Have you ever had it where you’re in a great mood, having a perfectly normal day, but then all of a sudden your entire state shifts, and you don’t know why?
All you know is that nothing worth noting happened.
You weren’t in an argument, you didn’t get any bad news, and you weren’t already having a hard day. But your state has gone completely downhill.
You feel irritated, angry, and like you just don’t want to deal with anyone.
And now you're stuck in a bad mood.
It feels like your emotions have a mind of their own. Like you don’t have control over the direction your state is moving in.
At a subconscious level, though, even though it seems random, your mood change makes perfect sense. When you start to understand how the subconscious part of you functions, it becomes much easier to see where these “automatic shifts” are coming from.
And once you know what to look for, you can start catching them earlier, and start having more choice in how you respond when they happen.
Your bad mood doesn’t start where you think
Most people don’t notice their mood has changed until they’re already well inside of it.
They catch themselves when they notice they’re being impatient with the people around them, when normal things start to feel irritating, or when they suddenly react in a way they didn’t expect.
That’s when they look back and wonder what happened.
By the time this reaction takes place, though, they’re already at the tail end of an entire process that’s been playing out inside of them and building up at a subconscious level.
How a bad mood starts building
Typically, the things that trigger an unexpected mood change are so ordinary that you’d never think to connect them to how you feel later on. This is because they tend to fly under the radar of what our conscious minds are actively paying attention to.
Here’s how it works:
Your subconscious mind is always in the background, taking in what’s happening around you and comparing it to the internal “map” it’s built out over the course of your life. This map is made up of your past experiences, the meanings you’ve given to things, and the emotional associations you’ve formed that connect all of this together.
It’s like a database that your mind keeps pulling from and referencing as you move through life.
It’s constantly checking in on what’s happening, going, “Is this okay?” “Is this safe?” “Is this dangerous?” “Have I felt something like this before?”
And it uses your past experiences as a reference point. It remembers specific places, sounds, smells, people, and conversations you’ve experienced, and it’s connected those things to certain thoughts, feelings, memories, or meanings inside of you.
In Neuro-Linguistic Programming, these subconscious links are called anchors.
An anchor is when something outside of you becomes connected to something inside of you.
As an example, think about a time when you smelled something, and that scent prompted you to vividly relive a certain memory in your mind. This happens because, at some point, that scent became linked to that specific experience inside of you. And because that link exists, now, whenever you smell it again, your mind automatically brings that memory back into your awareness.
The memory and the scent are tied together in your subconscious mind.
Anchors make it so that when something outside of you shows up again later in life, it’ll bring that same internal experience back up inside of you.
The thing is, most of us aren’t consciously aware of what’s been associated inside of us, or when those associations are being triggered.
You might be making coffee in the morning, talking to a friend on the phone, going for a drive, or doing something you’ve done hundreds of times before, and suddenly something you experience touches an association that already exists within you.
Maybe a song comes on the radio that reminds you of your ex, a car drives by that looks like one an old enemy used to drive, or someone laughs in a way that reminds you of a person who used to make fun of you.
In that moment, the feelings connected to those experiences can start flooding back into your body.
And once those feelings are there, your mind starts looking for what matches them.
It might bring up related memories, old conversations, similar situations, or times in your life where you felt that same kind of hurt, pressure, fear, rejection, or anger. Before you realize it, you’ve stopped responding only to what's happening in front of you. You’re now responding to everything your mind has connected to it.
Old arguments can start to feel like they’re happening now, hurt feelings can come rushing back as if they were just caused, and your body can start bracing as if what just happened in your mind is about to happen again.
That’s when the spiral starts to accelerate.
The thoughts bring up more feelings, and the feelings bring up more thoughts, until you’re mentally and emotionally pulled back into an old emotional place that you’re not physically in anymore, but that still feels real inside of you.
Maybe it’s an old conversation, or a painful experience from when you were younger, or an old version of your life that you’ve technically moved on from, but that still feels emotionally intense inside of you.
And now, without realizing it, those emotions are being carried into your day.
You’re not just reacting to the present moment anymore. You’re reacting through the old emotional reality that got activated within you.
The original “thing” that prompted it might have seemed meaningless, but it touched on an important association you have within you, and that set the pattern into motion.
Why you keep getting triggered
When you start to pay attention to how and when these processes play out, you’ll notice that the associations affecting you aren’t random.
You’ll find that the same handful of triggers, memories, or emotions keep coming up again and again.
This is because when an old emotion hasn’t been fully processed and is still unresolved inside of you, different situations can keep touching on it, bringing the same emotional “theme” back up again.
For example, something or someone might prompt you to feel like you’re not good enough, like you’re going to be rejected, like you have to prove yourself, or like you’re falling behind. Maybe a certain life situation makes you feel like you’re being overlooked, or like you don’t matter.
We all have emotional themes that commonly get triggered because there are still deep emotional charges tied to them. In other words, some part of us is still carrying the emotional weight of those past experiences, and it doesn’t know how to let it go.
This is why you can move from one situation into another and still find yourself feeling the exact same emotional response. The people and places might change, but the repetitive emotions that get triggered inside of you stay the same.
When the details look different, you might think you’re dealing with an entirely new issue every time, but underneath those new circumstances, the same emotional theme is getting activated again.
That’s also why changing your life circumstances doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll stop getting triggered by certain things. You take yourself with you everywhere you go, and your subconscious mind remembers everything that still has meaning and emotional charge tied to it.
The pattern is much less likely to keep repeating once that deep emotional charge is understood and worked through.
How to catch the pattern before it takes over
The next time you notice that your mood has shifted, try not to let it get to the point of automatically taking over your behaviour (like when you snap at someone).
Instead, shift your attention toward what happened before the bad mood started.
Ask yourself:
What was I doing?
Where was I?
Who was I talking to?
What did I see, hear, smell, or come across?
Then pay attention to what came up inside of you after that.
Did something someone say trigger a familiar feeling, like inadequacy, embarrassment, guilt, shame, insecurity, disappointment, or self-doubt?
Did something outside of you remind you of a difficult memory or past experience?
Did you suddenly start feeling pressure, fear, regret, rejection, anger, loneliness, frustration, or some other familiar emotion?
From there, start noticing when the same kinds of things keep pulling you into the same emotional places. Over time, you’ll start to see a pattern.
You might notice that a certain time of day brings up the same thoughts, that you always feel a certain way after talking to a specific person, that certain places make you feel heavier, or that a particular kind of interaction tends to pull you into the same types of negative emotions.
When you start seeing the trigger, the thought, the feeling, and the theme underneath it, you stop treating every bad mood like it appeared out of nowhere, and you start seeing the pattern underneath it.
And once you can see what keeps getting prompted inside of you, you have something real to work with.
That’s where real change begins.
Until next time,
Nikki
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Read moreAbout the Author
Nikki Nicholas is a subconscious mind coach who specializes in removing the subconscious patterns, self-sabotage, and nervous system responses that keep people stuck. Her work integrates NLP, hypnotherapy, EFT, and strategic intervention coaching to help clients get past their negative thoughts and emotions that have been running on autopilot. With 17+ years spent studying the subconscious mind and over 10,000 hours in meditation, Nikki helps capable, self-aware people move past the internal patterns that are holding them back.
Frequently Asked Questions:
Why does my mood suddenly change for no reason?
Your mood might seem to change for no reason because the thing that prompted it was subtle enough that you didn't consciously register it. A sound, smell, conversation, place, thought, or small interaction can touch an emotional association your subconscious mind has connected to a past experience. Once that association gets activated, familiar thoughts, feelings, and memories can start building momentum before you realize what's happening.
Why does my mood change so quickly?
Mood shifts can happen quickly because your subconscious mind processes associations automatically. Something in your environment might remind you of an old experience, fear, or emotional theme in a split second. Your mind can then start bringing up related thoughts and feelings, which can pull you into a different emotional state before you've consciously noticed the original cue.
How can I tell what triggered my mood change?
Look at the moment right before your mood started to shift. Think about what you were doing, where you were, who you were with, and what you saw, heard, smelled, or came across. Then notice what came up inside of you afterward. You might find that a familiar thought, memory, feeling, or fear appeared. Over time, this can help you recognize the kinds of cues and emotional themes that keep pulling you into the same moods.