Moods: An Opportunity for Human Evolution Part II

By Alan Sieler

Moods and counter moods

Listening to a current affairs program the other, I heard a commentator say, “The state of the world at the moment does not offer much in the way of hope and optimism.” On the surface, this might seem like a reasonable thing to say and we could readily nod our heads in agreement. But unfortunately, the language of this sentence contains a trap, for it implies that being able to experience hope and optimism is dependent on what is happening in the world, and we have little or no say in the moods that we are experiencing. Furthermore, the statement itself is indicative of a very sneaky mood that will keep us emotionally trapped, which will be outlined later in the article.

Without wanting to move into “preacher” mode, the good news for all humans is that we do not have to be the emotional victims of what is happening in the world. This is certainly not to suggest that we will be emotionally unaffected by what is going on around us. However, we are not condemned to suffer from prolonged unhelpful ways of being emotionally. Martin Heidegger, the German philosopher mentioned in the Part I who highlighted the importance of moods, wrote that although we can never be free of moods, we can learn to “master” our moods by adopting what he called “counter moods”. 

One important expression in Ontological Coaching is that we are not necessarily responsible for the moods we find ourselves in, but we are responsible for deciding how useful the mood is, how long we stay in it and how we will be responsible to shift to another more helpful mood. Certainly, we all find ourselves in moods we don't like from time to time, and sometimes it can be useful to let the mood “play itself out” rather than try and “fix it”. It also can be helpful to think of (i) managing, rather than mastering, moods and (ii) that managing moods involves transitioning from one mood to another.

Mood transition

Heidegger’s notion of mastering moods does not mean having complete control over our moods, like being able to press a button and turn a machine on and off. Humans are living systems, not mechanical entities and we are more complex than machines. Although we cannot have complete control of our moods, we have the capacity to manage them. 

Managing moods involves means taking the responsibility to transition from less resourceful to more resourceful moods. This is an essential part of moving to a fundamentally different meaning of self and the world and a higher self-authoring mode of consciousness. It is important to emphasise that moods are not good or bad in themselves; what counts is how helpful they are in supporting us to live well and create a desired future. Sometimes it can be helpful, for example, to remain with sadness or anger because they could be pointing to some important learning.

In Part III next month, we will go into detail about how we can engage in mood transition. Before we can do that, it is vital that we are clear about the moods we find ourselves that aren’t helpful, and that we understand the nature of these moods and how they affect us. An important expression in Ontological Coaching is that “we cannot change what we do not observe”. Being able to observe our own moods, as well as social or collective moods, is the first step in change and moving towards a self-authoring mode of consciousness.

Recognising moods

Being able to name moods can be very helpful. We can be experiencing moods and not realise it. If we imagine that life is a territory to be navigated, then not being aware of moods can be like having a map that lacks vital information, not allowing us the effectively navigate our desired path of life. 

While there are many, many moods that humans experience, there seem to be a commonly occurring set of moods, some which can be very resourceful and some can significantly limit our possibilities for engaging constructively with life. When we observe the responses many us have to what is reported about national and world events, and the tone of how people are communicating on social media, at least three key moods seem to prevail: 

• intense continuing anger;

• persistent fearfulness and anxiety; and

• despair at what seems to be the current state of the world

One interesting aspect of moods is that we do not experience them one at a time – we can experience two or more moods simultaneously and without realising it, become trapped in multiple moods, which can be referred to as a “mood space”.

Three aspects of life that cannot be avoided

Just as death and taxes cannot be avoided, there are also three facets of life we inevitably experience and cannot be avoided that play a significant role in moods. These are:

• Circumstances that we do not have immediate control over, which have come about through the decisions of those with power and authority to determine what will and will not happen; sometimes these are favourable and other times we strongly disagree, for example, e.g. organisational restructure, unpopular new laws, witnessing harmful and disrespectful treatment of others. It can be as if life continually confronts us with such circumstances.

• Ever-present uncertainty, associated with ongoing and unpredictable change that may have strong negative effects. We know that life on the planet has been in a continual state of change, but contemporary life can feel like change is relentless and constantly disruptive, threatening to significantly destabilise the possibility of living well.

• That life is full of possibilities and opportunities, which can range from deciding whether you will brush your teeth or not, the clothes you will buy and wear, who will be your friends and if you will apply for a job. The philosopher Heidegger strongly contended that each person is a possibility – for themselves, others and the world at large.

These three facets can be regarded as “existential givens” – an inevitable part of being human. One of our continual life challenges is how we position ourselves in relation to these three facets of life because this can play a significant role in our moods. 

How we face life

Life continually presents us with choices. Sometimes our own life circumstances will mean we have a limited range of choices, and other times we may have an expansive range. Sometimes we make choices in awareness (consciously), and other times we make choices out of awareness. But whatever we do, we have always made a choice.

One of our most significant areas of choice is how we will respond to: (i) circumstances we do not agree with (which can include intense disagreement); (ii) the continual presence of uncertainty that can seem persistently threatening; and (iii) what we will genuinely regard as possible.

Ultimately, there are two choices available to us in how we will face these three unavoidable facets of life – we can accept (which does not mean agree) and we can oppose. This may sound ridiculously simplistic and naïve, however it is a crucial aspect of the human condition. What is so crucial about it is that the choices we make in relation to these three facets of life are hugely influential in the moods we live from.

Some moods associated with opposing

It is important to emphasise that opposing some or all of the three facets of life that have been outlined is legitimate. A key question to be asked is, “How helpful is it to oppose in terms of the life you want to create for yourself and the contribution you want to make to society?” Opposing can be helpful but may have a use-by-date when it becomes ineffective and counter-productive.

There seem to be three common moods that are associated with opposing:

• Opposing what you do not have the power and authority to change at the moment – prolonged, simmering anger that is referred to as resentment.

• Opposing uncertainty (what you cannot know for sure or predict with certainty) and urgently wanting things to be settled, secure and safe is referred to as anxiety.

• Opposing possibility and opportunity, giving up and dismissing how things could be better and what you could do to contribute to this, is referred to as resignation.

It is essential to point out that most times people are not aware they are in one or more of these moods, yet it or they could be influencing their lives for the worst, over and over again. It is worth looking at the nature of each of these moods and how they can affect us, quite often severely limiting how we can participate in life. Understanding the moods is a vital process for recognising them as a first step to transitioning from them to more resourceful moods. 

Resentment

This mood is persistent background anger that is not always obvious but is subtly revealed in attitude and language. The essence of this mood is feeling unfairly and unjustly treated, with the anger arising from this experience not being resolved and lingering as an emotional legacy. It can occur through significant events (such as being suddenly being told you are no longer employed) or a repeated series of events (constantly being criticised and denigrated). Resentment also occurs socially through systemic social injustice, such as racial and ethnic prejudice and repression of human rights. Another example of felt social injustice can be the growing income disparity that has been occurring for years and the accrual and wealth and power to a minute percentage of the population. 

In addition to resentment intensely holding the strong opinion of unfairness and injustice, it can influence behaviour in unhelpful ways. This is because the predisposition for action (how a mood shapes behaviour) is towards punishment and revenge – to strike out and strike back, to get even. Perfectly understandable in one-off incident, but corrosive if this attitude is almost permanently present. 

It is important to emphasise that anger is an important emotion, indicating a likely need to take care of ourselves and to take up a cause for justice. At a personal level this could be to take care of our dignity if we have felt unjustifiably publicly humiliated and at the social level with systemic denial of the right of opportunity to participate in society. Intense anger can provide the spark for action and potential improvement. However, there is a risk that if anger remains too long it becomes counter-productive because a vengeful attitude can develop, with the focus can be on retribution and doing harm (mentally, emotionally and physically).

Unfortunately, continually living in this mood is one way that we create and perpetuate our own suffering and ineffectiveness, as is also the case with anxiety and resignation.

Anxiety

Paradoxically, in an increasingly affluent world anxiety is a global mood that has socially been on the rise since the early 1980’s. In nations whose populations have had the good fortune to experience growing material and financial wealth some commentators have taken on the expression, “diseases of affluence” to indicate the paradoxical growth in mental, emotional and physical ailments. The more we acquire, the more we have to lose and we can become vulnerable to uncertainty.

While it is important to be anxious and fearful at times in order to take care of ourselves, it is not healthy to be constantly living in fear, which is a mood of anxiety. In this mood we are likely to be permanently “on guard”, fearful that there are many damaging threats waiting to harm us. Consequently, we are continually oriented to protection. In this mood we live in constant insecurity, letting our imagination conjure up worst-case scenarios that we need to be prepared for and not caught by surprise. In other words, it is imperative to be constantly vigilant, which can be energy-sapping, put us on edge, sometimes moving us towards overlapping with resentment. Stike first before someone else gets in first to damage to you is part of this mood.

There is a severely limiting self-perception that is an integral part of this mood, and that is that if the worst happens (of which there is a high probability), we, individually and collectively, do not have the ability to deal with this. Things will get out of hand, we will be overwhelmed, and likely not recover because in some way we will be irreparably damaged. It could be that we are constantly fearful for our mental and emotional survival  and physically losing what we have.

Not surprisingly, a mood of anxiety tends to go hand-in-glove with low self-confidence or low self-esteem, and self-doubt. An emotional life that is dominated by this mood can be debilitating and crush possibilities of living a better life, dowsing any existing flame of creativity. 

You may begin to see that each mood can be thought of as an energy system and a way being. Part of the negative power of moods is that they are not always obvious – they have been described as covert conversations of victimhood, restricting our sense of agency. The presence of moods can be heard in the language that is used, voice tonality as well as postural arrangement and muscle tension – it is a matter of knowing what to listen and look for as reliable indicators of moods. The next mood specialises in being difficult to detect.

Resignation

This is the sneaky mood that was mentioned in the first paragraph. It is a mood that tries to trick us into thinking that we are not in this particular mood. Although it may seem weird, this mood is an expert at denying possibility. It is a mood that snuffs out hope and puts the lid on enthusiasm. The way it operates is that it recognises possibility and potential opportunity, but then very cleverly and surreptitiously denies them. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it?

The denial of possibility can be heard in such expressions as, “That won’t work”, “We have tried that before”, “What’s the point, it won’t make any difference” and the use of the word “but” – “That’s a good idea, but …” Part of this mood is a stance that life would be so much better if the rest of the world got its act together. Referring to the quote at the beginning of the article – the world should offer hope.

The sneaky aspect of this mood is that it disguises its opposition to possibility as stories, explanations and excuses, which may seem plausible on the surface and sound sophisticated, but are nothing more than distraction from a deep commitment to do nothing that could contribute to helping things improve. (This is sometimes called intelligent cynicism, cynical pessimism and arrogance.) in summary, this is a mood that continually distracts and deflects from a conversation about possibility – that things could actually be different.

Closing comments

The intensity of emotional experience of the moods of resentment, anxiety and resignation can vary from being deeply felt to being present in a mild form. Intense forms of resentment are rage, fury and hatred; for anxiety it is dread, panic, foreboding; and for resignation it is despair, hopelessness, doom and gloom, arrogant dismissiveness towards others and even self-loathing.  When these moods are collectively prominent, the scope for collective action to create improvements can be severely limited. 

In closing, it is worth briefly mentioning two other general moods that seem to be prevalent in today’s world, that are associated with the three moods that have been outlined. One is called “unsettlement”, which is the constant experience of not feeling sufficiently “at home” in our being, life circumstances and how the future will unfold. Being agitated, on edge and continually worrying is associated with this mood. The other mood is “hysterical industriousness”, which you can read about at https://www.ontologicalcoaching.com.au/post/the-mood-of-hysterical-industriousness. Additional moods that can be prevalent are those associated with loss – grief and sadness – which typically accompany disruption and upheaval (personal and social).

Moods are emotional habits that we have learned. Unfortunately, our education systems have not supported us to recognise moods and how we do not have to be the victims of them. We can learn how to have agency in our emotional world and not rely on the world “doing the right thing” for us. In Part III next month we will look at the power of acceptance, in contrast to opposing, and the moods associated with this, as well as ways to transition towards more resourceful moods. 

In the meantime, some ways of beginning to shift from unhelpful moods are any combination of the following: slow and/or vigorous physical activity (walking, dancing, running, gym); listening to favourite music (upbeat and soothing); engaging in a hobby or favourite activity (something you have a passion for); taking yourself to nature (a suburban park, a bush or forest reserve, a national park, a lake, a beach); fragrances; reading a novel; positively stimulating conversations with good friends.

Alan Sieler is the Director of Ontological Coaching Institute. He has been running Ontological Coach Training programs since 1996, initially in Australia and gradually spreading to Asia, South Africa, Europe & UK and the USA. Alan is the author of the globally acclaimed four volume series of Coaching to the Human Soul: Ontological Coaching and Deep Change. https://www.ontologicalcoaching.com.au/booksbyalan