I’ve been really off-center lately. How about you?
We know that, like the common cold, emotions are contagious——even when we experience them remotely. And in the wise words of my 11-year old this morning, “the whole world feels negative right now.”
I snapped this candid pic of my two kiddos during their outdoor school-picture photo shoot. Notice the blanket prop, a symbol of comfort, next to them as they contemplate the rushing stream before them …
Actually, I’m misquoting my child. He specifically said he feels like “the whole world is a little depressed right now,” & what’s more negative than that? It’s far into that emotional continuum that I call The Sad Scale (& I reserve one separate scale for each of what I also call The 4 Corners of Feelings——mad, glad, sad & scared); in fact, it’s the furthest in on the spectrum, ranging from a 0 point, or neutral, to 10, the saddest we can be at majorly depressed. By that standard, what does “a little depressed” even feel like?
You may well have the answer to that question at the ready as you read this: Remember that emotional contagion? Just reading about this may well be bringing negative sentiments & body feelings that correlate to low moods right up into your awareness.
How about we stop & do a little BMT Index™ together right now? It’s one way to shift our state.
The BMT Index™ always starts with a question: What am I feeling right now?
And we break it down by answering specifically what we’re feeling in 3 areas:
BODY
MOODS
THOUGHTS
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To make this easier, I’ll go first. (But if you don’t want to be influenced by my feelings, let me pause to let you take this opportunity to go first, yourself.)
My BODY feels a little heavy. I have a heaviness in my chest from an allergy-induced sinus infection that has moved into my lungs as asthma (or asthma-like at least; the doctor is still out). My nasal airways are also inflamed, so breathing is hard all over. My right knee hurts a little, likely as referred pain from some ongoing foot pain of plantar fasciitis. (This is life in my 50s, after all.)
My MOODS are a little all over the map. I’ve had sadness, some hopelessness, fear, even apathy of late——as well as pockets of joy, gratitude & hopefulness. Since I’m used to living in a somewhat more contented state more often than not throughout my week, I have also felt a little overwhelmed at this starkly contrasting series of emotions. At this moment, I feel distrustful, a little sad & cautiously hopeful. (If naming your own emotions is a challenge for you——as it can certainly be for a lot of people in this day & age——you may learn a lot from my favorite mood-tracking app by Dr. Marc Brackett & his team, author of the excellent book Permission to Feel.)
My THOUGHTS are traditionally harder for me to capture, personally. Whereas a lot of my Communications Coaching clients can coherently share what they are thinking over their physical & emotional feelings, I tend to move into over-thinking & even rumination. Naming my thoughts can result in a torrent of words … similar to that ever-babbling brook pictured above! I like to try & capture one specific thought that’s causing the most of my other feelings; in this case, I’d name that thought as, “I feel powerless about the big changes in the world right now.”
Substack writer
has written a helpful article published by Forbes that not only explains how emotional contagion works——negatively, as well as positively——but also names some of those ubiquitously ominous world changes that are creeping many of us out right now, topics he also conquers in his Substack newsletter, titled Bend Reality. You guessed it: politics, global power structure, AI & even space exploration. These are big, very big topics with more far-reaching ramifications than we have ever experienced. (And, funny enough, the Forbes piece is strewn with negatively-biased clickbait ads for these very topics. Kasanoff’s words act as a guide through the landmines, luckily.)Coach Nina Amir has also written a great article, hosted on her blog where she is able to control & prevent any counter-messages that may pop up in ad placement. Setting boundaries is healthy; living in community also means we do not control the entire environment around us at all times.
If you aren’t in the mood to click all of these linked articles or don’t have time for rabbit holes today, please allow me to summarize:
Emotions are like energy signatures that we leave behind everywhere we go, invisible but lasting, like fingerprints or epithelial cells.
They may not be permanent … but they can be very hard to get rid of for a variety of reasons. As Kasanoff’s & Amir’s articles both explain, our individual awareness is the link that breaks the chain of negative emotional contagion. It lets us sweep the dust, wipe down the walls &, in effect, clean the slate, so that we can replace or transition our emotional states to be just what we want them to be. … And that’s where The BMT Index™ becomes a gold mine.
Is it too cheesy of me to remind us that the whole world is a school? What are we learning——& teaching——in this moment?
I may feel powerless in the world right now, overall, but I do have power over my interior. And that has more power than either you or I can probably imagine.