- Don’t believe the message that we should be happy all the time. The entertainment industry makes millions portraying life as it should be endlessly exciting and fulfilling. It can be at times, but not how they think.
- Don’t think there’s something wrong with you if your moods happen to be sad. Hey, life has these moments. We can learn from them but not be ruled by them.
- If the moods last and become a constant worry or sadness, TALK TO SOMEONE ABOUT THEM. Sometimes just speaking our feelings to a friend can be like a medicine. It connects us to a trusted person. (That person may be a priest or doctor if you think it might help.)
- Get out of yourself. Focus on something that needs doing (like this bulletin!) Who needs your help?
- Please, please . . . don’t make any life changing decisions in the spell of a bad mood. Wait. (An old priest friend of mine went a step further to say, “Don’t ever make an important decision after the sun goes down. Wait till the light of daytime.” Why? Because our enemy fear moves better at night.)
- Lastly. You are a Child of God. You are loved. That fact remains. Moods don’t.
Guess what? I’m outa that mood!!
Fr. Tim
