"You can tell more about a person by what he says about others than you can by what others say about him." Leo Aikman

This quote came to mind as I looked through the Moodscope blogs and comments.

How often are we triggered by something that someone quite innocently says and then we react in a way that is far more revealing about ourselves?

Some, or even much of what is written, especially on Moodscope, are personal experiences, or offers of what has helped in what can be very emotional situations.

Each person that writes is opening their own soul, and showing vulnerability which can take personal courage to put words on a page for others to read and at times comment on.

The Moodscope community is certainly one where there is I believe a sense of sharing where people are often 'serving' others with their wise and supportive comments and replies.

I have noticed that some comments seem to be in response to a feeling that has emerged inside that person due to their understanding of what they have just read from perhaps a slightly coloured or hurt place in which they sit.

All too often we can almost 'react' to something which may well be close to our sensitivity, which can show our imbalance or vulnerability to be able to deal with whatever is emotionally disturbing us in the first place.

The key to me in any constructive comment, is to either build on what has already been said, or to offer another alternative that enriches the possibilities of a solution or moving on from a different perspective, especially in the emotional areas so richly mined by Moodscope users.

We can often see the Moodscope community 'in action' - when the first comment is sometimes 'reactive' and almost an attack at what has been written (no one in this community writes I'm sure to put anyone down) and this is immediately followed by others who are not imbalanced by the blog, stepping in to offer words of comfort, or even an alternative viewpoint to re-balance the blog.

When we write emotionally, in a less balanced state, we may be 'revealing' much of the disturbance that may have drawn us to want to do daily Moodscope in the first place.

Any such reaction, is quite possibly more revealing about themselves and their own challenges, than the writer of the original blog who has taken time and courage to openly 'show themselves'. And with the community we have, usually by the end of the comments, balance has been restored.

A bit like life really and in the challenges of mental health, ideally a bit like the internal conversations we all have in our heads, where hopefully after being knocked off balance we re-balance.

And for many of us, it is through our trusted friends and family this re-balancing conversation is sought - as the people who love us, forgive us for any imbalanced outburst and walk this ongoing journey of re-balancing with us.

Les

A Moodscope user.