The Cause Of Mood Swings

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What Is The Cause Of Mood Swings?

What is the cause of Mood Swings?

And why do people's experiences and emotions go up and down like a rollercoaster seemingly beyond their control.

The thing is that just as a lamp needs electricity, humans need a source of energy. It is this need to find sources of energy that drives all of our activities. Mostly we end up just chasing opportunistically whatever seems to have the best potential. As a result we focus our attention haphazardly. This is what causes us to diffuse our power.

Our energy and enthusiasm levels depend on our biochemistry. Excitement is created by having adrenaline coursing through your veins. Your biochemistry can be affected by drugs or environment, but most persistently it is determined by your thoughts.

To apply this concept lets look at what the average person goes through in a day.

They’ll wake up in the dark through an alarm clock. This means that bio-chemically the body is still asleep. Naturally we are designed to wake up when sunlight excites the pituitary glands to release hormones. Our body’s bio-chemistry changes from the state of sleep to awake and alert.

So since we wake up drowsy we drink coffee to kick-start our system. This causes a high and then a low. Draining energy long term to get energy short term.

Then we interact with those around us. We look at their mood, which determines how we act. Their mood is important to us because it determines the energy we draw from that person. Mostly we'll adapt our behaviour to get try to change the mood of the other person - to get the energy we're seeking from them. Draining energy long term to get energy short term.

Then they go into a job that makes demands that may not fit into Who They Are. They do this because they believe they need it to survive. Money equals a form of energy, so they get energy, but at a high cost of their own energy.

The various conflicts and compromises of many people working together creates more energy drain. But people will gladly give up their energy in changing the way that they act; if they think it will gain them energy through praise, attention, recognition etc.

Then they go home and drain their energy worrying about Friends and Family. They'll sit in front of the TV waiting for it to stimulate them and so give them energy. Yet it is draining them of energy by distracting them from their own limitless reservoir.

But someone who is their own source doesn't have to spend out energy to get energy from other people. They don't have to get into acting out, showing off or whatever in order to feel good from other people. They focus on themselves... so the energy builds up in them. Because they have plugged the holes most people have, they have their own energy source whenever they need it.

If you are thinking dull thoughts, your body doesn’t believe that you need energy or alertness. So it won’t release the hormones and chemicals to make you feel alert and energetic.

If you look at young children they have boundless energy.

Why?

Because they allow themselves to get excited by their thoughts. They don’t check every thought to be sure it is practical or realistic. They don’t feel they have to have every single detail controlled and worked out. They just follow what excites them. So they have boundless energy and motivation.

Gossip, TV, Films, Music, taking risks, getting engrossed in tragic accidents and so on are all ways that we use the world to create excitement for ourselves. But every attempt to gain energy from outside of us, involves giving up energy to gain some.

In the long run we end up with no more energy than we started with. It’s all leaked away in the search for more. It becomes an addiction, rather like gambling. You win. Then you spend out more to win again and you hit a losing streak. And this is what causes mood swings and rollercoaster experiences and emotions.

Directing Energy

Skill in directing energy determines your ability to gain control of your life and emotions. These sources of energy do not create anything or invest any of you in them. So rather than expanding and adding to life – you are merely maintaining what is. This relates to the idea of Residual Growth and Earned Growth that we spoke of in Chapter 8.

All of nature grows organically. Plants and trees grow through their own roots. Humans believe we have to contort ourselves to get everything we need.

People often don’t like to or find it difficult to think of themselves in these kinds of ways, so it may be easier to look at how businesses make the same mistake.

Every successful business has in common one thing. It does something, perhaps only one minor thing differently to everyone else.

What makes the difference between a Bill Gates, a Warren Buffet or an Anita Roddick from the millions of other wannabe Entrepreneur? The answer is in the wannabe. Each of these successful Entrepreneurs, like hundred of other multi-millionaires, started out with a passion. It was following their passion in their own unique way that made them successful.

Meanwhile all the wannabe’s are focusing their energies outside of them. Analyzing the tactics and strategies that made these millionaires. But the secret is not in specific strategies or techniques, these are the fruit of the tree… but they only work because the tree is set up to support these.

When Japan suddenly became an almost overnight economic success, many businesses went over to study what they were doing. Soon there were lots of books hitting the headlines with the technique that was the secret to Japan’s success. Hundreds of company’s started to change their ways to use these techniques. For some these worked out, but very few came anywhere near achieving the same success as the Japanese firms. This is because the techniques that Japanese companies were using were their natural responses to their particular situation given their historical and cultural background. They grew organically from the essence of the company, rather being fitted into a secret formula

Taking these ideas into U.S companies is like pulling apples from an apple tree and trying to fix them on a pear tree. The attitudes and beliefs of the people in the company, the company’s relationship with its workers and so on are different due to centuries of cultural evolution. So it is always going to be very difficult to transplant something from one organism to another. Whether that organism is a person, plant or company.

Everywhere you go you find these leaflets promising you $5,000 a week for 5 hours work. The market for business opportunities is huge. This is entirely because very few people are their own source. If a person is sourcing her ideas and excitement from herself she will be overflowing with potential sources of income.

None of it is about the money; it is about finding new ways of expressing themselves. Work becomes art. And along the way you find the perfect way to receive compensation for your artistry.

What happens is that when people get disconnected from their own source, they look externally for ideas, for money and energy. So they begin looking for the answer always outside of them. This diffuses the focus and potential power of your attention and consequently makes you too weak to create what you want.

Yet each individual however weak and powerless they may seem or behave has an infinite amount of power. If you doubt that you contain the power to create the circumstances you choose in your life - despite all the individuals in various circumstances throughout history who have managed to do so - consider this fact.

If all the energy coursing through every atom in your body right this minute were released, it would be sufficient to blow up the entire planet.

What you choose to do with all that energy depends entirely on your skill in directing energy, which you do through your attention. Whatever you focus on is brought to life.

What do you choose to bring to life?

The Basis For Emotional Security

So many people misunderstand their basis for emotional security. Say for example, that something bad happens, they then blame the event for their subsequent emotions. But really their reaction was determined a long time before the event.

The events and emotions that we experience are the culmination of a long series of thoughts and decisions. It is our thoughts and decisions long before the event that determines our reaction to what actually happens. Here's one way of looking at this...

Do you remember the story of the three little pigs? You know the one where the three pigs go off and build their own houses.

One is in a rush and quickly built a house out of straw. The second built a house from wood and the third takes his time to build a solid home from bricks.

Then the big bad Wolf blows down the first two pigs house’s because they never spent the time to get the foundations right. But because the third one prepared his properly, he was safe from the Wolf.

This relates to the way that we set up our lives.

Just as the first little pig built his house from straw, many people base their life around one thing such as work or a relationship. But the problem with this is that if something catastrophic happens to that thing the individual’s life will come crashing down. What do you do when your purpose for living has gone?

The second little pig bases her life on a number of pillars, such as family, work, hobbies and so on. They may have a Partner, children, work, hobbies, friends and so on. The danger is that they are still being supported or propped up by things external to them.

I have come across people who have led what most would call a balanced and healthy life. They had many interests and a wide ‘support network’. Unfortunately sometimes a sequence of events or even rarely a single event has taken away all the pillars that were holding up their life. This is going to cause the individual to feel somewhere from depressed to suicidal.

And most people would say that they were entitled to feel that way. The question is do you want the quality of your life determined by what happens to you? Or do you want to become the Author of your own life?

Life always will throw up situations and obstacles to block what you think you want. You can either, as most people do, become frustrated, bitter, angry or disillusioned. Or from this minute forward… you can determine to live a life of passion, excitement and joy regardless of what life throws at you.

This is what the third little pig chose. When there was no danger and no reason to put in any more than minimal effort, he did. As a result he was prepared and immune to the threat of the big bad wolf.

Your choice is to put in as little effort as you need to now? Or to prepare yourself for what life is about to throw at you, so that when it comes it doesn’t effect you?

If you choose to prepare yourself and use the third little pig’s strategy, you'll create emotional security.

Unconditional Love

This is to create an overriding strategy or philosophy of life. One that drives every thought, word and action in your life. Of course, life still contains the same people and passions, but they are enjoyed rather than needed.

Some people don’t like the thought that they aren’t needed or don’t need others. If you need others you are with them because you have to be. If you don’t need them you are free to go at any time and so are with them to enjoy them. Need creates pressure on both sides. Whereas freedom relaxes both sides allowing them to express their best sides and focus on the best of the other.

You may think this could never happen to you, but it does to some people. What if all the people you loved were together travelling or at a party when there was a huge accident leaving you the only one still alive?

What if that accident caused you permanent and serious health problems? These problems prevent you from doing your work and your hobbies. Think this is fanciful? I have spoken to people who have had this happen to them through one event and others who through a course of events over a year have had their lives devastated.

In life you never know what is going to happen. I remember when the World Trade Center buildings were brought crashing down. The most shocking thing to me was not the fact that these huge buildings could be destroyed. It was that people couldn’t believe that they could be brought down.

Many things like that amaze me. I’m astounded that it is so rare for cars to mount the pavement. Or that traffic lights don’t just suddenly go crazy causing massive accidents. The point is that there are hundreds of things in our world that work even though they could at any moment stop working. So to me when the WTC was attacked it wasn’t a great surprise. But to many it was unthinkable.

Why?

Because they used mental shortcuts that assume that tomorrow is going to be like today, with a different date. Most of the time it is. Some research indicates that we have 60,000 thoughts a day. And 55-57,000 are the same ones as the previous day. This saves us mental energy, but it also covers up many flaws in our Operating System.

So we think because the W.T.C. is so huge and impressive it could never be destroyed. We think that because property prices have risen for the last five years they will rise tomorrow. We think because our Partner is fit and strong today they will still be there in twenty years.

But that’s not necessarily true. Life is an ever-renewing cycle.

Birth > Maturity > Death > Renewal

The problem is that most people never think about this. They live from moment-to-moment, day-to-day without an overall strategy for life guiding them. This doesn’t mean a plan guiding to one grandiose life goal. It means fitting every moment into a deeper understanding of life. Without this they often invest much of themselves in work or relationships in an attempt to achieve security or meaning. Then when things don’t work out as they hoped they feel cheated, resentful and frustrated.

Perhaps they sacrifice pursuing their passion for the sake of their Partner. Then five or ten years later He or She dies or runs off with someone else.

Or maybe they sacrifice everything to climb the corporate ladder… but just as they touch the top rung, they get made redundant with no hope of a similar position. Then they find their family has moved on without them and they have nothing left.

The devastation, the resentment and utter despair caused by these kind of scenarios wrecks people’s lives every year. It causes some to commit suicide. Since everything they believed and trusted in has been exposed as flawed… they do not know how to go on and trust again. It can cause a paralysis, as their Operating system grinds to a halt. So they then have to rebuild it completely.

All because they trusted in things that had no basis. The last few centuries have given us many examples of how this type of thinking causes problems.

In the 1630’s there was a spectacular boom in the market for Tulips. It sounds ridiculous now, – as many of our fads will be to future generations – but the rich spent a lot of money on Tulips for status, as they were rare and considered of great beauty. Speculators noticed an opportunity to buy the rights to tulip bulbs, which would produce Tulips to sell for vast profits.

They made out like bandits and the news spread. Tulips became the hot tip and more and more investors put their money in to them. The price rose and rose. Excitement grew about this sure thing, to the extent that people sold their house to buy a few Tulip bulbs. Then one day the price got too high and Tulips went out of fashion and became almost worthless. The unthinkable happened.

This has happened again and again. The South Sea Bubble, the 1920’s crash, the 1980’s and so on. And the same thing happens to individual’s with their relationships, their careers and their personal lives. Over and over again. All because of our flawed Operating Systems.

Your work, your health, the people you care most about may not always be there. Never take anything in the world for granted. Now is all there is. The past has gone and who knows what the future will bring.

Sacrifice is never necessary. It’s used when two wants are thought to be mutually exclusive. You can have both wants, but you need to be flexible and step your thinking to a higher level that allows both wants.

Next: Unconditional Love

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