What Emotion Are You Wearing Today?

I often find my myself moving in a tight emotional circle: one day I feel happy, the next day sad or angry, then eventually the feeling of content finds its way back, just to be replaced by sadness shortly. Like waves in the ocean: rise, fall, rise, fall. But it’s got nothing to do with reality, it’s simply the shifts in the focus of our perception whereas we choose the strongest, dominating emotion and declare it the king of the moment. But do we always have the time and the eagerness to figure out what we truly feel? Someone could say - there’s nothing to figure out, you feel what you feel but I itch to disagree. I think we intentionally choose the most primitive emotional structure because it’s the most effortless approach. Something good happens – I’m happy, things start falling apart – I’m sad.

I was wondering if there’s a way to exercise alternating emotions, to expand the range, add variety and color to your daily moods. Is it possible to set up your mode like you choose the appropriate washing cycle on your washer by pressing the right buttons? Or maybe selecting the emotion "to wear" can be like picking out an item of closing: you rummage in your emotion-storing closet and choose what feels right, what will establish a barely perceptible emotional background that will impact how your day goes.

We usually wake up in the morning with our mind like tabula rasa – having zero feelings, or memories, or thoughts. It’s only a matter of seconds before all of it storms into your conscience, overwhelming you before you got even one foot from under the blanket. What if you tell yourself: today I want to feel adventurous. Visualize a shiny dashboard with soft buttons, various emotions imprinted on them all. You press the one that says “adventurous”. And let the day begin.

The next day you can choose “grateful” and feel how gratefulness saturates every small act of your daily routine. Even on what seems like dark days you may select “melancholy” over “sadness”: sense the difference of not saying “I’m so sad” but giving preference to “I’m rather melancholic” - some of the unwanted emotional weight will lift right away. On bright summer days you may feel childishly ecstatic, and on gray rainy mornings hit the “content laziness” button. Cancel out the unwanted "jealous" by hitting "blessed". Select "inamorata" and be crazy in love - with the sky, the trees, your life, everyone around you.

And when you feel like you’ve been wearing the same emotion for too long, maybe it’s time to toss it and go shopping for a fresh new feeling that would look better on you.