We all have beautiful lives, and yet we have days when we feel like crap. Some days are better than others. And some days are so crappy that it's hard to remember that things will turn around and we'll ever feel better. Just remember, all the great days and all the challenging days are temporary.
I acknowledge that I don't know the exact problems you are dealing with, and I can't fix or solve them. But, I can help you shift your mood. So, in today's episode of Apothecary Wisdom, I will share 25 simple tools that you can use immediately to improve your mood and shift your perspective to a more positive one.
Some suggestions start to work in less than a minute, while others may take a little longer. All of them are doable.
Whether you are feeling overwhelmed with work, stressed about money, having relationship problems, stuck at home with postpartum depression, or any number of reasons that makes you feel down in the dumps, there is something on this list that will help you feel better and shift your awareness to a more expanded state of being.
25 Simple Ways to Improve Your Mood
1-Eat Chocolate: We all know chocolate is good for us and can make us feel happy!
2-Smell Essential Oils: Anoint yourself with a few drops of essential oils on your wrist, palms, heart, womb, soles of your feet, and crown.
Rosewater is holy, Grapefruit and Orange are uplifting, Peppermint is invigorating, and Lavender is calming and relaxing.
3- Shake Your Body and Bounce Up and Down: This is a quick Qigong trick. Bounce up and down, shaking your arms, legs, butt, and back. Shake, dance, and move your whole body wildly. Bonus points if you look absolutely silly! This movement helps energize you and opens up space for something beautiful in your life. If you need more physical movement, do jumping jacks, skip rope, Try it with me.
4-Pound your Chest and Tap Your Head: Lots of research shows that pounding on our bodies and tapping specific spots helps us move through lingering emotions and unhealthy habits more quickly. Look into The Emotional Freedom Technique EFT or Tapping to learn how to do this. In the meantime, in Qigong, we tap our heads and pound our bodies. When tapping your head, move from the middle to the sides and from the front to the back.
5- Make Sounds: Everything is vibration and frequency. Making sounds helps release the stored up emotion that is trapped in your body. In Qigong, each organ has an emotion and a sound. If we want to shift our mood to one of happiness and joy, then we need to make the heart sound, which is HE. Sure, you can make soft HE sounds as you exhale. Or you can make funny goofy HE sounds like I do. This is actually one of my favorite ways to start smiling. The HE sound is the sound that monkeys make. The louder and sillier, the better!
6- Smile and Laugh: Fake it if you have to! But Laughter Therapy is a highly effective and enjoyable way to release endorphins! Watch slapstick comedy, America's Funniest Home Videos, or cute baby animal videos. I posted a panda video this week. Literally, I watched like 3 times, and it totally shifted my mood. There are some videos with mamma sea otters and their babies OMG, a total dose of oxytocin!
7- Surround Yourself With Color: Again, everything is frequency and vibration so are colors. Red can fire you up, piss you off, or turn you on. Yellows, Oranges can lift and brighten your mood. Blues and Greens soften your mood and create a calm, peaceful atmosphere.
8- Decorate Your Space: Fill your home, vehicle, and workspace with beautiful colors, smells, and sounds. Bring in fresh flowers, place up art, decorate with stones, plants, fountains, chimes, and good lighting!
9- De-Clutter: A cluttered space activates an overwhelmed mind. Clearing your desk or kitchen table can do wonders for your mood, and it only takes a few minutes.
10- Light a Candle an Incense, or Burn Sacred Herbs: Light small tea light candles or the cool ones with Mother Mary on them or Chakra candles. Incense and herbs are great triggers that put your mind immediately into a sacred and meditative space. Burn sage or cedar to clear your space from negativity and toxic thoughts. Burn sweetgrass to invite goodness and positivity to your space. There are so many other wonderful herbs and resins to burn like copal, palo santo, frankincense, and myrrh.
11-Get Present: Being fully present in the current situation, even if it is a less than ideal circumstance, helps you stay grounded and see life in its wholeness for what it is at that moment. Sometimes when our minds wander, we have beautiful daydreams that are our souls calling us to remember our wildness. Other times, our mind wanders and takes us to imaginary places that put us in a terrible mood. We get emotionally upset about conversations and situations that never happened and never will happen.
Tips To Get Present:
1- Remember, you are where your feet are. In contrast, you are not where your head just was. Stomp your feet on the ground and feel your feet connected to the floor, connected to the earth, and say I'm right here, right where my feet are.
2- Take several long slow deep breaths down to your belly- Allow yourself to soften and relax.
3- Look around your environment- Look in front of you, behind you, to the left and right. Look above and below you.
4- Engage Your Senses- What can you see, smell, taste, touch, and hear?
5- Find 5 beautiful things that you are thankful for. It is really hard to be too upset in the midst of beauty and gratitude.
If you like to be guided, I have two things for you:
1-I've recorded several guided meditations for you. I've linked them below. Some are Youtube videos, and others are Soundcloud audios.
2 - You are invited to join our Qigong sessions every Tuesday morning at 10:00 am Central time. Via zoom. No experience is necessary. Your first session is FREE! That should improve your mood :)
13- Give and Receive Hugs: Physical touch can shift our moods, hug yourself, your partner, your kids, your baby, your friend, your pet, shoot, hug a stranger, especially hug a tree! Trees are great huggers and listeners.
14- Get Cozy and Comfortable: With your favorite blanket, pillow, and soft scarves, sweaters—silky things, satin things, fluffy things, all comfort you.
15- Have an Orgasm: With your partner or alone. An oxytocin release helps improve your mood and relax your body. Need I say more?
16- Do Something Different: Change it up, be spontaneous! Eat new food, drive down a new street, listen to new music, rearrange the furniture, get creative.
17- Go Outside, Get Fresh Air, Take a Walk! Every day, get outside for at least 30 minutes. Take a walk, spend time in nature, at a park, on the trail, in your yard on your balcony. Go alone, with your family, with a friend with your dog.
18- Call an Upbeat Friend: Process your feelings or just vent with a friend who has a positive attitude or is a good listener. Sometimes we don't need someone to fix our problems. We just want them to listen to us and validate us.
19- Positive Self Talk: Look in the mirror and say something honest and positive. Talk to yourself as your higher self, best self, wisest self, or your best friend. When I was tired and stressed out at births, I'd go in the bathroom, wash my face with cold water and say something to myself like, "Girl, I'm so glad you are here! You are the exact person I need to be here right now. You know how to take care of this situation; you know what to do, what to say, and where to be to make sure everything works out for the most benevolent outcome for all parties involved!" You got this!
20- Dress Up! Look the part. If you want to be a happy, successful, loved sensual person, then dress like one. Even if you are staying home and nobody is going to see you. Dress up, if it makes you feel good, put on some lipstick, fix your hair, make your eyes pop, pick your favorite outfit. Wear clothes that make you feel beautiful just because- guess what? You are beautiful!
21- Invite the Cheerleaders! This is a different perspective than the one I just offered. When you are having a lousy day, and you find yourself in a pattern of not-so-great feeling emotions. Invite the cheerleaders. Make them silly, glittery, with rainbows; maybe they are outlandish drag queens. The crazier, the better! When you feel upset, overwhelmed, and depressed, let the Cheerleaders cheer you on! "Oh, wow, I feel like crap today!" "I love it when I feel that way. Oh, my house is trashed, I have no money, and my baby is crying! Awesome!" Now you and the Cheerleaders do your little happy dance. Imagine the cheerleaders trying to do flips, and they fall and stumble but keep smiling and cheering you on. I learned this from a woman named Carolyn Elliot in her book, the Existential Kink.
22- Change the Station: I learned this from a woman named Rachel Jane. Back to everything is frequency and vibration. Imagine your thoughts and emotions are like the stations on the radio. Back when we turned the knob to tune into the stations, you would hear static in between the channels. Then with a little fine-tuning, the channel would come in clear. Well, the stations for depression, loneliness, anger, fear, empowerment, joy, and love are always playing. You only hear the station that you are tuned into.
So if you are tuned into "Gloomy FM" you will feel gloomy, lonely, and depressed. You can adjust your station and listen to Reality FM, which is way better than Gloomy FM for sure. Reality FM is where you are when you are present. However, sometimes the stark truth or the stone-cold reality is a hard place to be. Also, keep in mind that reality is just the facts of what has already happened, not what can or could happen. For example, the number on the scale results from what you ate before, not what you're about to choose to eat. The number in your bank account results from how much money you earned or spent, not how much earning potential you have. If we want to create a new life and a new reality, then we need to tune in to Potential FM. In potential FM, you are in a place of pure potential and possibility. It is not based on reality; it's based on possibility. Potential FM helps you see a different path, a new destiny, and a new way of being versus what is happening right now.
While I believe in everything, I am saying- What I don't want you to do is to spiritually bypass your situation by simply anointing yourself with essential oils, saying positive things to yourself, and just tune it to Potential FM and not do the great work of Alchemy and of Self Actualization! Remember, we have to clean up the mess we are in and not just pretend it is not happening. In my post Self Mastery How to Navigate Intense Emotions- No Mud. No Lotus. I give you other tools to help you do "the great work" of Self-Actualization.
23- Literally Change the Station! Listen to lively upbeat, happy music to feel lighter and freer. Or listen to calm, creative classical Spanish guitar music to feel open, sensual, and relaxed.
24-Eat for Vibrancy and a Positive Mood- Eating foods and drinking nourishing herbal and adaptogenic teas will promote optimal health. Your immune system will be stronger, you will sleep better, your hormones will be balanced, and your mood more stable. Woman's Balance Herbal Tea, Chlorophyll, and Solid and Serene Relaxing Tincture help you do all of these things. Plus, making herbal teas allow you to transform the simple into the sacred.
25- Invite Distractions- Focusing on mundane chores like washing dishes, sweeping, cooking, laundry can be wonderful ways to put your mind on a practical task. Often an overwhelmed mind is a symptom of not knowing what to do or where to start. When you give your mind something to do, it helps you calm down, get focused and complete a goal. Plus, you have a nice clean space and a nourishing meal.
Bonus Points!
Do Something Nice for Someone Else! - Get out of your own way, and out of your head, and do something kind and generous for someone else just because you can!
Well, my friends, I hope you got some helpful tips to shift out of a bad mood so you can free up enough energy to do the great work that you've been called to do! I hope to see you in the next Qigong session!
Hugs and deep bows of gratitude to you and your practice!
Maria
🙏🏽
Would you like to start your day clear, energized, and with a light, joyful heart? Click here to get started!⬇️⬇️⬇️
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