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DON’T LET THE LOW MOODS OF
OTHERS TRICK YOU EITHER

Everyone has low moods. I do, and you do. So do your friends, teachers, siblings, parents, relatives, neighbors, strangers, and everyone else.

And although we all experience our low moods a little differently, to some degree, the way people act in lower moods is quite predictable. A vast majority of people, in low moods, will be at least somewhat negative, reactive, pessimistic, and argumentative. Low moods will bring out cynicism, anger, frustration, and stress. In those low moods, people will tend to be critical and defensive, and they might even say and do mean things. They will tend to have poor judgment and will lack patience.

Think about it. Have you ever met anyone whom you absolutely love to be around while she is in a sour mood? No way!

Here’s what’s incredibly useful to know. When someone you know or love is in a low mood, he will say and do things that would never occur to him if his mood was higher. A very powerful negative cloud overcomes his perspective. A vast majority of people will react to their low moods as if what they are experiencing is the way they really feel. In other words, they won’t realize they are in a bad mood and that their mood is tainting their view of things. Instead, they will overreact, say mean things, blame others, freak out, panic, get bossy or critical, or whatever, and they will have absolutely no idea that their mood is dictating their negative behavior. It’s strange because an hour later, they will probably feel very differently.

This is one of the weird laws of being human: Low moods trick all of us. And it doesn’t matter if it’s your best friend, a boyfriend or girlfriend, a teacher, one of your parents, or whomever—none of us is exempt. I guarantee you that you wouldn’t like me when I’m in a really bad mood!

Here’s the point. Once you start to recognize the deceptive power of moods, it’s easy to begin taking them less personally; you see them for what they are. You start to realize that people (all of us), literally, can’t help it! We aren’t trying to be reactive and critical, it just happens. It’s almost like being drugged and not knowing that you’ve been drugged. Because you understand what’s going on, you begin to make allowances for the fact that everyone acts strangely in low moods and that it really isn’t personal.

Here’s a good example. I heard a story about a seventeen-year-old woman named Janie who had just learned about moods by reading one of my books. She had told someone that in her seventeen years of living, nothing had been so instantly useful in terms of helping her relationships. In fact, what she had learned was “like magic.”

Here’s what happened, as it was told to me: Janie’s best friend had snapped at her and said something terribly mean. She had exploded at Janie and said she didn’t want to be friends anymore. Rather than take her words too personally, as she would certainly have done in the past, Janie realized that her friend was in a really bad place emotionally. She decided not to react, argue back, or even defend herself. She knew her friend was in such a negative place, she couldn’t possibly be receptive to anything Janie had to say.

Instead, she waited a day and then dropped by her friend’s house to see if she wanted to talk. Her friend opened the door and immediately gave her an enormous hug and told her how much she loved her. Sobbing, she apologized, and the two of them had a very healing, heart-to-heart talk. The problem was solved rather than exacerbated and made into a federal case simply because Janie understood what was happening inside her friend.

This doesn’t mean you excuse everything that people say and do in low moods, that you don’t hold them accountable, or that you allow anyone to walk over you. It only suggests that often, when someone is saying or doing something that you don’t like or approve of, it has nothing whatsoever to do with you but everything to do with the person’s own state of mind. In many instances, simply knowing this allows you to see what’s really going on so that you don’t take it personally and feel hurt, betrayed, or annoyed. All you’re really doing is making allowances for the fact that people aren’t themselves when they are in bad moods. You still won’t like the way people act when they are low, but when you understand why they’re acting this way, it makes them much easier to deal with.

Janie mentioned that all her relationships had become better by virtue of her new understanding of moods. I hope that you will be affected in a similar way. Remember, whether it’s your own low mood, or someone else’s, take it with a grain of salt. It probably will pass if you leave it alone.