Settle in by taking a few deep breaths.
Breathe in like you mean it.
Breathe out and let it all go.
Just a fair warning,
This one's a little bit salty.
So I have a confession to make.
When I was a little girl,
I loved Barry Manilow's song,
I Write the Songs That Make the Young Girls Cry.
I would play it over and over on my record player as I sat with my back against the wall and,
You guessed it,
Cried.
I didn't do this when my parents yelled at me or when some boy at school didn't like me back.
No,
I would play the song and cry because I was in the mood to play the song and cry.
It's no surprise then that I got labeled as moody as a child.
That label for me has some claws in it because it made me feel bad for feeling,
Because the world often convinces us that it's best not to feel,
Or that we should feel only the good things,
Or that we should keep our feels,
Especially those big wild ones,
Under control.
Maybe you too were made to feel as if you'd be a heck of a lot better and more well adjusted if you could just get those unruly emotions under control and Zen the fuck out.
But is that really the best option?
My good friend,
The Oxford English Dictionary,
Defines moody as indulging in moods of ill humor or depression,
Melancholy,
Gloomy sullenness.
It can also be associated with fits of rage and anger.
Obviously,
I was right to feel that the word moody has some claws to it.
But why?
Because mood,
Which is obviously at the heart of the word moody,
That's defined as mind,
Thought,
Will,
Heart,
Feeling.
It's also defined as fierce courage,
Spirit,
Vigor.
And even more,
It's that mood is a prevailing but temporary state of mind or feeling,
A disposition at a particular time.
Taken like that,
Who doesn't want to be moody?
Who doesn't want to live with mind,
Will,
Heart,
And feeling?
Who doesn't want to have fierce courage and spirit?
But we know,
Of course,
Our moods,
Our feelings can feel as if they are running us instead of us running them.
Wild moods,
Hard moods,
They can be challenging to manage because they can be overwhelming.
And some feels feel as if they will last forever.
Why is it so easy to forget that moods are temporary?
As I've said before,
No storm has ever held the sky,
Nor has any mood held onto a person forever and ever.
Amen.
Moods are meant to change.
And we are meant to feel because feeling gives flavor and meaning to life.
If we don't feel wonder,
We quit looking at the world with curious eyes and open hearts.
If we don't feel sadness,
We often haven't opened ourselves up to love and being vulnerable.
If we don't feel anger,
We don't know what matters to us or what patterns are hidden in us,
Waiting to be discovered and worked with.
And if you have to err on one side or the other,
Isn't life a hell of a lot more rich and complex and interesting and wild when we feel too much rather than too little?
It can feel safe to try and be a robot,
But I want to be human.
I hope maybe you do,
Too,
Because then we can feel the feels.
We can let the moods come and go.
And as the poet Rumi says,
We can welcome them all because every mood,
Every emotion,
Every feel has something to teach.
So live with mind and will and heart and feeling.
Let your moody moods fuel your fierce courage and wild spirit as you live light.
