Negative moods: how to take advantage of them?

Not having moods it amounts to putting our humanity in brackets. In fact, it is impossible. We can suppress them, hide them, reject them…, but we will be rejecting our humanity, depriving ourselves of something that is surely the most valuable thing it gives us: interiority and nuance.

If we stay too far away from themwhat makes us sensitive humans will disappear. Our lives will be emptyits internal sources will dry up, we will become “dead souls”, the title of the novel by the Russian writer Nikolai Gogol.

Moods give density to our existence. In addition, all moods -positive and negative- They have an adaptive function.

positive moods they facilitate the expansion of our gaze on the world, they provide us with openness, relaxation, rapprochement, confidence and creativity. When we are happy, we feel safe, we enjoy ourselves, we are willing to look and admire what surrounds us.negative moodsFor their part, they move us to be vigilant, to withdraw, to be prudent and persevering, to focus on what seems dangerous or problematic to us.

If we look around us with trepidation and fear, we will not do it with an open spirit and ready to welcome beauty or novelty, but with a withdrawn spirit and concentrated on a single objective: to know if there is a danger or not. The rest do not interest us. We watch the world in its details, instead of contemplating it in its beauty.

Moods and creativity: do you have to suffer to create?

Various studies have shown that having been depressed can increase creativity; but with an important condition: not to be in the present; otherwise, there is no creativity at all. Generally, positive moods seem more conducive to creativity in daily life.

There is the idea that negative moods favor creativity, that well-being numbs and suffering stimulates. But is it that simple?

This was demonstrated by an amusing study in which a group of volunteers played a simple game consisting of helping a mouse to get out of a maze. The volunteers were divided into two groups. The motivation of the first was to get the mouse out of the maze to save him from an owl who wanted to eat him. The second group had to help the mouse to reach a piece of cheese.

In a later test, volunteers in the owl group were less creative –almost 50% less– than those in the cheese group.

Experiencing a slightly negative mood (run away and be careful), even in such a minimal way, altered rear capacity to create original things. While inducing mildly positive moods (helping the mouse enjoy its cheese) favored creativity.

Regardless of whether they make us more or less creative, it is important to accept and love absolutely all our moods.

Buddhism teaches us that There are two kinds of emotions: those that increase peace of mind and those that decrease it. Similarly, a state of mind is a problem when, instead of adding, it subtracts from our balance and wealth.

Actually, it’s all about positivity or negativity: there are unhealthy joys, pleasures and toxic joys, which impoverish in the long term; the pleasure of revenge, that of domination or that of Schadenfreude, that pleasure of seeing others fail, a mixture of joy and guilt; and perhaps also those states of mind linked to pride, so easily contaminated by the instinct of domination and superiority.

On the contrary, there are healthy sufferings that open our eyes to certain realities, such as those that have to do with compassion – feeling concerned and united with the suffering of others. Sufferings that could be the antechamber of a form of liberation from all sufferings.

Buddhism speaks of renunciation or the spirit of emergency: “Feel deeply to what extent we are vulnerable to suffering” –explains the Dalai Lama—, “and once this absolute vulnerability has been verified (…) we can envision the possibility that our spirit can free itself from it”. This disenchanted state it is the one that will allow, according to Buddhist thinkers, to be aware of the futility of placing our values ​​in the world of material illusions, “in the deceitful attachment to things”.

The very understandable ideal of permanent positive moods is therefore neither realistic nor desirable: the shadow is necessary to give depth to the light. Shadows beautify the day, and that is why the evening or morning lights are often more beautiful and subtle than those of high noon. Is the night beautiful too? Yes, but only because we know that it will be dawn soon.

The importance of gray

Although we usually make the distinction between negative and positive, moods are more subtle and tend to be mixed, the pleasant elements are mixed with painful tonalities. Victor Hugo said: “Melancholy is the happiness of being sad.”

In the nostalgiathat mixture is clearly decipherable: the melancholic regret that we feel for something from the past participates both in sweetness –pleasant memories– and in pain –because it is already something in the past–. Remembering, smiling and, nevertheless, suffering with the memory… Nostalgia is pleasant enough for us to feel the desire to surrender to it, to visit it frequently. In it, the pinch of sadness plays the same role as salt on a plate.

The disappointment it is also a mixed mood. It is based on the memory of a trust granted, pleasant in principle –because trust does us good, it means that we have reliable ties–, although it is a Memory contaminated by what has caused the disappointment –the fault or the betrayal–. Thus appears, after the bitterness, the shudder: the disappointment it is not only emotional suffering but also a questioning of our vision of the world. We had confidence, but it is no longer possible.

Paradoxically, disappointment usually has a bittersweet taste since, in a certain way, it is a painful satisfaction, a certainty – and certainties satisfy us more than doubts – that we should have foreseen the worst.

Now that we know more about moods in general, why should we be interested in our own? Well, because the soul is defined as “what animates sentient beings”, that is, living beings. It allows us to go beyond our intelligence, or at least in another direction. In fact, moods increase our intelligence of life: are the result of the “reception” of the world, at a level of detail.

So, small events They do not provoke strong emotions, but induce moods. Just think what happens to us when we see a child crying or a couple arguing… These are scenes that can make us melancholy, without having an impact on our day or our existence. They have not had a tangible reach, but inside us they continue to float… Who can know where they will lead us?