Finding the Sunny Side

Reflections (by Teresa Thomas-Carroll)

It’s a gray, foggy Saturday and it’s affecting your mood. You brew a cup of tea, pick up a good book, make yourself a nest of blankets and make the most of it. Or you stir up some iced tea and turn on a travel channel to escape somewhere sunnier.

You’re a little low and can’t pinpoint why. You call a close friend and suddenly feel like yourself again.

Busy, busy, busy that’s how your whole day has been. You decide that the world will not end if you take a break to enjoy a short walk or the view out your window.

Cleaning seems like a never ending task and you’re irritable that things aren’t the way you’d like them. You turn on your favorite uplifting music, sing along and make up new dance movements while you pick up the house.

Your best pair of jeans gets paint splattered on them. You get creative and use a little more paint to transform the splatters into a trail of daisies along the leg.

When we’re in a funk, it is easy to forget that simple pleasures can really change our mood often instantaneously. Sometimes we just need a little help to see the sunlight behind the cloud.

Use the Mini-Reflection Exercise to remember your own pathways to the sunny side.

Mini-Reflection Exercise
Brainstorm a list of simple things that bring you joy. (Alternatively and highly suggested: It’s also fun to quickly tear out pictures and words from old magazines that coax a smile out of you. This is not about being perfect. In fact it’s more fun to be far from perfect—isn’t that what this is about taking an imperfect feeling and adding lightness to it? Tear out a simple shape to use as your background paper. Smoosh the glue…hang images over the edge…close your eyes and play “pin the image on the collage”, oops, you tore a word but it’s ALL right…add a fortune cookie slip you’ve been saving since who knows when, scribble some inspirational words with your non-dominant hand, keep it easy and fun. Like when you were a kid and hadn’t learned yet to judge your expression.)

Post your list or collage somewhere to remind you of the myriad of simple ways that you can use to brighten your day. When you feel resistant, give it a try for five minutes and see if anything changes.

Recognize that as counter productive as it sounds, sometimes we choose to remain in a funk. Just as a plant needs the rain as well as the sun, being under a cloud is sometimes just where we need to be before we can notice the light.