Moods or emotions: what differentiates them and what influences us more

What are moods? well everything what we become aware of when we come out of our mental automatism; that is to say, when we stop acting or reflecting and limit ourselves to simply feeling.

We could define moods as mental contents – conscious or unconscious – in which body states, subtle emotions and automatic thoughts are mixed.

The role they play and its influence on who we are and what we do it is immense and yet we pay little attention to it. But we can approach them, because they offer us very valuable information; just need to stop: stop working, stop running, stop cursing the world…

Our moods are always there, like background noise, but to perceive them it is necessary to stop and listen; as if we were walking through the forest and stopped to listen: we would perceive, then, the sound of the wind, the sound of the trees moving, the chirping of the birds…

Moods and emotions: differences and how they influence

Now that we know what a state of mind is, we can ask ourselves what distinguishes them from an emotion. The answer might be that mood is a kind of evolved and civilized cousin of emotions that have become more outdated; are, so to speak, subtle emotionsas opposed to the great emotions called “primary” or elemental.

Let’s put some examples.

The anger would be an emotion that would correspond to the mood of the resentment or in a bad mood. fearan emotion, gives rise to a state of mind concern or worry. sadness translates into that state of mind that we know as melancholia or anguish. The shame translates to culpability.The happinessin humor…

Moods, unlike primary emotions, are less intense, but more enduring and influential; They may seem weak, discreet, easy to forget, but we underestimate their power and influence, capable of ruining our day…

Moods do not necessarily have a precise object such as emotions, which does not imply that they lack a cause, but rather that it is not so obvious. In general, emotions are a “response” to something that “comes” to us from outside; moods, on the other hand, They can also come from within, be self-produced.

Emotions radicalize and simplify our perception of events; moods complicate it, but make it more subtle. Emotions drive us towards external action, and moods, first of all, towards internal reflection.

Emotions are “social agitators” that modify our relationship with others and with the world; moods are, rather, “internal agitators” that modify our relationship with ourselves and our vision of the world –which can drive us to change many things, but in a slower way–.

Moods can persevere in the wake of strong emotions (the state in which we find ourselves after a great joy or a great disappointment). And they can also represent the terrain that facilitates them.: slowness, which favors the strokes of sadness and melancholy; the resentment that waves of anger prepare; the panic that breaks out on a background of anxiety.

First come the gray clouds and then the storm breaks… But the essential of our mental meteorology is based more on moods: after all, we spend little time under the influence of anger and much more under the influence of our irritations. More time with nostalgia than with true despair. More time with concerns than with major panic attacks…

How to learn to listen to our emotions?

Stop to listen to the murmur of our interior it is usually enough at the beginning; If we want to go further, it will be necessary for us to learn to listen and observe our moods better, using, for example, the meditation.

Zen meditation, precisely, offers us a beautiful metaphor. We can observe our moods by staying close to them, like a hiker entering a waterfall. and remains sheltered, between the rock and the water that falls hard, trembling a little, a little wet too, but protected and in a privileged place.

One of the goals of meditation called “mindfulness” is precisely to step aside for a moment and see the moods pass, break them down, understand them… but without trying to stop their flow. Can anyone stop the water from a waterfall?