The power of a “good boy”
On some days we wake up and just know that it's not going to be our day. Not even the favourite book, podcast, or breakfast seem to be able to change the mood we are in. Stressful or negative days are not uncommon, but usually these feelings develop over the day at a stressful work or hectic time at home. Bad mornings create an already negative mood that that is incredibly hard to balance over the day because the state of mind generally goes downwards over the course of the day.
The strategies in countless books vary in their approach, but from yoga to jogging everything in between is being talked about. The problem: The majority of ideas actually require us to start doing them and after a terrible morning I might not be in the mood for my daily jogging routine or the 15-minute self-focusing exercise.
From my experience there is an even easier way to get out of a bad mood and realise that it's not necessary to be grumpy. They come in various sizes, shapes and sometimes have questionable names. The human's best friend. The dog.
This might seem like a cheap answer or solution, because dogs always put us into a good mood, but it goes deeper than that. They either mirror the exact feeling we require or project the opposite feeling that we want to experience. When we get really bad news the dog doesn't instantly make us happy or make us forget our issues, but when we just have a shitty morning our mood does change.
While a dog might perceive how its owner feels it's impossible for it to logically project the type of mood we require. Our frame of mind keeps the same or changes despite the circumstances not because the dog wants us too, but because we reflect our own feelings to a supportive friend that never judges us.
When looking at a dog, in a split second we reevaluate our own feelings about a certain situation and decide to either keep it or change it.
- Am I really that sad that I can't enjoy looking at this cute dog?
- Did the dog do anything wrong to deserve my grumpy attitude?
There probably is a scientific field about the interaction of human to dogs, and it's amazing that they have such a big influence on ourselves. But why can a dog make us reflect our mood and thoughts, but our colleague at work or the random person in the train doesn't?
Why don't we want to make an animal that doesn't speak nor think like us uncomfortable or unloved? But about people of our kind, we just throw our negativity at them and expect them to accept and deal with it.
I know that it's not that easy, people don't just accept us and make us reflect, because they have their own feelings they want to project. But next time you're in a bad mood don't think about your colleagues or boss and how much more negativity they arise in you. Think about the random dog you'll meet on the way home that's whole day is made when you pet him for a few seconds.
As a last note: Other's shouldn't really have the influence of making your day even worse, when you already had a bad morning, right? And maybe the blog's headline picture already made you realise that your mood actually isn't that bad, and you'll have a good day, because the day is good.
