If you’ve experienced significant emotional or psychological challenges or trauma in your life, there is a high chance you may lean towards problem-focus, self-criticism, worry, hyperfixation, hypervigilance, fearing the worst.

You may also find yourself thinking, speaking and focusing on frustrating moments more than joyful times. You may not even see much joy – this is natural for anyone who’s been through significant or multiple traumas.

Another common trait is an attraction or addiction to bad news, thillers, drama series, or stories of nastiness in the world. Perhaps you were at a coffee shop seeking peace and felt drawn to gossip at the next table, or perhaps you find yourself in dynamics that are highly charged with drama and judgement.

If you’ve heard phrases like “you’re being negative” or something of that nature directed towards, it can hit like a dart on a landscape that is already sore and wounded. Negativity shows up in our lives in many ways both externally and internally. This post is written to reduce stigma, shame and judgement around this subject.

Origins in Survival

As much as negativity causes unpleasantness, the truth is without its function, we as a species would have gone extinct.

Tracing back to the era of human cave ancestors, being vigilant and looking for potential threats was a matter of life and death. Predicting problems, keeping memory of predatorial areas and being aware of problematic tribes were essential to life of individuals and survival of their communities.

This trait helped us survive as a species, in that we knew what and where to avoid, and where to find solutions that would help us survive.

Over time (thousands of years), our brain and bodies still ran on this survival paradim despite human lifestyles changing. Problems in the jungle transitioned into modern life and we began to look for threats in the form of problems in our work, people, communities and in our own lives.

The Negative Bias

The Brain's Negative Bias — *Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay*

The Negative Bias is the function within the brain that is responsible for this trait which we commonly mistake as personality. As its name suggests, it evokes greater sensitivity towards unpleasantness. As our minds wander and information travel through this part of our brain, it steers us towards problems and unpleasantness and we find ourselves automatically biased towards the negative.

This means we detect threats, potential problems and things that are ‘off’ far quicker than we register the pleasant or neutral events. Our amygdala (the region of our brain responsible for survival instincts) uses about two-thirds of its neurons to detect problematic events and store them into long-term memory*.

i.e., Two thirds of functional brain processes are designed to focus on problems.

If you’ve experienced significant or multiple traumas in your life, the amygdala is naturally hyperactive as a way to protect you from the pains of the past.

For example, if you learned to suppress your voice or desires early on in life – perhaps you learned this from disapproving facial expressions from others around you – as an adult, your amygdala may naturally warn you from expressing yourself when you go into work meetings. This is just one such example.

*Source: https://www.miuc.org/brain-love-negativity-negativity-bias/

Balancing Positive and Negative

We need both positive (pleasant) and negative (unpleasant) emotions to stay in flow

You can think of your mind and body as electromagnetic field that requires both positive and negative emotions to stay in flow, just as a battery needs both negative and positive to flow.

Trying too hard to be positive can lead to loss of sensitivity, empathy, sympathy and vulnerability.

Equally, being stuck in heavy emotions such as guilt and prolonged sorrow leads to loss of hope, joy, aliveness.

Balance, however, means that you can autonomously move yourself towards joy, hope, possibility and creativity, while also ground into empathy, connection and compassion.

Most importantly, it helps you un-judge yourself. Instead of working hard to be more positive or less negative, it’s more helpful to be real, observe your patterns, and find your balance.

3 Tools to Break the Cycle

1. Gratitude

This is potentially the most powerful practice move out of unhelpful patterns. Make a list of 3-5 things you find nice, helpful, or worthy each day. You may find this list growing over time as you include little silly things too. Perhaps appreciation of something delicious you had, something pleasant someone said even if you don’t know whether they meant it, the sight of a bird, a beautiful flower, sunshine, something you did after procrastinating…the list could go on.

Gratitude lists are an especially useful practice before bedtime – so you acknowledge your gains and efforts, and do not carry unfinished matters into sleep.

It is also an uplifting practice for the darker rainy days. Revisiting your list brings perspective and relief when you feel lost or trapped.

On a scientific level, this practice creates new neural pathways in the brain and body that lead to lighter and expansive feelings. With practice, this ‘overrides’ old pathways that once led to painful thoughts and feelings. Old unhelpful patterns loosen up, useful patterns strengthen, and you find the mind expanding. When the mind expands, you find yourself more creative, playful, adventurous, brave, bold, courageous, compassionate.

A subtle caution: gratitude practice isn’t about what you ‘should‘ be grateful for (a subtle form of self-aggression), but about what you do notice as valuable to you.

2. Replace the word “Negative”

The word “negative” comes with the subtle association that it is part of a person’s personality. This can increase shame. For example, if you heard the words “don’t be so negative” or if you tell yourself “I shouldn’t be so negative”, in itself you find yourself positioned in the identity of “someone negative”.

Alternatively, you can swap it for a word that carries less shame such as “heavy”, “pain. For example,

If you’re speaking with a friend, instead of “don’t focus on the negative”, you can instead say “I notice heaviness in your experience.”
If you’re speaking with yourself, instead of “I shouldn’t be so negative”, you can instead say “my energies are contracting” or “I notice myself heading downwards” or “I notice heaviness in myself”.

In doing so, you position yourself in the direct ‘sensation’ and ‘feeling’ which induces compassion, rather than the identity of ‘someone negative’ which induces judgement and division.

3. Growth Mindset

Sometimes, you may not be able to feel grateful. In such situations, it is best not to force this but instead, reflect on possibilities for growth. Observe if you have learned something from the situation, or if it has taught you something about yourself or about life in general.

For example, repeated patterns in relationships may tell you something about your need to speak up or work on reactive outbursts. Or, a difficult situation may show you strength you may not have known you had. Or, the pain of a broken relationship may open up the possibility to cultivate self-love and self-care.

Looking for growth sometimes means taking a birds eye view of the situation, viewing it from a distance, perhaps as an older version of yourself or as another person.

Negativity and positivity both have its place.
They are often helpful.
They are often unhelpful too.
It’s up to us to balance them with Self Awareness and Practice

The Negative Bias helped us survive as a species.
Gratitude & Growth helps you thrive within humanity.