It is that time of year again when stress is inevitable. You are swamped with work and too exhausted to get it done. On top of that, you may have other personal matters distracting you. There you are feeling a certain mood but trying to convince yourself that you are feeling a completely different way. You force a smile when something inside you is killing you. Around others, you tell yourself that nothing is wrong. Simply change your mindset, and everything will be okay again.
To some extent, this should be how you respond to bad moods. You should lie to yourself and tell yourself that you are happy. Tell yourself that life is good and will keep getting better. Trying to convince yourself constantly that you are happy will cause you to start to believe it. You will begin to feel a change in your emotions, and things won’t seem as bad as you once thought they were.
Here comes the downside: while lying to yourself can be effective, keep in mind that it does not always work. Sometimes the emotions you are feeling are too strong to wipe away by simply saying over and over, “I’m fine.” The hardest of times cannot magically disappear with a forced smile or a fake laugh. While it may momentarily cheer you up, those rough emotions can come back to haunt you.
As hard as it is, sometimes you just need to come to terms with how you’re feeling. For some people, dealing with your emotions means talking about it with others. Even saying the words out loud that explain your struggle will relieve you, if only a little bit. Keeping it bottled up inside can tear you apart. However, other people find that it is best to keep things to themselves. Being left alone with your thoughts can be another way of coping with something that is too hard to express in words. No matter what, accepting hardship is better than living in denial.
Keep in mind that you are not the only one struggling. Others share the same emotions that you are feeling, even though completely different reasons might have caused them. While you may not be comfortable sharing what the cause of your bad mood was, keep in mind that it is okay to express sorrow or rage or anxiety. You do not need to act like everything in your life is perfect because that is never the case.
Embracing certain feelings is just a part of life, and lying to yourself about your feelings leaves you in a state of denial. So, if you find that lying to yourself failed, simply allow yourself to be consumed by your feelings. Let the emotions swallow you up and spit you back out into the world once they are done with you. As much as it may seem impossible, those feelings do leave you. You will move on feeling so much stronger knowing that you did everything you could to fight back against the sour emotions that once dragged you down.
