Mood management Skills

May I recommend a great workbook? Mind Over Mood, Greenberger and Padesky. These guys must be reading this blog. Get the workbook. Read it. Study it. Assimilate it (thoroughly understand it) Apply it (make it personal to your life, think critically about how you can incorporate it into your life). Learn the written thoughts. This is education. Not memorization. If you do not learn something new, you are stuck only with what you know, and that is not enough. Your old thoughts need testing. Your old ideas may need changing. If you get a book and put that book on a shelf in your house, you have more stuff in your house. If you study that book and learn the lessons contained therein, you have become a different person. There is hope.
   
       When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.
       When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.
                                                                                                    St. Paul
                                                                                             1 Corinthians 13:11 NIV


     Words are thoughts which are spoken or written. When you read a book, you are reading someones thoughts. You are participating in their imagination or their research or their beliefs. This is important. In order to change your life, you must think differently. There is no other way. But, what if you do not know what to think? Books and workbooks can usually help. You have to read and think along with the author(s). You have to hear with your mind the thoughts that have been written on the page. This is important as we begin some intensive, life-changing work. The first step toward learning to manage your moods is getting education. We would hardly think of going to school, getting educated, without the help of teachers and books. We can learn Mood Management Skills.

Mood Management Skills (MMS).

You may feel as through you are being held hostage by a mood, a feeling. That is about to change. Your moods are yours. They belong to you. You own them. You created them through thought or chemistry. Never think it is the other way around, i.e. your moods create you. However, a state of mind can be very hard to "un-state" and a "line of thinking" can be hard to break into. It can and must be done if you are going to regain your power and your enthusiasm for life again. I own my moods. I own my beliefs. I own my thoughts. Therefore, I now take back my life and my affective (mood world). Learning how to do this is the first step of acquiring Mood Management Skills.

Chemical Thoughts

Everything is chemistry. A thought is a magnificent chemical interchange within the brain. Brain chemistry is part of the overall chemical body. Although everything is chemistry, PMS is not a thought. Diabetes is not a mindset. The need for harmone replacement is not a matter of stinking thinking. Research shows that thinking can effect our physical condition either positively or negatively.

All of the physical realities mentioned above can cause significant shifts in mood. They are conditions. An individual suffering from diabetes can be thinking the most positive of thoughts. Their mood is dictated by the illness, unless effective treatment is administered. Elementary. Basic. Incredibly important distinction.

This is not a either-or proposition. Everything is chemistry. Monitoring and managing one's chemistry is synonymous with practicing good health, whether mental or physical. Managing thoughts translates into managing moods, all of which is a basic chemical endeavor. Managing moods means managing chemistry. We are learning this important first lesson. We will need to learn how to manage our chemistry. Sometimes we need to take medications, eat food that is more healthy, drink more pure water and ingest less chemicals that are counterproductive.  OK. Managing Moods Lesson #1 is getting education. Learning how to manage moods, manage chemistry and think correctly.