An overview of the Mood Balance — a mental model for greater emotional awareness
Try out this simple framework for thinking about what drives your mood and how you can respond more productively to negative emotions.
This article was originally posted on the Resources section of Open Dialogue website. Click here to explore more resources.
What is the Mood Balance?
One useful framework for better understanding how moods work is called the Mood Balance. By a “Mood Balance” I mean a relationship between an actual situation in your life as you perceive it and an imagined ideal situation.
The diagram above indicates that your mood is the result of a comparison between your perceived actual situation and your imagined ideal situation.
The next diagram below illustrates the internal imbalance that is created when your perceived actual situation ranks low relative to your imagined ideal situation (arrows in the figure below). In this case, your self-esteem falls and your mood becomes more depressed.
If the two situations of your mood balance rank close to one another, then you feel better about yourself and your life. In a good mood, your perceived actual situation is close to, or simply moving in the direction of, your imagined ideal situation.
What can we do when things are “out of balance”?
The implicit disparity between the two situations of your mood balance must be made explicit by putting the situations into words, and carefully examining them and consciously working to revise them.
This is what our guided reflection app Open Dialogue is designed to help you do. Talking with a close friend, a therapist or even journalling can all help serve this purpose as well.
It is often the case that our perception of our actual situation is incorrect, or improperly interpreted. It is also common for us to have highly ambitious but unclear ideals. In both cases, we are unfairly interpreting the two situations in a way that creates a Mood Balance that is unnecessarily difficult to live with.
Through Open Dialogue and other forms of self-examination you can work to re-evaluate your perception of your actual situation so that it is more realistic and accurate. This often provides an immediate lift to your mood.
You can also re-examine the values that influence your imagined ideal situation so that you can establish objectives that are more suitable for you.
Oftentimes, the process of clarifying our imagined ideal will lower its relative ranking compared to our perceived actual situation. It may be the case that your ideal situation is too vague and undefined, and has somehow risen to a much higher level than it needs to be.
Working carefully with both sides of your Mood Balance, you may find that you are able to relate to your situation in a way that causes your mood to improve (before you even start to change your external circumstances).
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I’d love to know if this concept resonates for you.
When it comes to an area of your life that’s currently challenging you, which side of the Mood Balance could benefit the most from re-examining —your Perceived Actual Situation or your Imagined Ideal Situation?
This article was originally posted on the Resources section of Open Dialogue website. Click here to explore more resources.
