Our brains are evolutionary wired to think negative. The first thought that comes in our mind when something goes wrong is a negative one.
It is a healthy way to be heedful in advance to fight against any danger or challenge that comes our way. However, continuous negative thinking often hinders our entire thought process and sometimes this in turn can make us view a joyous happening also as something that may harm us in some way or may not stay long. A small negative comment by someone lasts much longer than a positive comment. That’s the power negativity holds. To sustain even a positive remark, one has to repeat it several times or takes much more focus to imbibe than the impact a negative one leaves. The more negative we think, more automatic our thought process becomes and it is then less likely for us to think in a positive way. It’s really important to break the vicious chain of pessimistic bias and to shift our focus towards the desirable or a more positive one.
Negative mindset on a long run tends to radiate anxiety, becoming ill frequently, regular headaches, depression, heart diseases, obesity, and many other psychological imbalances in our immune system. While positive attitude allows the upcoming of serotonin and oxytocin, which in turn strengthens our immune system, increases our self esteem, decreases the rate of diseases, disorders and malfunctioning in our body and brain.
Changing our focus towards positive mindset involves:
1. Be Curious: Be curious to know what a particular situation is trying to teach you and how that can make you grow in a productive manner.
2. Gratitude: When you feel low, try writing the things and people you are thankful of and for in your life, read the names slowly and feel the gratitude within you.
3. Savor: Whenever a positive event happens in your life no matter how minor or major that may be, take time to feel it, experience flow in it and store it forever. Positive events take more time to get stored in our memory than negative ones.
4. Stop inner critic: Our only enemy in our lives is “we” ourselves. No matter what happens, don’t try catastrophising or generalising. Just because something has happened once or few times don’t see it as a hallmark and that it will always happen that way.
5. Compassion: Be kind and compassionate towards you and others. It makes you much wiser, healthier and beautiful.
Life is all about balancing our thoughts, walking with a practical and constructive perspective. Seize the day with a positive outlook which will add the magic of enlightenment in your life.