During the slow days of winter, I am blessed to live a life that I can dearly appreciate. When I take the time to look around that is. And how often is that? Well, if I’m being honest, I’m not always seeing the beauty in my life. I certainly have my moments, moments of frustration and hurting and seeing the world as an enemy. This might sound extreme, but it really isn’t. Just think of the last bad day you had, chances are things just went from “bad to worse.” And everyone was stacked against you… do you remember a day like this?

Well, truthfully what happens is that when we start to go into a nasty place, a grumpy stay away from me today kind of place, when we are engaging our Stress Response, the sympathetic nervous system, we are genetically programmed to keep seeing everything around us as dangerous. That means that the email we get from our co-worker seems a lot smarmy-er when we are in a bad mood. It means that our spouses “just don’t understand” us more when we are in a bad mood. It means, that unless we have the wherewithal to notice this is happening, we are most likely going to be in a crap mood all day long and maybe all month long, and maybe all year.

The really amazing thing about our species is: while we have an unconscious nervous system that will influence our actions and moods, we also have consciousness. Because we are conscious, we can notice what’s happening during our personal downward spiral and we can turn things around. We can stop, take a deep breath, take our dog for a walk, or whatever it is that gets your feel-good juices flowing. And the good news is, once we are feeling good, we are genetically pre-dispositioned to keep feeling good.

So, take a deep breath and look around you, notice all of the things in your life that make you happy. If you have trouble noticing, you may need to do a little space-clearing or a little people-clearing, or you may just need to take a walk with a dog as happy as Cody. I can say from experience, it will put you in a pretty good mood.