Bad Mood Switch
can't just flick it off
4 Parts: Kitchen flasher, Poison oak ain’t all bad, RULER rules, Over the top bump of the rollercoaster
I should start by saying that it’s my mom’s birthday today. Happy Birthday mom! Same as Elvis. Yup. She died last year about a month after Katie. She would have been 86. She was fabulous. She taught me a lot about living life. Here we are at The Pinnacles in 2009
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Part 1: Kitchen flasher
I live on the third floor of an apartment building. Outside my door is a light for the stairwell that is on a timer and turns on every evening and off every morning. The light went out about two years ago and was replaced by a newfangled, very bright, LED array. Last week the light started blinking. Like, the whole array, blinking at once. It’s a bit infuriating, exasperating, trying. It’s bright. It’s dark. It shines directly into my kitchen. I tried taking the thing apart but it’s hard wired with no obvious controls. It’s either turn off all the lights (dangerous) or leave it blinking until it gets fixed. I made the mistake of hoping the folks across the hall would call the landlord. I don’t think they did. I let it go two days before I submitted a ticket. Then it was Friday. No chance it would get fixed over the weekend and it’s still not fixed today. Here it is. Yes, it’s traumatic.
Part 2: Poison oak ain’t all bad
I have decided that my month of poison oak was beneficial in that it totally distracted me from: 1 - the holidays and 2 - my other back and leg issues.
If you’re itching all the time that’s all you’re thinking about.
Part 3: RULER rules.
I’ve been reading Mark Brackett’s “Permission To Feel”. I started reading it after attending an AIM conference last spring where he spoke. Here’s the actual speech I saw.
Both the conference and his book are an excellent introduction to mental health for adults and our youth. After the conference in the spring I did a review of the whole thing for the rest of our teaching staff. Since then I have done 5 more PD sessions and have begun to introduce our students to the whole thing. It’s pretty cool and honestly, it has helped me deal with a bunch of the stuff I’ve been going through after a really rough 2023. There are two main parts to the method.
First RULER.
Recognizing emotions - basically understanding what we are feeling and what others are feeling.
Understanding emotions - recognizing that there are reasons behind and potential consequences for our emotions
Labeling emotions - putting a proper word to what we are feeling is useful for us and others
Expressing emotions - 2 parts - 1 - how we show them and 2 - how we show them in socially appropriate ways.
and finally Regulating emotions - how or what we do or think in order to keep some control over our emotion.
Each part is pretty easy to understand and can seem pretty superficial. But in my own life recently (last night and this morning) I’ve run headlong into this thing. (check out part 3)
Second Mood Meter
This handy dandy thing can help you find words for the emotions you’re feeling. I’ve been showing it the students this week and they all seem to be getting it pretty quickly and buying in. Basically you’re measuring two things. Vertically you place yourself on the chart based on your energy level. The more energetic you’re feeling, the higher you are on the chart. Pooped out? You’re at the bottom. Horizontally you place yourself based on your level of pleasantness. Then you just plop your finger down on a word and presto, there’s a pretty good chance that word will describe your current mood pretty accurately. I frequently want to move one word up or over but it’s usually pretty good.
As I describe this to the students I also talk about how emotions are natural and it’s not bad to be feeling lonely or angry. Things happen in life to make us feel that way. Being able to express how we are feeling and sharing why we are feeling that way can help us work through them. I even use my sadness from Katie’s death as an example. I’m still sad at her dying and being gone. I miss her. It’s not all the time but something will remind me of her and then I’ll be sad. It would be weird if I wasn’t sad. We shouldn’t deny what we’re feeling. I then encourage the students to think about where they are and to use the mood meter when talking to staff or other students. Even just indicating the color zone you’re in can help them understand where you are coming from. One second grader expressed he was in BLUE. Five minutes later he snipped at me a little when I tried to help him with a computer issue. I already knew to just take a step back.
Part 3. Over the top bump on the rollercoaster.
You know when you’re on a rollercoaster and it’s climbing up and up and crests and you can’t see the down? You can’t see where it’s going and your heart and stomach feeling like they’re moving up into your throat until you’re already flying down the other side? Yeah, like that.
UP. I’ve been gradually feeling more down as the holidays have passed, my trip to Hawaii ended, this was the major Hospice month last year, the damn flicking light, a former student died over break. Things are piling up. BUT I failed to actually really recognize that it was getting to me.
and UP UP UP. Since I didn’t recognize it, there is no room for understanding. I didn’t actually think about my own state of being. Yesterday I felt blah. I thought I was just tired. I went to bed early. Blah. I should have stayed up and made cookies.
and UP UP UP UP. Expressing part 1. Well it started with unpleasant dreams that I just suffered through. Then I got up to get a snack and was confronted by the nasty blinking light in the kitchen. Went back to bed and the dreams got worse and worse. Do you want Danny DeVito in your dreams? Probably not. And then I was eating very large fly head sandwiches… oh, unpleasant, nasty, weird. Fly heads. Bitter aftertaste. Nasty. At one point I woke up and realized the flashing kitchen light was somehow reflecting all the way to my bedroom and I was getting a minor strobe effect while I was sleeping. Not good. I closed the door. Finally the bad dreams ended. BUT THEN! my phone beeps at about 4:00 and I think, “Oh, might be important” so I get up and check it. Google is being helpful and reminding me that it’s my mother’s birthday and I should send her something nice. Damn Google.
and DOWNNNNNNN. Expressing part 2. I get up at 6. I’m tired. I start having a really weird thought pattern regarding a problem a friend had expressed to me the day before. I get totally fixated. Like, it’s a really weird thought pattern. Weird enough I won’t share it here BUT this morning I thought that this weird thought pattern was perfectly normal and kind of funny. Like “haha” funny joke kinda thing. In reality I’m fixating. I can’t get it out of my head. I ride my bike to school. I’m still fixating. I can’t let it go. I did almost let it go. There was a voice that said, “this is bad” but I didn’t listen. I wrote my text. I included the little music video link to complete the “joke” and …. stopped, but didn’t delete. Another teacher came in with a question. I helped her out. And then I did it. I hit send without another thought. So dumb. If I were to receive this text I would be like, “what the hell?” So dumb.
Down down. And I go do Crosswalk duty. I stand at the back at assembly. I’m thinking and I am like, “oh my god, I’m in a downward spiral and darned near depressed and I just sent a horrible thing to a very good friend.” That’s when I recognized where I am. That’s when I realized that my dreams were really expressing where I am. That’s when I realized that by not acknowledging what was going on and that I need to really talk to someone BIZARRE behavior emerged and has potentially damaged a very good friendship. I send a quick follow up text of regret. I want to explain but I also don’t want her to waste her time or mental energy on my issues. So I leave it short.
Down down down. At this point I know I’m in a bad place. My dreams from the night before have left residue in my brain and heart. It’s my mom’s birthday. I’m sad. We get a staff email about the student that died. I’m sadder. I’ve just potentially destroyed a relationship…. sadder still. And so I sit a moment. I do some grading. I get up and walk to the office looking for a specific friend that has also recently lost her mom. She’s busy. I walk to the lounge and another co-worker is standing outside. I ask her if she’s a huggy person. She says yes and asks if I need a hug. I say, “yes I do, today is my mom’s birthday and she died last year” and I got a really good hug and I’m a little teary. Phew. Then I text my brother and sister and we have a mini text string. Then I talk about it with my 6th grade class as an example of real emotions and how they are important in our day to day. And now… I’m writing it out.
Today’s ride has ended. I’m still bummed for sure. It was a pretty dark day. I’m very aware of what’s missing in my life. So odd that in the middle of my feeling alone and miserable I’ve done something that actively pushes a friend away. Should she forgive me? It’s entirely up to her but I know I was a jerk. It feels like a breach of trust and it was just plain weird. Why should she have to deal with my crap? Unsolicited crap too. I knew better and I didn’t even listen to myself.
Emotions. Quite a ride. Time to make some cookies.
Mark Brackett, Ph. D. Permission to Feel
Title: Permission to Feel: Unlocking the Power of Emotions to Help Our Kids, Ourselves, and Our Society Thrive
Author: Marc Brackett
Publisher: Celadon Books
ISBN: 978-1-250-21284-9
On Sale Date: 9/3/2019
I got mine on Amazon.