If you follow me on Twitter there’s a good chance you’ve heard me tweet about offering a #moodlift. I promise to lift your mood within 30 seconds or less and I do it for free. When I tweet about it I usually point to this website that explains how to get the moodlift. In essence you give me a call and I ask you a couple of questions and before you know it you feel better.

That’s cool isn’t it?

The only problem is, it seems SUCH an alien concept – the idea that we could lift a mood in a couple of minutes, much less seconds – that hardly anyone ever takes me up on my offer. Which to me is utterly crazy! Why would anyone willingly keep wallowing in apathy or sadness or let the fury of anger run unchecked? So I decided it’s of course the same old fear of the unknown that stops us every time we come across a new concept, brilliant and helpful as it might be. So in this post I would like to explain to you how this technique actually works, why it is so effective and how you too can learn it with ease. The more knowledge you gain over a subject the less afraid you are.

What is a mood?

We first have got to start with some definitions. It’s crucial to this process that we understand exactly what we’re talking about and that we’re on the same page. So let’s first tackle the word “mood”. What is a mood actually? Here’s my iMac’s (Oxford) dictionary definition:

“a temporary state of mind or feeling”.

So it’s first of all temporary! That in itself already is the explanation why the moodlift works. If a mood is only temporary so all the moodlift has to do is end that temporary moment the mood actually lives. And how to do that? Since a mood is a state of mind or feeling what we have to do is change that state of mind or feeling and boom, the mood is gone, replaced with another one.

It really is that simple folks.

A mood is not eternal, although at times it can feel like that specially in the very low registers, it is temporary which implies that it has a beginning and an end. To bring the end nearer is to change the state of mind or change the feeling. A mood then is actually an expression of an emotion, no more no less. However because nobody has ever taught us HOW TO change our state of mind or our feelings we’re at a loss and more importantly at the mercy of our moods. In fact because we don’t know any way to change the feelings behind our moods we (as a collective consciousness) have come to the conclusion that it probably can’t change, thus we’re going to be sad forever.

Which in the moment of sadness is exactly what it feels like. But once you’ve lived long enough, have made experience after experience, and eventually you realized, it’s not true, we will not be sad forever, we will feel something else all the time and only dip in and out of sadness. Still, if you’re stuck in a mood you’re stuck and unless you know the technique on how to re-program the thinking behind the mood you’ll stay stuck until something else happens in your life that shifts your state. It could be anything (a phone call, a smile from a stranger, etc.) but until we become aware of the mechanics we are at the mercy of random happenings to change our moods.

Let me give you an example. Personally I am very much prone to depression, which is a state of apathy, very much at the bottom of the emotional scale. In fact below apathy is only death left. Which is why it’s such a difficult mood/state/emotion to get out of, it’s right at the bottom of being-ness if you so will. Ok STOP. Let me not get ahead of myself here. What am I talking about, emotional scale?

Riding the wave on the emotional scale

Our emotions can be plotted on a scale just like the colors of a rainbow, frequencies of the light spectrum, hertz on a sound scale, etc. Colour in fact is a certain frequency of light. So it can be expressed in a number. And thus it can be a higher or lower number. Color can be expresses on a scale – the rainbow. Sound can be expressed on a scale and in numbers of frequency again. And the same is true for emotions, they too are a certain frequency and can thus be shown on a scale. Along the side here is what this scale looks like expressed with emoticons (smileys).

• Apathy
  At the very bottom, with low frequency, is, as I mentioned earlier, apathy. Below that is death.
• Grief
  With slightly more energy above apathy grief and all its associated feelings are present. When you’re sad you’re feeling slightly better than when you absolutely don’t care about anything. And you also have somewhat more energy to go on about your daily tasks.
• Fear
  Above grief then comes fear. From the mild feeling of wondering if it’s a good idea to shear terror, either way, it’s above grief. Fear has energy with it that can be expressed. Fight or flight is the motto and we use our energy to do either of those when faced with fear. So our fear can actually already propel us out of the situation or it can paralyze us and make us do nothing.
• Anger
  Above fear comes anger. Now we’re starting to get some serious energy, because anger expressed does indeed create a lot of energy as we all know and have experienced. In fact what anger management teaches us is to use that energy and direct it in a more positive way. When we’re angry we get things done. We’re not smiling while we’re doing them, but we are in action much more than when we’re sad or don’t care.
• Impatience
  Above anger comes boredom which is often expressed as impatience. “Move on already” is the energy behind it which basically means, I am bored with where I am and want to be somewhere else but am still stuck here so let’s get on with it already. It’s a kind of restlessness that shows itself with being unable to be still and thus creates enormous amounts of trapped energy. On that note, this boredom is not to be confused with the “I only want to lie on the couch” boredom which in reality is not boredom but either sadness or apathy. We might say “I’m bored” but if we were to dig a bit deeper (which is what introspection is all about) we’d discover that we’re not bored, we don’t have the energy to face our sadness or our don’t care attitude about the situation we’re in.
• Contentment
  And once we’re not stuck anymore in impatience and move on to the places we want to be at we start feeling content, happiness sets in. Beautiful energy helps us do what we came to do and we feel good all around. A wonderful place to be in for sure and in the end we all strive towards that state of mind all the time. Interestingly enough though, as you can see on the emotional scale, there’s another smiley at the top.
• Excitement
  It’s the excited one, the over board one. It’s so enthusiastic that it goes way beyond everybody else’s head. That is simply a place of too much energy thrown around in an unfocused way. So too much excitement is just as bad as too little!

How moods move around the emotional scale

Now the point of discovering all of this is not to eliminate the moods! That is not possible anyway as long as we walk on this earth. The point is to understand that our moods ride up and down that scale day in, day out. We can be in different mood states in different areas of our lives at the same time! We could be content in our relationship but could be totally lost and not caring about our job/career. What does become problematic is if we don’t realise we’re moving along that scale and get stuck too long in a mood. It then starts to override our thinking and thus our actions. As long as we’re not aware of how this scale works we’re on autopilot and define ourselves by way of how we feel. “I feel sad so I am a sad person and cannot smile.”

And that is not good. It’s simply not true. Our moods, emotions and feelings are simply an expression of where we’re at right now. They are like a barometer showing us the energetic pressure that’s going on in our lives or in certain areas of our lives. Once we learn to look at them like this then we can use them to make proper adjustments.

And then of course there aren’t just the few moods I picked out. There’s a whole exhaustive list of emotions that fits in with one of those grouped ones. In the end you can still further distill it to two basic emotions, love and fear. “A Course in Miracles” teaches that there is only love and fear and anything we feel is either out of love or fear. However until we reach such elusive spiritual planes we are still very much bound by a host of very different feelings. The first step to learn to manage them to actually become aware of them and learn how they work within us.

How the mood lift works

And this is where the moodlift comes in. We all know that grief for example has it’s place and is in fact extremely important to go through when we experience loss in our lives. Trauma counseling in essence is helping us express and live with grief. It only becomes problematic when we stay too long in that state. That then is not healthy. Everything in moderation – wine, coffee and emotions :). So how can we help each other out of moods? By applying the moodlift. This tool/technique simply helps you to move one step up (or down if you’re bouncing off the walls with excitement) and thus feel better.

It’s very important to understand that it’s not desirable to go from totally not caring to be content all around just like that, and very difficult anyway. You’d have to be a very conscious being well trained in mood lifting to do that. It’s not what this moodlift technique, I’m teaching anybody who wants to learn it, does. All it does is take you up a notch from wherever you are. Sometimes you could go fast from bottom to top and it’s right, other times it’s good enough to just let the tears flow after a long time in apathy. Either way, the idea is to shift. Change the state of mind, change the feeling. That frees up a lot of energy and gives us room to maneuver again.

How to shift a mood without the mood lift tool

Now after having explained the emotional scale in a nutshell (there’s a whole science behind it of course which I am studying currently, fascinating subject indeed!) let me now go back to my example of me and my depressions. I’ve spent a considerable amount of time in this low emotional state, moving between apathy and sadness forth and back. At one time when it was especially bad and nothing I did would move me out of this state – and moodlifts, despite being in my toolbox, weren’t applied regularly  – my brother came to the rescue by making me really angry. While this on the surface would seem like a bad thing, making someone angry sure isn’t usually looked upon as a good thing, however in this case what it actually did was his words became the lever upon which I could lift from apathetic/sad to anger and that gave me such a jolt of energy that I could move along and start changing my life. (If you’re reading this bro thanks again!) Before he got at me with his rant I didn’t have the energy (at the bottom of the emotional scale there isn’t much energy going round to do things remember) but once I got angry it helped me have enough energy to move out of it. In this case I also went straight passed fear, which was good because fear of course could paralyze. His words could have just painted a bleak picture of my future and thus made me really afraid. But that could have backfired and put me right back into inertia/paralysis. Anger however needs to be expressed and I used it to turn things around.

The point of all of this is to realise, we’ve got to learn and use tools to lift – shift – our moods. Luckily as it turns out we don’t necessarily need a brother that makes us angry, we just need somebody who knows how to use a simple technique to do the same thing, shift our state of mind.

Questions: the mood lift technique

And the simplest way of achieving this is by asking questions and get the mind to think. By asking certain questions we can light up certain areas of the brain that are not engaged in a specific mood and thus help the mind get out of the state it’s in. Let’s take another example. My depressed me again. Down there caring for nothing and nobody is actually a very selfish act. As a depressed person all you think about the entire time is how bad you feel, how awful your life is, etc. Caring for another, showing compassion, is not a feature of a depressed person. You cannot care for another and be depressed at the same time. I’ve tried it, doesn’t work. That’s why I keep saying my son kept me alive as I needed to care for him which is a mood lifting act. But I needed him physically around to feel better. Not so good.

In the depressed state/mood I completely forgot about the person I really am, I forgot why I came around, what I’m here to do, I couldn’t think of a bright future, it was all bleak and bland. Through the moodlift by asking the right questions we can remember all of this. We can remember who we truly are, what we’re really here to do, etc. And by remembering, the unused areas in our brain fire up and the mind shifts into another state. (This really is my layman’s explanation, I’m no specialist, psychiatrist or the like!)

Now let me say something very quickly here. I am NOT saying that just simply asking a suicidal person a couple of questions is going to make them get out of it just like that. Nope. If it’s that deep a core feeling it needs some serious contemplation and help. It needs a reminder of sorts for a long time before anything changes.

With the moodlift technique/tool that I’m trying to describe here all we do is get into the practice of remembering. We can quickly change those fleeting moods. I’m not talking about the core moods that run through our life. Those we need to tackle with the help of counsellors, therapists, processors, etc. I’m talking about something like for example, say you’re in sales and  you’ve been pounding the pavement for a while and collected one “no” after the other and it seems with every day that passes you just can’t make it happen. Eventually you might end up feeling like a total loser and fear that you’re never gonna make it.

That clearly is a mood problem then. Because if you stay in that mood guess what happens, nothing. Still no sales. So it’s vital to get you out of that mood and lift it. Which in this case will be pretty simple. All you need to do is remember why you’re doing what you’re doing and off you go again with renewed energy.

That’s what I’m talking about by learning to use the “moodlifter” tool. Ok so I hope this all makes some sense now or if not, just give me a call and experience the mood lift first hand :). What exactly is the technique? It’s a set of questions that you ask yourself or the other person to help them, as I call it, remember.

1. What mood are you in?
2. What game are you playing?
3. How big are you?

That’s it. These questions are repeated again and again until the mood change is achieved. You’ll need an explanation and best first hand experience to understand this a little better. It’s somewhat futile of me to write so many words trying to explain something which actually doesn’t really need an explanation. I plug my charger into the socket and use the electricity to charge my phone. I still really don’t know how electricity works, but who cares, it works whether I know it or not 🙂

So, here’s what you can do to learn this amazing mood lift technique:

• First of all, experience the power of shifting mood quickly yourself! Next time you’re in a mood and can’t snap out of it give me a call (+27829926007 mobile or spcape on skype) – if you do that I’ll give you access to a recording of Blair Singer describing how to use that technique.
• Alternatively you can read up on it in Blair Singer’s book “Little Voice Mastery”. It’s one of the 21 techniques to master your little voice he describes in there. (I have copies)
• Once you have experienced it and understood how it works you need to keep practicing.

By the way I do not in any way whatsoever claim any ownership on this techniques. I’ve learned it from Blair Singer who learned it from Alan C. Walter. SalesPartners all over the world are using it to get business owners and sales people out of a funk quickly so they can concentrate on achieving results and not be hindered by their own moods.

Me, I use it first and foremost on myself, daily, on my kid, on my clients, friends, anybody around me that could do with a somewhat better mood than they’re in 🙂

Well, what mood are you in then?