An Uplifting Change in an Unpleasant Moment- Mindfulness Exercise

We all have our moments where things are just blah. Those moments could at times  go beyond blah and into a true blue moment, or even day. Things just aren’t working out, our emotions are all over the place, no matter the reason or cause we all deserve an Uplifting Change in these times of need. 

What can we do when we are feeling depressed? Well, the first more important factor is, are we even aware that we’re depressed? It can be just an upsetting piece of news, or a couple bad things happen to us, bad traffic, spilled something, food not tasting good- anything really. Whatever the negative culprit within our lives if we’re aware of it, we can change it. 

What makes you happy? What makes you smile? It can be anything at all, a favorite song, a movie, reading a certain book, or skimming some YouTube videos, everyone has their happy trigger. 

A Mindful Exercise- An Uplifting List 

What you will do is figure out what makes you happy. Anything at all, write at least ten of them down. If you can’t reach ten aim for five, and write them on a piece of paper or into your phone where you can get to them fast. Label it Uplifting Moments. 

So, now whenever you feel a moment of negativity, kinda blue like, or you just don’t feel happy take this Uplifting List and go through each one by one. The point of the exercise is to go through the actions and feelings, the emotions of happiness that each gives you, thus canceling out that negative feeling you felt. It’s re-directing your thoughts to where they should be. 

A certain song make you happy? Play the song, close your eyes and FEEL the music, how does your body react? Does your heart slow, your breathing even out? Is there less tension? 

Whenever things make us happy, our body , mind and soul relaxes. In moments of fear, anger, confusion, panic our bodies tense up and sort of spin out of control. The first step really is being aware of these slight changes, if you know you are tense you can reach for your Uplifting Moments list and start at Number 1- whatever it is, do it, listen, feel, react. Move on to the next listed. You go through your list slowly one by one until you are out of that Unpleasant Moment. 

I hope that this may help some of you in those unpleasant moments that life brings. Whether it’s depression, stress, worry or fear, we can change our thoughts for the better. Recognizing the unhappy moments is not easy, it does take practice but once we start becoming aware, it will become much easier and in turn we become much happier being able to change the path of our thoughts.