How to Manage your Moods - what to do if your moods get out of Control

If you are a woman, dealing with moods are part of your life.   

Our hormonal cycle, health of our organs, stress levels, past experiences and
state of mind all have an impact upon our moods. Being  able to experience the highs and lows of life can be quite a ride. Emotions are  part of being human and make up the tapestry of life.   There are times when it is appropriate to be angry, it moves us towards making positive change in our lives.   Other times its okay to be sad - grief is a natural process of letting go.  But sometimes we get stuck, and this "stuckness" can stay with us for years.  Unresolved issues of the past
takes away our enjoyment of the present moment.   
 
Prolonged moods, such as depression, anxiety, fear or anger can affect the chemistry of our body.  Once our chemistry is out of balance it then feeds into accentuating our moods.  Likewise, if our chemistry is out of balance through poor diet, alcohol and drug use, then our emotions will be affected.

What helps our moods:-

Firstly we need to balance the chemistry in our bodies.   A healthy diet  (avoid alcohol), along with herbs which calm our emotions, tone the organs and balance the hormones.  Very often if we experience prolonged stress our adrenal glands become exhausted.   Licorice tea acts as an adrenal gland tonic (not to be used with high blood pressure).Calm the mind.    This could be through meditating, using visualisations, deep breathing practice, or doing an ascetic activity that requires your concentration i.e. gardening, painting, sewing or dancing.

Deal with the issues.     If you have problems or work, suffer from long term grief or anxiety, feel constant fear - get help.    Sometimes all we need is a trained listening ear to unravel how we feel and some new skills for dealing with feelings when they
arise.

Learn Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT).   We are always going to have issues and feelings coming up.  So why not learn a tool which you can use whenever you want to deal with them? This is a marvellous skill which can shift negative feelings very quickly.  
Love yourself.    Often our health and well-being is out of balance just because we beat ourselves up with our words and thoughts!    Imagine if you were an employee doing the best job you could and your employer said you were no good.  How would you feel?    Crushed...Deflated....Discouraged.      Now imagine if that employer said you were "awesome".   Would you feel Excited...Enthusiastic...Keen....Proud?  In chi kung we use a practice called The Inner Smile where we send loving thoughts to our inner self and develop self love.  Its simple and easy to do.

Learn how to breathe.    Put a hand on your chest and one on your tummy and take a breath.   How do you breathe?  In the upper chest or tummy?  Do you breathe shallow or deep?   Rapid shallow upper chest breathing causes anxiety.  Slow deep tummy breathing causes relaxation.  Our breath is related to our nervous system.

Transform your emotions.     There is an ancient practice I use called the Six Healing Sounds.    It uses movement, sound and colour to transform negative emotions into positive ones.  Let us say our body is like a garden in which plants grow.  The
weeds are like negative emotions and the vegetables are like the positive ones (virtues).    Like weeds, negative emotions contain energy and nutrients, and if we compost them in the garden, then the energy and nutrients from the weeds can be used to enable the vegetables to grow.     Likewise when we use the Six Healing Sounds, a composting of emotions happens and good feelings/virtues are able to  develop.

---