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Irritation can be so sticky. Most of us have had the experience of being in a bad mood, caught, and feeling crabby with no easy way to get back to feeling good.
Here’s one way to get back in a decent mood and on with the life we’d like to be living.
We can change our moods by changing our thinking. Bad moods usually come with negative thoughts. These thoughts are perceptions of pain, suffering, powerlessness. Because they are thoughts, they are temporary and can be replaced.
When we change our thinking, from negative to positive, from bad to good, our moods change accordingly. The trick is staying in the positive thought mode long enough to make the shift. A way of assuring a long enough mental focus to change our mood is this: use the alphabet to guide you.
This is a step guide to shape our thoughts and feelings into peace rather than conflict.
Start with the first letter of the alphabet, A. Think of anything good in your life that starts with the letter A. It might be a person you know, Ann. Or it might be a grade you got on a test. Or perhaps an apple. Then B. Beauty, beaches, babies. Then C. Candy, cars, caterpillars. Keep at it until you have gone through the entire alphabet. Staying with the alphabet thus becomes a structure for keeping our thoughts positive as long as we follow the exercise.
So that’s it in a nutshell. Go through the alphabet and choose a word representing something positive. Beyond that, there’s no limit to what you choose.
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Photo credit: Pixabay