A quick message from The Moodscope Team: Apologies if you haven't been receiving your Moodscope emails. We have had a technical problem which has now been resolved. Yesterday's blog from Rob will be repeated tomorrow just in case you missed it. Now over to Mary for today's posting...

When you were young, did you have a monster under your bed? I did.

I remember the absolute necessity of making a flying leap from the threshold of my bedroom onto my bed so that the monster couldn't get me. Then of course, I would get into trouble for "bouncing on the bed". My mother never did know about the monster, because I never told her. I think for many children, their monsters are not for sharing.

Once we are grown, the monster moves. And he gets cleverer. For many of us, he moves into our wardrobes or closets. As my business equips people with weapons for fighting this monster, I know quite a lot about them. How will you know if you have one?

Well, if every time you open your closet to get dressed in the morning you feel negative emotions: confusion, frustration, doubt, even despair, that's him! Told you he'd got cleverer; you didn't even know he was still there until now, did you?

The good news is that, once you know you've got him, he's easily dealt with. You see, he can only live in clothes you don't like. If you only have clothes that you like and feel good in, then there's no food for all that negativity. And you know how good it makes you feel when you have a really thorough turn-out.

Get a good friend to help you. If you're a chap this applies to you too, although you may wish to ask a female friend to help. Apparently asking another bloke for help in this area is not the done thing outside the Gay community, although I've never understood why!

What if you feel you'd be left with nothing to wear if you did that? Just knowing the monster exists makes him easier to deal with. Make yourself a promise that from now on you will only add clothes to your wardrobe that you do like. Have only what you know to be useful or believe to be beautiful. Get rid of as much as you can.

It's far better to have a minimalist wardrobe you feel good about, than lots of clothes with space for that nasty beast to hide.