When we wake up in the morning, we all look like a version of the devil in the children's bible, with hair standing in all directions. We then choose how to approach the day, and if we make the wrong choice, we blame our hair. Is that fair on our hair? And some young people (and people who still believe they are young) spend a fortune on hair gel and cultivating that porcupine look that the rest of us try to tame before we leave the house.

We all feel less than great at times. Of course there is the bad hair day, which friends can commiserate with, because like you they know this is nothing serious. It really is a cry for a friend to go with you to buy another pair of shoes or a pint of beer, whichever way you are inclined. You recognise these people because one talks all the time and the other one only says "I know . . . Isn't it just . . . I know . . . Of course not . . . " and so on. We all need that from time to time. I know someone who only calls me about twice a year. When she calls, I know it is so that I can tell her she is a great person. When she is in that mood, somehow she believes me, but not her husband or children who constantly makes demands on her.

Then there are the days when we simply choose to feel like whining about things, especially the weather and the government. Why on earth does everyone the world over have such an obsession with the weather? Anyway, when we choose to have a miserable day, the worst we can encounter is someone who is radiant with happiness, because it somehow tells us we made the wrong choice, and that is not nice to know and makes our day worse.

Of course we can consciously choose to change our mood. It does take some effort, like finding your way back to the right road when you get lost in a city you do not know. You can continue to just drive until you leave the city, and then try again to get to your destination, or you can focus on driving to the end of the one-way street, and then use your inner compass to go into the right direction and be on your way again.

If you feel like whining and complaining but choose to rather jump up and down, do a few war cries and take a few deep breaths, you will immediately pop out of the whining mood, because you will simply have too much energy to hang your shoulders and your face. You may get a few funny looks in the office, but at least you will feel much better for the rest of the day - and get a laugh out of other whining people which will make them feel better. Try it - it works.

Of course laughing also raises your vibrations. It does not matter whether it is a giggle by yourself or a deep laugh that comes from your stomach. You do not need to hear a good joke to laugh. All you need to do is laugh, and notice how your feelings change. There are companies that have tried this - a laughing session to start the day off - and it improved their productivity. They did not allow any jokes - at some point you could either run out of jokes or offend someone, and people's sense of humour differ anyway. Just laughing works all the time if you want to raise the energy in a room, and it is contagious.

There is also the darkness that we experience after a particular incident, like a divorce or an accident. Some people experience it and then decide to move on. This takes time, but we all have our incidents and it is possible to accept them as part of our life path and then move on. Other people define themselves in terms of that incident for the rest of their lives, and often join organisations that make them feel like traitors if they choose to move on. I am referring to organisations that help people "recover" from alcoholism or rape or losing a child and so on. I am sure they initially do good work, but their survival depends on having dedicated members - people who choose to relive their experiences for a long time rather than integrate the experiences and get on with their lives.

If you are stuck in such an experience and want to define your life in a different way, I can recommend Dr John Demartini's Breakthrough Experience (refer the link on my blog) or any good NLP practitioner.

NLP is the acronym for neuro-linguistic programming. NLP explores the relationships between how we think (neuro), how we communicate (linguistic) and our patterns of behaviour and emotion (programmes). An NLP practitioner will help you identify how your thoughts create your reality, and then change those thoughts so that you can also change your behaviour patterns and the emotions that they are based on.

But if you are simply having a bad hair day, trust me, nothing beats retail therapy. Just do not buy any clothes when you are in such a mood, because when you feel better and you see what you have spent your money on, you will get yourself into a mother of a depression.