Mood Control From Rapture To Rage

Most people will agree that they all experience times in their lives when they are ‘out of control” on one level or another.  When driving, your limits of what is Legal is being controlled by the officiating bodies that set and enforce speed limits.  True you can control weather or not you obey that law, but the law itself and weather you are breaking that law or not is outside of your control.  It is external.

 

It is unfortunate that we are unable to control out external environments to suit ourselves, except of course that if we can do it others would be able to as well and we would often find ourselves saying doing or acting in ways that were out of what we wanted as others attempted to control THEIR external worlds, us included.  Or else we would all have to become hermits.

What we can control is out internal states and our reactions to what is going on around us outside and while most people will agree with this statement many also find that it is easier said than done.

On my web site, hypnodean.com I offer a lot of self hypnotic audio tapes designed to help people deal with moods.  My Road Rage tape is perfect for those with ANY anger issues.  Reclaiming the Holidays and Happiness From Within are good tools to help you find a sense of joy again in your life.  Any basic self hypnosis program will also help you to gain control over your moods in a way that is beneficial. BUT…..  ah there is always a “but”…. You have to WANT TO.

Many people experience sadness, rage, depression every day and very few will accept when they are mired in the experience that it is a CHOICE.  On various levels they choose to depress, they choose to rage, they choose to sadden.  The book Choice Theory goes in to greater detail about this- and I recommend it as advanced reading for those who want to explore the concept further.

Recently this was sent home to me by hearing second hand about a woman who became so enraged at her baby, that she shook the baby.  It seemed no matter what the woman did, the baby would not stop crying.  The lady was at her wits end.  She was stressed and angry about other things in her life, and her financial struggles at the time, and she finally “couldn’t take it” and ‘snapped.’ She shook the baby, HARD.  Practically to death and possibly to injuries that have not yet been discovered.

Afterward, her justification was, “Well what else was I supposed to do.”  So often this is the case with people who allow their anger to take them to a place of violence- weather it be a baby or beating their wife. One this is certain…  Millions of other people have found themselves in the same circumstances, and NOT resorted to an act of violence against another living creature- so what makes them different?

Another story is about a man who found himself alone yet again on his birthday, and took it as an opportunity to replay behavior which he had seen his father play out before him which involved drinking to excess and ending up lost in a  drunken stupor.  The next day, the problems were still there and he had still been alone on his birthday. Chances are, making no other changes in his life, he will look forward to playing out the same drama the following year.

Other people EMBRACE being alone, and would take it as an opportunity to pamper themselves and relax with a  free day. Millions of other people have found themselves in the same circumstances, and NOT resorted to poisoning their body with mass quantities of alcohol- so what makes them different?

What makes the subjects of these two metaphoric examples different from the millions of others is learned behavior, and choice.

When you identify an unacceptable emotion, or reaction to an emotion, such as hitting a person or animal in anger, or wallowing in self destructive depression- the real thing to ask is HOW (that is what STEPS have I gone through) did I get to this point.  Almost every behavior is what we call a TOTE.  This stands for Trigger, operate, test, Exit.

For every behavior there is a trigger, something that initiates the behavior.  I feel a hunger in my tummy and this triggers me thinking about eating.  Next there is an Operation- something we do to try and satisfy the trigger.  Some people use Sadness as a trigger to eat, rather than a feeling of hunger.  What happens then is they perform the operation of eating to try and satisfy their sadness.  The problem with that is the next step in the TOTE, the TEST…. Once you perform an operation, you unconsciously perform a “test” to evaluate weather or not the trigger is still present.  If it is, you will either continue with the operation until the trigger goes way, or you MAY (if you are more versatile than most0 try some other operation.

For the person who eats because they are sad, they end up gaining a LOT of weight because FOOD does not help sadness. Food is fuel for the body. The person who eats because they are hungry, stops eating when the hunger has been satisfied, and moves on to the last step in the TOTE… the Exit.  You Exit the experience.

In the typical anger or rage situation something triggers a physical and emotional response, which to that person equates with anger. Some people would carry out the operation of removing themselves, getting calm and quiet or discussing things,  others perform the operation of hitting or violent acts.  The latter however, though it may be effective to removing one from the immediate trigger for the anger, it ultimately has many other negative ramifications. Later, Remorse may TRIGGER an Operation to apologize, but  as this is a different trigger than the anger, it really has no bearing on how the person will act if the same trigger activates anger again.  If they commit and act of violence once, and it worked at that instant (regardless of later ramifications) the person is likely to use the act of violence again in the future if the trigger is activated.

Most every Trigger has a Visual, Auditory and Kinesthetic component.  That is, something you see, something you hear (externally or in self talk) and something you feel either physically or emotionally.  The first step to changing an unwanted mood extreme or behavior is to reviewing the trigger and ALL THREE of those components.

Once you have done that, you need to select consciously or unconsciously 10 or more ALTERNATIVE operations to carry out in that situation.  A good idea before doing that is to ask yourself what is the Trigger wanting you to accomplish.  If the trigger is trying to get you to stop whatever made you angry, and bearing in mind that ultimately you have no control over anyone but yourself, you can remove yourself from the area and accomplish the same thing.  You could Take a deep breath, stop all movement and count.  There are many options in any given “daemon” state. (A Daemon state is not necessarily a bad thing, it is a state where instantaneous unconscious thinking and action are involved- so states of religious rapture would also be Daemon States.)

There are numerous articles on my hypnodean web site about changing behaviors, and you can apply any of those, such as editing tapes, or 6 step reframe, to help you implement or program in this new reaction.  In essence the OLD trigger remains the same, but now is encouraged to trigger a new, more acceptable operation.

If more people would take the time to do this, there would be less violence, sadness and pain in our societies. 

ENJOY!