Just being aware of something can make a tremendous difference. Have you ever felt quite upbeat and then spent time with somebody who is down trodden? Probably after a certain amount of that time spent, your upbeat mood floats away and is exchanged by their similar feelings of sadness and negativity. On the other side we’ve all had the experience of feeling like “life just a f****d us”, and instead we spent time with someone who sees life with a huge percentage of positivity. What happens then? Usually we leave feeling like we wrapped ourselves up in that terrific feeling and took it home. These feelings are contagious. It has been written that emotion is genetically contagious, that it was helpful to our ancestors, enabling them to understand each other in a time before verbal communication was possible. The trick is to strengthen our ability to withstand or avoid the sad black moods that others around us might be going through and perhaps counter with a laugh or a smile that the “sad one” can see. If you find yourself being taken over by someone else’s sad emotions, do it briefly and then give yourself space. Of course there are definitely events in our lives that will make us extraordinarily sad…no doubt about it. We must go through those times. We will experience them. But even during the times that you’re at your saddest you probably would prefer to have those around you at that time who aren’t as unhappy as you are. More unhappy people will not make the situation any better. What do you think? Take a look at the happy face that I posted alongside this blog. This is not just any happy face. This is the face of my daughter when she was a year old. She is on her way to her 33rd birthday. This picture, and the occasion makes me really happy. Happy for many reasons-if you’ve read my blog or my bio, you may understand the level of my feeling of ecstasy.
I’d love to hear your comments, questions, experiences with transmittable emotions.