We’ve all been there.
Some of you may there right now.
Feeling overwhelmed and ‘in a rut’, ‘in a mood’ or ‘in a funk’.
It can happen in the morning as you drag yourself out of bed.
It can happen during bad traffic.
It can happen when you are given bad news.
Shifting out of overwhelming negative thoughts and feelings can be difficult. However, if you can master this skill, your satisfaction and enjoyment of life will be forever improved.
I have recently focused on developing this very skill in myself.
GRATITUDE.
Many people speak of it. But, I have discovered an extra element to gratitude that makes it work particularly well in my life.
Before I share the extra element that helps me shift out of a funky mood, and squash feelings that don’t serve me, please read the following powerful quote on gratitude by American author, Melody Beattie.
“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.”
THE EXTRA ELEMENT: GRATITUDE OVERWHELM
JPPS co-founder, Charles Kovess, espouses that there is no situation or event that delivers only drawbacks; he says that every situation or event has equal numbers of benefits as it does drawbacks. Using this insight, benefits can be identified for whatever overwhelming negative situation is before you.
For example, dragging yourself out of bed and begrudging going to work. The drawbacks may be:
“I’m tired and feel uninspired.”
“I’ve got so many chores to get done and have no personal time.”
“I wish I had a different job.”
The benefits of the same situation may be:
“I am so grateful to have a job so I can have money to pay my rent/mortgage, food, clothing.”
“I am so grateful that I am able-bodied so I can work.”
“I am so grateful that I got to sleep in this warm and cosy house and bed.”
The extra element of Gratitude Overwhelm is when you are feeling negative overwhelm about any given situation, identify the aspects of that situation for which you can feel grateful. Then continue to build up those aspects of gratitude and keep adding to the gratitude list until you overwhelm your negative thoughts and feelings. Make your gratitude grow and grow until the negative thoughts and feelings become overwhelmingly insignificant and you have squashed them into oblivion.
I started with Gratitude Overwhelm because I found that in some situations when the event that I was feeling negative about was substantial, simply identifying a couple of aspects for which to be grateful didn’t shift my mood. When I started to ramp up the number of aspects to be grateful for and the intensity of my gratitude, I found it easy to shift my mood to be positive, happy and optimistic.
My suggestion to you next time you feel overwhelm and in a rut, in a mood or in a funk, is to practice this new skill of Gratitude Overwhelm and overwhelm and squash your negative thoughts. It’s a special type of overwhelm that can reform your satisfaction and enjoyment of life.