A Powerful Way To Raise Your Mood

WE RECEIVED the following note from a woman named Tufia Bair about a method to raise your mood that is practically guaranteed to be a peak experience every time:

I WAS working out at the club and looked up at the track. I noticed this slender, fit, tall lady. She was moving totally different from the others who were running or walking. She was smiling and appearing very much at peace with herself. She moved with a lithesomeness and grace.

She was wearing her earphones and it appeared she was playing very fine music which she was moving to accordingly.

I watched her for about a year before I asked her what she was doing. She told me and gave me her name at the same time; and she asked me if I was interested and would I like to learn. Her name, Klassy, fit her perfectly. She originated this movement herself called "walkdancing."

I told her I wanted very much to be a part of what she was doing.

On the following Monday we met at the club and went to the track. She had brought with her an extra earphone set so we could both listen to the mustic as we moved along together.

I was not concerned about what people might be saying and thinking. I was so tuned into the music and following her steps. It did not take me long at all to start stepping in to my own style.

Walkdancing is a let go and have fun type of experience. I was living my dream in being and feeling alive and free through the reality of self-expression. I felt as if I was moving in celebration of my life and self. Life is good!


If you're interested in raising your mood this way, you can learn more about walkdancing here: WalkDance.com.

For specific instructions about how to do it, check this out: How to WalkDance.

The songs you choose for walkdancing have to be within a certain range. If the beat is too fast, you can't keep up and if it's too slow it's not as much fun. And ideally, you would choose songs that have a positive message, so you can not only "get into" the beat, but get into the song itself (which makes peak experiences more likely). Here is a list of songs that fit all the criteria: Great Songs For WalkDancing.

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One Goal To Rule Them All

THOSE OF US trying to improve ourselves might all be after the same thing without realizing it. I think we want to be able to take in experiences the way we want to take in those experiences. If we did that, we'd feel better more often and we would act more like the people we really want to be.

How many times have you been frustrated or upset or angered by something and wish you could have the perspective you have at your better moments?

Two different people experiencing the same objective event may not respond in the same way. One might get upset, the other might instantly forgive and forget.

The difference in responses is the difference in how the different people took in the experience. Now, ideally, you would take in experiences the way you do in your better moments, right?

That's what you're really after. You want better moods, you want personal growth, you want ______ (fill in the blank). Whatever you're after, it all boils down to a single goal: You want to take in experiences better. And there are lots of ways to accomplish this.

A cognitive therapist would help you discover your own irrational beliefs and help you see those beliefs as irrational. A positive thinker might tell you to look on the bright side. A Zen master might try to help you experience the precious fleetingness of this moment. And all those different methods ultimately accomplish the same thing: They cause you to take in the events of your life in a new way. Hopefully, a better way.

We want to be better people. Nobody wants to be grumpy. Nobody wants to be rude or hurt others' feelings. And yet we have done these things.

You want to be wise and kind. You want to have a bigger perspective at times. You want to take in experiences the way you would at your very best, and you want to do that more often. The key factor is the way you interpret events.

How do you interpret — what do you do internally with — the outward event? If you interpret events well (as you do at your very best), your internal reaction is more likely to be what you want it to be, and your behavior is too.

But you don't want your better interpretation to be forced. You don't want to make yourself, through gritted teeth, look at the event in a "positive" way. You don't want to make yourself act in a way that you don't feel, either. You want to be open and relaxed and compassionate and to genuinely see things that way.

How can you get better at this? There are hundreds of ways. Thousands. One reliable long-term answer is daily meditation. Another is improving your ability to connect with people. But many tools work for different situations. One way to go about improving the way you take in events is to start with something you want to be better at dealing with and apply a method that works for that specific situation.

But the method isn't our topic here. The reason I brought this up is to point out that while we are after better moods here on Moodraiser, we're actually aiming at something more important. A better mood makes you feel better, but it also makes you respond better. It makes you more like the person you want to be.

Anyway, it's a good idea to be clear about the real goal. A better mood is the immediate, short-term goal. The more meaningful, long-term goal is becoming the person you really want to be more often. The ultimate key is the way you take in your experiences.

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Can Optimism Improve Your Mood?

IN THE LAST THIRTY YEARS, research into our thinking patterns and their influence on our moods has brought us to an understanding far beyond the positive thinking pioneers of a hundred years ago.

There’s an age-old battle between pessimists and optimists. Is the glass half-empty or half-full? Pessimists say it’s half-empty and only starry-eyed dreamers would think otherwise. Optimists say it’s half-full and you put yourself in a bad mood unnecessarily to think otherwise.

In the last forty years of research, cognitive scientists have gathered enough evidence to say who has a more legitimate point of view. A pessimist and an optimist can argue with more fact and less opinion these days. Here’s how a conversation might go...


SHERRY AND NICK WALKED along the road. It was autumn. Small gusts of wind were knocking leaves off the trees ahead of them. “I’ve never felt so sure of anything in my whole life,” said Sherry, “This new business is the opportunity I’ve been looking for!”

“You shouldn’t be too optimistic,” said Nick. He looked serious.

Sherry seemed startled out of her reverie. “Why not?”

“Because you’re just setting yourself up for failure and disappointment.” He said it as if it was the most obvious thing there was. “If you get all pumped-up and things don’t work out, you might deeply disappointed, maybe even depressed.”

“How could I get depressed?” She’s surprised. “If I hit a setback, I’ll change my approach and keep trying. There’s no such thing as failure. Only temporary setbacks. The only way I could fail is to give up, and I’m not going to give up.”

“But what if you never succeeded? What if you kept living on hope your whole life and ended up a failure? What good is optimism then?”

“Well, what’s the alternative, Nick? Think about it. What’s better than optimism? Being unhappy? Never really trying anything challenging because you’re afraid of disappointment? The alternative to optimism is pessimism and pessimism is the road to depression.”

“Maybe you don’t have to be on either extreme, Sherry. Did you ever think of that? Or do you think optimism is better than the middle-ground?”

“I know it is. Optimistic people are happier, healthier, and more successful.”

“Who says?”

“Lots of studies have been done on this. And that’s what they found out. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy: If you think you have a chance, you’ll keep trying. And if you keep trying, of course, you keep increasing your chances. But if you don’t think you have a chance in hell, you won’t even start, so of course, you can’t possibly succeed. If you hit a setback and think it’s a small, temporary thing, you’ll try to fix it or get past it. If you think it’s huge and permanent, you might just give up right there.”

Nick has been a pessimist all his life, but he never thought of himself as a pessimist. He considered himself a “realist.” This conversation is getting to him. He doesn’t know why, but it feels like a cherished religious faith is being attacked. “But,” he pleads, “if you’re too optimistic, you won’t see the bad news coming your way. Pessimistic people actually see reality more accurately. There are some studies that prove that too!”

“Your right. Pessimists see reality more accurately, are more miserable, not as healthy and don’t make as much money. Even if I never dropped into a pessimistic mood — and I do once in awhile — but even if I never thought about what could go wrong, optimism would still be the best way to go through life.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because what difference does it make if you avoid more bad stuff in life if, at the same time, you end up avoiding most of the good stuff too? And you have to admit, if you aren’t happy, healthy or successful, you’ve missed most of the good stuff in life. It’s kind of a second-rate booby-prize to say, “Yes, but I see things more accurately.”

They walked on in silence for a long time. A leaf floated gently down and landed on Nick’s shoulder, balanced there for a second, and fell behind him. He never noticed. Finally he said, “Maybe you have a point. But I don’t think I could become optimistic. I’ve been pessimistic my whole life. I don’t think I could change.”

“That’s kind of pessimistic of you, isn’t it?” says Sherry, laughing.

Nick gets the irony of it and smiles. “I guess that could become one of those self-fulfilling prophecies,” he says.

“Sounds like it to me,” says Sherry, putting her arm over his shoulder.

“Maybe I should just give it a try anyway.”

“That’s the spirit!”

“Hey, you know what? I feel a little better already!”

They walk off into the sunset. Music rises to inspirational tones. Nick and Sherry both feel confident that things are going to start getting better from here on out.

The End.

OPTIMISM WORKS. It’s a practical, realistic approach to dealing with life's inevitable setbacks. It works better than pessimism. The facts are in. Optimism won.

Read more: Interview On Optimism

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