Do you try to stay in a good mood as much as you can? What I’ve noticed is that first you’ve got to catch yourself in a bad mood and then you have to want to get out of it. Sometimes it’s just plain fun to wallow. But wallowing never helps the reason for the wallow in the first place. Sooner or later, like the line in that old song says, you've gotta, “Just pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start all over again.”

Would you agree that happy thoughts run at a higher frequency than say guilty or angry thoughts do? Have you ever noticed when you’re happy you’re kinder to others, more compassionate and understanding and you have way more energy?

Staying in a good mood takes watching how you feel and being selfish about how you feel. So here are 7 ways to get out of that bad mood as soon as you find yourself in one.

1. Pick out a happy feeling and feel it

When you’re in a really bad mood, take a minute and think of a happy time. You have many to choose from, so just pick one. Once you’ve picked one, dig it up. Remember the people and the circumstance. Hear the laughter and feel the love. We SHEs have such a grand ability to pull into our mind’s eye any occasion we wish to re-experience. 

We want a happy home.

We intuitively know there is peace when there is order. We want our homes to be peaceful, organized and a joy in which to live, love and play.

In a book called The Tipping Point, the author, Malcom Gladwell, really grabbed my attention when he wrote about the Broken Window Theory. It was the brainchild of criminologists James Wilson and George Kelling. Kelling wrote, “Crime is the inevitable result of disorder.” Getting organized reduces crime.

I’m not saying because your house is a mess you’ll inevitably rob a bank or shoot your husband, but it’s a fair guess you’ve been late for church because you couldn’t find your car keys and broke the speed limit to get there on time, or you’ve been pulled over for driving under the influence when really you were just trying to put a little lipstick on while getting to your meeting.

Wilson and Kelling claim, “If a window is broken and left unrepaired, people walking by will conclude that no one cares and no one is in charge.” They tell about the horrible crime in the New York Subways in the 90s and that by cleaning up the graffiti on the outside and inside of the cars, crime plummeted! A cluttered room, among other things is like graffiti. It’s symbolic of the collapse of a system. It sends a message that no one’s in charge and no one cares.

Here are 6 simple household tasks that convey the same message as the graffiti-free subways did.  

Is there a broken window in each room?

Let’s use the metaphor of the broken window in each room of our homes and make “repairs” that will take you less than five minutes each. That means that in about 20 minutes you can fix five windows and you’ll show yourself and your family that you are back in charge and that you care.

 The only way to establish a new habit is to put the action you want to become a habit into a daily routine so that you’ll do it enough times for it to become automatic. Before an action is a habit and part of your daily routine, just think of all the options you have. Options are what pull you away from doing something you've decided to do to change the status quo. In other words, you have to learn to be an option stopper, whereby you don’t give yourself the option of not doing the action you want to have become a habit. 

For example, if you want exercise to be part of your daily routine, then you have to stop giving yourself options out of exercise. Until exercise is a habit, your options will always look better than exercise. But if you’ll be an option stopper, one day you’ll realize you have a new habit, you're happier and life is better! 

Have you ever stopped to think that right now your life as it is, is the result of your daily routine? It is. For most SHEs, we have such a developed sense of spontaneity that we're not all that excited about consciously creating a routine...until we get a taste of the freedom a good routine gives us in addition to more free time to play.

The following is correspondence between one of our Club Organized “elite” members and me. If you owe thank you notes, this conversation will inspire you to write them now. 

      Hi Pam,                                                                   June 13, 2015

Have you had it?

That’s how you can feel living a disorganized lifestyle. It's like living in a continual storm. But when you hit bottom with words like the declarations above, you're in the perfect place to change. Someone said, “The bottom is a great place to be because there’s nowhere to go but up.” When you hit bottom you're more willing to surrender to your situation and ask for the guidance that’s available 24/7. That’s when miracles happen. In that moment of surrender you'll be reminded that even though you're in a mess, you're in the right place with the right people at the right time. The only element you lack is direction.

DIRECTION! You can deal with that! Direction involves choices! You just need a map to follow and you'll be fine! For me it was the 3x5 card file system my sister and I came up with and the reason we became known as The Slob Sisters.

When my sister and I had had it with our home organization skills, that’s the first time we considered the word “direction” in reference to our problem. We weren’t lazy! Come to think of it, we worked harder than those BOs (Born Organized) who refuse to make work for themselves by being disorganized.

I knew I wasn't crazy! I'd been able to maintain a high level of creativity within my messy lifestyle, have three happy children, continually adjust to the personality of a very unhappy mate and remain stable.

I wasn’t stupid! Come to think of it, NO! I was very smart though my disorganized habits sabotaged my schooling so my grades didn’t reflect my intellect.

So I wasn’t lazy, crazy or stupid even though my messy life could certainly have made it look that way. When I look back on the way I used to live, the only question I have today is, “What was I thinking?”

As Carolyn Myss would say, “If I can talk Angel 101 to you for a moment, consider this.” Let’s pretend I'm one of your guardian angels and you have prayed to get organized. I've been assigned to work your case. I love the assignment because I’ve always loved you and to work with you personally in an answer to your prayer, is exciting to me!

Your Angel is With You

How to stop worrying and doubting.

When you doubt, you’ve stopped trusting the power that created the Universe. Such a silly thing to do when it’s put that way, don’t you think? If you plugged a lamp into the socket, and the light didn’t go on, you’d figure either the bulb was burned out or you hadn’t paid the electric bill. In other words it would be something on your end that caused the light not to work. You would never doubt that the power of electricity was no long effective.

So when you doubt yourself or have doubts about some event or another person, the problem is on your end, because the power that created the Universe has your back and there's nothing to worry about. So how do you fix your end of this deal? I’ve come up with 6 ways to be positive so you can stay hooked into the joyful source of your life and see the truth that all is well.

1. Put yourself first

The most important thing to do when you feel doubt is think something that makes you feel good. Sometimes it helps to go outside to summon happy thoughts or read spiritual material that fills you with positive energy, or look through a travel magazine and focus on a dream vacation. Only you, know what will cheer you up. It really helps to build a list of thoughts that lift your spirits, so when you get down in the dumps you can refer to it. I call it my First Aid Kit.

If you really want more happiness, start by stopping your complaining. 

Most people don’t realize how often they complain because it has become a habit and, like all habits, it tends to be so familiar that it becomes invisible (like that box of stuff in the entryway to take to the donation center).

Studies show that complaining can be brutally harmful to your health, efficiency and life in general. That’s because complaining is negative and it takes a toll on your energy and your happiness. People who are always complaining tend to have poor health, are disorganized in their jobs and at home, and have relationships that are not good and don’t last very long. And they aren’t that much fun to be around!
 

This is a photo Terry took in Cancun when we were there on vacation. As you can guess, everyone left the beach because of the on-coming storm. Grumbling about inclement weather is probably one of the most common complaints and maybe it's because we can't do anything about it. Here in the state of Washington it rains a lot, and most Washintonians do not own an umbrella or rain boots, we just know how to dash and we're Olympic at finding shelter.

Have you had it?

That’s how you can feel living a disorganized lifestyle. It's like living in a continual storm. But when you hit bottom with words like the declarations above, you're in the perfect place to change. Someone said, “The bottom is a great place to be because there’s nowhere to go but up.” Not until you hit bottom can you surrender to your situation and ask for the guidance that’s available 24/7. That’s when miracles happen. In that moment of surrender you'll be reminded that even though you're in a mess, you're in the right place with the right people at the right time. The only element you lack is direction.

DIRECTION! You can deal with that! Direction involves choices! You just need a map to follow and you'll be fine! For me it was the 3x5 card file system my sister and I came up with and the reason we became known as The Slob Sisters.

When my sister and I had had it with our home organization skills, that’s the first time we considered the word “direction” in reference to our problem. We weren’t lazy? Come to think of it, we worked harder than those BOs (Born Organized) who refuse to make work for themselves by being disorganized.

I knew I wasn't crazy? I'd been able to maintain a high level of creativity within my messy lifestyle, have three happy children, continually adjust to the personality of a very unhappy mate and remain stable.

I wasn’t stupid? Come to think of it, NO! I was very smart though my disorganized habits sabotaged my schooling so my grades didn’t reflect my intellect.

So I wasn’t lazy, crazy or stupid even though my messy life could certainly have made it look that way. When I look back on the way I used to live, the only question I have today is, “What was I thinking?”

As Carolyn Myss would say, “If I can talk Angel 101 to you for a moment, consider this.” Let’s pretend I'm one of your guardian angels and you have prayed to get organized. I've been assigned to work your case. I love the assignment because I’ve always loved you and to work with you personally in an answer to your prayer, is exciting to me!

Your Angel is With You

When it comes to finances, we don't always make mature choices.

Have you made choices in your lifetime that caused consequences you didn’t like? We all have and that’s how we learn to be more careful as we grow up. (Second marriages, for example, are almost always better than the first ones, if we made a lousy choice the first time).

I recently took a much needed three-day vacation away from home with two girlfriends who are incredibly wise women. Both women are extremely private people. They both gave me license to quote them, but with no names so I don’t get to give them credit for some of their wisdom.

We were having lunch in a beautiful restaurant in Astoria, Oregon when the subject of self-improvement came up. I explained my theory of having fun with the inner child and they both loved the concept. I told about how far in debt I was after my sister retired and left me with a huge company debt. It was a little embarrassing to admit, because both these women are very wealthy and they were shocked at how immature my sister and I had been with our money.

Whoa Mama! Nelly, my inner child, has control of the keyboard for this blog! Look out! She’s wild!!! WARNING, this blog could make you hungry, but it might help you lose weight!

.

Pam just spent a week in Seattle taking care of her son’s monkeys. That’s what they call the kids; Brooklyn 16 and Jackson 14. She was so excited to get to play with them! Except Brooklyn had finals all week and spent most of her time in her room studying, or at the library studying, or at her girlfriend’s house STUDYING and she couldn’t play with her very much. But Jackie and she played Gin Rummy a lot and they got to talk like two grown-ups when he wasn’t at school (I just listened in).

But here’s the part you’ve got to know: the monkey’s house was loaded with carbs!!! Oh there was lots of healthy food too, like fresh berries, broccoli, romaine, tomatoes, bacon, eggs, milk, avocado and yogurt (full fat Greek), but the carb section was impressive to me.