Your Mind’s Geared to be Negative… how can you Positively Rewire?

According to the National Science Foundation we have between 12,000 – 60,000 thoughts per day. Apparently most of these thoughts (over 90% of them) are exactly the same as the day before. But unfortunately the not so good news is that, up to 80% of these thoughts can be negative – what a Habit! (Michigan State University)

The flight or fight tendency is instinctive it’s our natural animalistic behaviour and a guidance system built to protect ourselves. So thinking negatively about potential challenges in advance and doing something about it can work to keep us safe in certain instances.

Negative thinking’s not all bad as it can serve us too

1. It Can Keep us Safe
- Putting a seat belt on in the car
- Using safety equipment in dangerous environments
- Not walking alone at night in certain areas
- Health and safety rules in companies

2. Checks Your Focus
- Shows your Guidance System towards what you want and don't want is working
- Whenever you know what you don’t want, What you DO want is part of that equation too
- So it helps you Focus on what you do want

3. Can Motivate Us to do something better or different
- At times it takes being so uncomfortable or challenged in situations before we overcome
the fear to make a change in ourselves to have the courage to step up.

Negative Input in Our World

It’s easy to go down a negativity spiral if we sit watching or listening to bad news every day. Or if we have had tough experiences that we keep replaying over and over in our mind expecting the same thing to keep happening.

But we need to become aware enough to catch ourselves before we hit the downward spiral that keeps the negativity loop going round and round. As it increases cortisol and stress hormones in our body, depletes our energy, and we end up seeing only the bad in everything which can eventually lead to depression. Once we notice and become aware of the pattern we can start to turn things around in our favour.

What You Focus on Expands

If we don’t interrupt this downward spiral either ourselves, or get help to interrupt the pattern then we keep searching for evidence that negative things are happening and whatever we focus on just keeps expanding and we notice and experience more of it.

Triggers EG:
Being Criticised as a child - Expecting others to continually judge us as an adult
– Or negatively judging ourselves

EG: New Car
Think of a time you bought a new car and soon after buying your new car, you suddenly start noticing your make of car, and sometimes even the same colour car everywhere. When previously you never even noticed this type of car before. Whatever evidence you search for, you generally find it…. consciously or unconsciously.

If we want our lives to become happier and more fulfilled, its important for us to choose to become more conscious of how what we’re thinking impacts our whole life. Then we can search for evidence of things we actually want in our life... and create more of it in the process.

BUT It’s important not to make being negative wrong… as that keeps us focused on it!
We just need to adjust the balance

Body Mind Analyst & Executive Coach Suzanne Masefield
talks to Jack Tame on Breakfast TV

How Our Amazing Brain Works

Hyperactive negative or depressed thoughts are developed in the right pre-frontal cortex in the front part of the brain just above your eyeball. Positive optimistic thoughts are developed in the top left part of the brain, the left pre-frontal cortex (which is underdeveloped when someone is depressed).

Recent studies have shown that feeling appreciation and undertaking meditation as a couple of options rebalances the positive negative ratio. The research is still in its early days, but the results to date are promising, showing that you can retrain the brain over a 30 day period with patience and perseverance.

The brain is just like any other muscle, whatever area we focus on develops
and becomes larger. And when we don’t use certain areas, they reduce!

So it seems we have the capacity to change and grow the neural pathways in our brain
to create more of what we want and less of what we don’t when we create awareness,
focus on it and keep practising building and developing the positive thinking muscle.

It's always good to have real life examples where individuals have turned what seems to be negative situations around to shift their focus to completely turn their life around by re-balancing their negative to positive thinking ratio. So here's how one of my Executive Clients turned an unexpected, unwanted experience to his advantage.

Client Case

A few years ago one of my executive clients, a corporate CEO in an international company, was thrown sideways when his company suddenly downsized and he was made redundant. He felt as if the ground shifted from underneath him as he realised all he'd thought was safe and true unravelled in one fell swoop.

When something like this happens there's many thoughts and emotions we need to process, but the first one is usually shock, followed by denial, anger, grief, loss and fear and not always in that order. So it was important for my client to receive the support and time to work through, process and release this experience in a safe, supportive environment.

Part of this process was reviewing how the situation could serve him in a positive way. As he received a good pay out, so didn’t need to worry about finances in the immediate future giving him space to review his life and what he wanted without much pressure, a luxury not many experience.

He realised he hadn’t been happy in his role for many years, but had become stuck just earning money and had basically accepting his lot. He was entrenched in negative, fear filled thinking and hadn’t had the courage to change things towards the direction he preferred. John (client’s identify protected) realised that his relationships with his wife and family had been suffering for a while and by ignoring his negative thoughts, he'd become depressed, withdrawn and distanced himself from those he loved most because of it.

Quite quickly John came to realise that being made redundant had been a blessing in disguise, as he could spend time rebuilding his relationship with his family. We worked to help him overcome his fear so he could explore new territory and exciting career avenues that he’d often wanted to pursue. He’s now a highly sort after consultant, serving on many company boards. No-one tells him what to do, he steers his own ship, earns a great income whilst working part time, so has plenty of time to do what he loves, which he's never had time for before, and he’s happier and more fulfilled than he ever was before.

This is just one example of how something that appears negative at the onset, can positively turn your life around when you have the courage to review your thinking, your emotions, your behaviour and your actions so you can take charge to go for what you really want in life.

Now you can choose to Be Bold on Purpose to Become Your Own Best Friend
by developing your Positive Muscle following this simple 4 Step format.

Positively Rewire Your Focus in 4 Steps

Step 1 – Awareness
Notice how your Guidance System is working ie focus on what you’re thinking
Check Your Focus – Is it going the direction you want it to?
Get out ahead of it

Step 2 – Pattern Interrupt
Take a Breath - Acknowledge Yourself for catching the thought – Release Judgment
Do something different – Go for a Walk - Make a cup of tea
Do 10 x Star Jumps - Pop the Negative thought bubble
Tip your head on the side to tip out the negative thought(s)

3. Step 3 – Reset
Watch, listen to something funny, uplifting or inspirational
“How could it work for you – Positive Slant – Where does it serve you?
Ask ‘What could be a Positive way to look at it instead?’
Search for Positive Evidence

4. Step 4 – Mastery
Set up a Daily, Weekly Plan to develop and grow the Positive Thinking Muscle
- Start day connecting to self with 3 Deep Breaths before getting out of bed
- Identify 3 x things your are Grateful for in your life
- Press Pause at natural stop points in the day
- Take a Breath Notice what you Appreciate in your Day
- Check in with Your Thinking Focus and Reset if necessary
- End Your Day Acknowledging Yourself all you’ve done to improve your thinking and your life.

Your could AIM to diminish Negative Thinking to 10% whilst focusing on developing your Positive Thinking Muscle to 90% to re-balance your ratio so you can increase quality of life and results.

Four Winds People Parable

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life.

"A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy.

"It's a terrible fight and its between two wolves.

One is evil - he is filled with anger, envy, sorry, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity,
guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego."

"The other wolf is filled with goodness - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness,

benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.

The same fight is going on inside you - and inside every other person too."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather,

"Which wolf will win?'

The old Cherokee simply replied

"The one you feed."

Don't wait until something extra challenging occurs in your life before updating what no longer serves you. It's about breaking it down into manageable chunks to take steps towards the life you really want by practicing positivity, patience, perseverance and purpose one day at a time.

Contact Suzanne Masefield