There's a quote by Dr. George Pranksy that I really love. I'm going to paraphrase it because I don't have it in front of me. It goes something like this...Be grateful for your highs and graceful with your lows.
What does this mean? Dr. Pransky was talking about our moods. Every day we go through cycles of being in a low mood and being in a high mood. Some, more than others, experience this many times a day and some don't. Dr. Pransky said to be graceful with your lows because when we are in a low mood, we tend to go into blame and shame mode. We blame everyone else for our problems. We blame our circumstances for our problems. We point our finger at everything in the world and go on a blame and shame rampage. In those moments, it all looks very real to us. It really looks as though everything "out there" is causing our current feelings. In that moment we truly believe our mood and our quality of life and feelings are caused by our circumstances. In that moment those thoughts about how terrible everything is seem very real to us.
When we are in a high mood, which is a good mood, we see the beauty in life. We see the wonderful things about the people in our life. We see those things that can sometimes bug us about others and they start to look funny and a little silly. But that same thing can look frustrating and irritating when we are in a low mood.
So how do we experience more high moods than low moods? It all comes back to "where is my feeling coming from?". I always go back to that question. Where is my experience in this very moment coming from? When I know that it is coming from my thinking in that very moment, the intensity of being in a low mood is not nearly as bad. I come out of the low mood much faster.
So...be grateful for your highs and graceful with your lows. Just notice when you are in a low mood. This is the time to sit and be quiet (and what I just told me 8 year old a minute ago...this isn't the time to run our mouth and start to blame everybody for everything). But once you realize that you are only ever feeling your thinking in the moment these times of low moods just won't happen as much. And thank God for that!
Until next time,
Jackson Brown
"Your thoughts are not reality but your reality is created by your thoughts"
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