November 28, 2023 • 11 mins
Ever wondered why negative experiences seem to linger longer in your memory than positive ones?
It may surprise you to know that our brains are naturally wired towards negativity - but why is this the case, and how does it affect our perception and life experiences?
We explore from personal experiences and Rick Hansen's enlightening book "Hardwiring Happiness," why we remember the bad over the good, and how media and gossip further fuel this bias.
Don't let your brain hold you back!
Remember, your mind is the most potent tool you have, and learning how to harness its power can help you live life on your terms.
We share practical strategies to overcome your natural tendency towards negativity.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
And on today's episode we are going to talk
about how we are hardwired fornegativity.
Yep, that's right, I saidnegativity.
I don't know if you're aware,but we think a lot, a lot, and
most of what we think about tostart off with is negative.
Now, I'm not saying you'renegative by choice, it's just
how the brain is built.
So we're going to talk aboutthe brain and we're going to
(00:22):
talk about something callednegative bias and how we can
stop it from mucking up our life.
So let's get started, okay, oneminute at a time.
(01:00):
So listen, I have a techniquethat is very powerful and that
works very well for any kind ofanxiety.
You may have Anxiety that youget at Sunday night thinking
about going to work on Mondaymorning, the anxiety you get
(01:24):
just because it's the holidayseason, or perhaps you're just
so excited to hang out with yourin-laws and you're starting to
feel a little bit of thatanxiety creeping.
Give this technique a try.
It takes less than two minutesand it is very powerful.
Go on over to CherylJReynolds.
com/stressless It's a video andit's free.
(01:48):
Check it out.
Welcome to Mindful Hypnosis.
I'm Cheryl, your host today.
So this is an interesting point.
We have about 60,000 thoughts aday, and about 80% of them are
repeats or negative thoughtsfrom the day before, the worries
before or even our future.
(02:10):
And this is normal.
Now, if you're an overthinkerwhich, if you're listening to me
, you probably are then youmight have around 80,000
thoughts a day, and I know thisseems like a high number, but
you have to remember that we'retalking about a subconscious
mind which sees and evaluateseverything.
So there's a lot of thinkinggoing on, even behind the
(02:32):
curtain, so to speak, and ourbrains are geared towards this
negativity.
It's a protective mechanism tokeep you from doing stupid shit
to get yourself killed, likepetting a tiger or putting your
hand in something you shouldn't.
You know, like that.
The best definition of negativebias, which is what we're going
to talk about, is actually forWikipedia, which states that
(02:54):
things of equal intensity,things of a more negative nature
, like an unpleasant thought,emotions or social interactions,
harmful traumatic events, havea greater effect on one's
psychological state andprocesses than neutral or
positive things.
So our bias towards negativityis hard-wired in our primitive
brain.
Again, it's what protects us,it's what keeps us safe, it's
(03:18):
that whole carrot and stickthing.
You know, you notice a rufflingor a rustling Rustling is the
word right In the bushes andyour first thought could be oh,
it's going to be a cute littlebunny, let me put my hand in
there.
No, your brain wouldautomatically think all right,
let's make sure we know what itis first, and be safe.
So again, it's a primitivebrain thing.
(03:40):
To give you an example of anegative bias you get your
evaluation at work and you havea wonderful evaluation, except
for one thing.
And let me guess, when you walkout of that evaluation, that
one thing gets stuck in yourcrop.
Another example is the news.
Oh the news.
Oh, save me from the news rightnow.
(04:01):
They know how our brain works,they know what makes us tick,
and if you go to your newschannel and you turn it on and
you're going to hear 20 minutesof negative crap and then at the
end let's talk about the cutelittle puppy, you know, even
when it comes to just generalconversation, everybody loves
(04:22):
gossip.
Gossip tends to be on thenegative side most often.
So again, it all goes back tohow our brain works, and there's
a really nice book that iscalled Hard Wire for Happiness
by Rick Hansen.
He's a PhD and he works mostlywith neuroplasticity and he says
that we have two types ofmemory Explicit and implicit.
(04:45):
Now, explicit memory has all ofyour personal connections or
collections in it from when youare a child to now, and they
tend to be positive.
Now your implicit memory iswhat's called procedural
knowledge, and this helps you dothings like riding a bike or
(05:06):
navigating in a difficultconversation.
These particular memories tendto be negative based.
So why is this happening?
What is the purpose for it,besides protecting us?
Well, we learn faster bynegativity.
Your brain is built foravoiding rather than moving
towards situations.
We learn that we can get hurtby people and things that we do,
(05:27):
and so we learn to be careful.
We learn to avoid theunnecessary and to kind of put
our guard up, so to speak.
These negative biases are alsorooted in our fight and freeze.
It keeps us safe.
Besides, you know, the negativenegativity sticks in our
(05:48):
subconscious more.
And Rick Hansen I'm going to goback to him because he's a
brilliant man and in his otherwonderful book, in Buddha Brain,
he wrote that your brain islike Velcro for negative
experience and Teflon forpositive words, even though most
of your experiences areprobably neutral or positive.
So if you know by now, and ifyou follow me for a while, you
(06:11):
would know that I love a goodmurder mystery.
And when you start watching asmuch ID discovery as I do, you
tend to become more diligent,diligent, no, diligent, aware,
it's a better word, because Iseem to get the other one out
and you tend not to be astrusting as one should.
I like to say that I watchthese shows because it helped me
(06:34):
to be more aware and safer,because I'm on alert.
However, the flip side is Itend to be a little too alert,
which means less trusting.
I'll give you an example.
Going back about maybe five orsix years ago, I came out of the
store and this woman wasrunning towards me as fast as
she could.
You know, ma'am, ma'am, and I'mthinking, oh my god.
And my first initial thoughtand this is embarrassing to say
(06:56):
was like oh my god, she's gonnagrab me, put me in her car for a
boyfriend or something, and shejust ran up to me and asked me
for a lighter, which I didn'thave.
But I got in my car and Ithought, wow, that's not normal
to have that kind of thought forthe first initial reaction, but
she startled me, I don't know.
Anyway, kind of a sad tale totell, but that's negative bias,
(07:20):
that's not trusting, and youknow you also have to remember
to.
For me, anyway, my dad was apolice officer, so I also tend
to have that more bill, bill oh,forget it aware attitude as
well, and a few other situationsin my past that, would you know
, validate my concerns.
So we'll leave that there.
How do so?
How do you become less negativeand more positive?
(07:42):
So one of the first things thatI like to do now realize in
that my brain is definitely widemore for negative than positive
is, I ask myself is this reallytrue or is my brain trying to
protect me?
Now I'm not going to sit thereand go down the rabbit hole of
thinking and thinking about allthis, but it's just a simple
(08:02):
question am I using my negative,biased brain to evaluate the
situation?
And you have to base it on yourown judgment, and time will
tell, of course.
Asking if it is true just givesyou an ability to look at it
from a different perspective.
So another way is just toappreciate your negative bias
brain and thank you for caringfor you, and then, in certain
(08:23):
situations, you can tell it toback off that you got this.
Another reason your brain, brain, your brain, your brain is
biased.
Or another reason is to protectyou from change, that nasty c
word that your brain hates.
Your brain likes things thatare easy and simple and it
doesn't like disruptions,because change is scary and we
built that into our brain.
(08:44):
So sometimes that negative biaswhat are you doing?
Why are you doing that now?
That's not what you did beforeand of course, there comes a
negative bias again.
So we have to sometimesbasically tell our brain to
knock it off, to back off, sothat we can start to look at
things more in a positive light.
You can also start to look atall the positive things in your
(09:05):
life, settle into them moreoften so they continue to make a
bigger impact.
One of the things rick rickhansen mentions is to come up
with a positive emotion and holdon to it longer, allow it to
seep and settle into your bodyto where it starts to move into
your brain and dig out or, as Isay, push out those negative
(09:25):
thoughts and replace them withpositive.
You can start to do this byjust noticing more of the
positive things in your life.
Another thing that you can dois to trust your intuition,
start to use it more often.
The mind may judge, but theheart knows, and when you can
start to use your intuition, asopposed to your thinking brain,
you tend to be spot on, becauseour intuition doesn't lie to us.
(09:48):
It comes from a place wherethere is non-judgment, so it
knows, and the more you utilizethat, the better you'll become
at understanding experiences,especially the ones that may
seem negative.
So, in saying all that negativebias is going to be there.
It's part of our brain's way ofkeeping us safe and helping us
and helping us to know how tojudge situations.
(10:10):
But unfortunately it can causea lot of problems in our life
because we can get stuck downthat negative rabbit hole, to
where everything we think isnegative or everything has a
negative twist to it, and so wehave to break that cycle and
there are certain ways to do itand, as I discussed before, give
those a try and let me know howyou do.
And if you notice that you arereally, really negative, give
(10:32):
yourself some grace, giveyourself a little hug and
realize that it's not yourentire fault and that you can
make brain changes that arepositive for you.
Okay, that is all for now.
Take a deep breath in andexhale.
Thank you for listening to theend of this podcast.
Go on over to the show notes atcheryljreynolds.
(10:55):
com for more information andvaluable resources while you're
there.
Sign up for the newsletter soyou never miss an episode, and
if you want to find the link towork with me one-on-one, you can
find it there.
Remember you have a powerfulmind and it can be changed to
support the life you want tolive.
In the meantime, enjoy your dayone minute at a time.
And on today's episode we are going to talk
about how we are hardwired fornegativity.
Yep, that's right, I saidnegativity.
I don't know if you're aware,but we think a lot, a lot, and
most of what we think about tostart off with is negative.
Now, I'm not saying you'renegative by choice, it's just
how the brain is built.
So we're going to talk aboutthe brain and we're going to
(00:22):
talk about something callednegative bias and how we can
stop it from mucking up our life.
So let's get started, okay, oneminute at a time.
(01:00):
So listen, I have a techniquethat is very powerful and that
works very well for any kind ofanxiety.
You may have Anxiety that youget at Sunday night thinking
about going to work on Mondaymorning, the anxiety you get
(01:24):
just because it's the holidayseason, or perhaps you're just
so excited to hang out with yourin-laws and you're starting to
feel a little bit of thatanxiety creeping.
Give this technique a try.
It takes less than two minutesand it is very powerful.
Go on over to CherylJReynolds.
com/stressless It's a video andit's free.
(01:48):
Check it out.
Welcome to Mindful Hypnosis.
I'm Cheryl, your host today.
So this is an interesting point.
We have about 60,000 thoughts aday, and about 80% of them are
repeats or negative thoughtsfrom the day before, the worries
before or even our future.
(02:10):
And this is normal.
Now, if you're an overthinkerwhich, if you're listening to me
, you probably are then youmight have around 80,000
thoughts a day, and I know thisseems like a high number, but
you have to remember that we'retalking about a subconscious
mind which sees and evaluateseverything.
So there's a lot of thinkinggoing on, even behind the
(02:32):
curtain, so to speak, and ourbrains are geared towards this
negativity.
It's a protective mechanism tokeep you from doing stupid shit
to get yourself killed, likepetting a tiger or putting your
hand in something you shouldn't.
You know, like that.
The best definition of negativebias, which is what we're going
to talk about, is actually forWikipedia, which states that
(02:54):
things of equal intensity,things of a more negative nature
, like an unpleasant thought,emotions or social interactions,
harmful traumatic events, havea greater effect on one's
psychological state andprocesses than neutral or
positive things.
So our bias towards negativityis hard-wired in our primitive
brain.
Again, it's what protects us,it's what keeps us safe, it's
(03:18):
that whole carrot and stickthing.
You know, you notice a rufflingor a rustling Rustling is the
word right In the bushes andyour first thought could be oh,
it's going to be a cute littlebunny, let me put my hand in
there.
No, your brain wouldautomatically think all right,
let's make sure we know what itis first, and be safe.
So again, it's a primitivebrain thing.
(03:40):
To give you an example of anegative bias you get your
evaluation at work and you havea wonderful evaluation, except
for one thing.
And let me guess, when you walkout of that evaluation, that
one thing gets stuck in yourcrop.
Another example is the news.
Oh the news.
Oh, save me from the news rightnow.
(04:01):
They know how our brain works,they know what makes us tick,
and if you go to your newschannel and you turn it on and
you're going to hear 20 minutesof negative crap and then at the
end let's talk about the cutelittle puppy, you know, even
when it comes to just generalconversation, everybody loves
(04:22):
gossip.
Gossip tends to be on thenegative side most often.
So again, it all goes back tohow our brain works, and there's
a really nice book that iscalled Hard Wire for Happiness
by Rick Hansen.
He's a PhD and he works mostlywith neuroplasticity and he says
that we have two types ofmemory Explicit and implicit.
(04:45):
Now, explicit memory has all ofyour personal connections or
collections in it from when youare a child to now, and they
tend to be positive.
Now your implicit memory iswhat's called procedural
knowledge, and this helps you dothings like riding a bike or
(05:06):
navigating in a difficultconversation.
These particular memories tendto be negative based.
So why is this happening?
What is the purpose for it,besides protecting us?
Well, we learn faster bynegativity.
Your brain is built foravoiding rather than moving
towards situations.
We learn that we can get hurtby people and things that we do,
(05:27):
and so we learn to be careful.
We learn to avoid theunnecessary and to kind of put
our guard up, so to speak.
These negative biases are alsorooted in our fight and freeze.
It keeps us safe.
Besides, you know, the negativenegativity sticks in our
(05:48):
subconscious more.
And Rick Hansen I'm going to goback to him because he's a
brilliant man and in his otherwonderful book, in Buddha Brain,
he wrote that your brain islike Velcro for negative
experience and Teflon forpositive words, even though most
of your experiences areprobably neutral or positive.
So if you know by now, and ifyou follow me for a while, you
(06:11):
would know that I love a goodmurder mystery.
And when you start watching asmuch ID discovery as I do, you
tend to become more diligent,diligent, no, diligent, aware,
it's a better word, because Iseem to get the other one out
and you tend not to be astrusting as one should.
I like to say that I watchthese shows because it helped me
(06:34):
to be more aware and safer,because I'm on alert.
However, the flip side is Itend to be a little too alert,
which means less trusting.
I'll give you an example.
Going back about maybe five orsix years ago, I came out of the
store and this woman wasrunning towards me as fast as
she could.
You know, ma'am, ma'am, and I'mthinking, oh my god.
And my first initial thoughtand this is embarrassing to say
(06:56):
was like oh my god, she's gonnagrab me, put me in her car for a
boyfriend or something, and shejust ran up to me and asked me
for a lighter, which I didn'thave.
But I got in my car and Ithought, wow, that's not normal
to have that kind of thought forthe first initial reaction, but
she startled me, I don't know.
Anyway, kind of a sad tale totell, but that's negative bias,
(07:20):
that's not trusting, and youknow you also have to remember
to.
For me, anyway, my dad was apolice officer, so I also tend
to have that more bill, bill oh,forget it aware attitude as
well, and a few other situationsin my past that, would you know
, validate my concerns.
So we'll leave that there.
How do so?
How do you become less negativeand more positive?
(07:42):
So one of the first things thatI like to do now realize in
that my brain is definitely widemore for negative than positive
is, I ask myself is this reallytrue or is my brain trying to
protect me?
Now I'm not going to sit thereand go down the rabbit hole of
thinking and thinking about allthis, but it's just a simple
(08:02):
question am I using my negative,biased brain to evaluate the
situation?
And you have to base it on yourown judgment, and time will
tell, of course.
Asking if it is true just givesyou an ability to look at it
from a different perspective.
So another way is just toappreciate your negative bias
brain and thank you for caringfor you, and then, in certain
(08:23):
situations, you can tell it toback off that you got this.
Another reason your brain, brain, your brain, your brain is
biased.
Or another reason is to protectyou from change, that nasty c
word that your brain hates.
Your brain likes things thatare easy and simple and it
doesn't like disruptions,because change is scary and we
built that into our brain.
(08:44):
So sometimes that negative biaswhat are you doing?
Why are you doing that now?
That's not what you did beforeand of course, there comes a
negative bias again.
So we have to sometimesbasically tell our brain to
knock it off, to back off, sothat we can start to look at
things more in a positive light.
You can also start to look atall the positive things in your
(09:05):
life, settle into them moreoften so they continue to make a
bigger impact.
One of the things rick rickhansen mentions is to come up
with a positive emotion and holdon to it longer, allow it to
seep and settle into your bodyto where it starts to move into
your brain and dig out or, as Isay, push out those negative
(09:25):
thoughts and replace them withpositive.
You can start to do this byjust noticing more of the
positive things in your life.
Another thing that you can dois to trust your intuition,
start to use it more often.
The mind may judge, but theheart knows, and when you can
start to use your intuition, asopposed to your thinking brain,
you tend to be spot on, becauseour intuition doesn't lie to us.
(09:48):
It comes from a place wherethere is non-judgment, so it
knows, and the more you utilizethat, the better you'll become
at understanding experiences,especially the ones that may
seem negative.
So, in saying all that negativebias is going to be there.
It's part of our brain's way ofkeeping us safe and helping us
and helping us to know how tojudge situations.
(10:10):
But unfortunately it can causea lot of problems in our life
because we can get stuck downthat negative rabbit hole, to
where everything we think isnegative or everything has a
negative twist to it, and so wehave to break that cycle and
there are certain ways to do itand, as I discussed before, give
those a try and let me know howyou do.
And if you notice that you arereally, really negative, give
(10:32):
yourself some grace, giveyourself a little hug and
realize that it's not yourentire fault and that you can
make brain changes that arepositive for you.
Okay, that is all for now.
Take a deep breath in andexhale.
Thank you for listening to theend of this podcast.
Go on over to the show notes atcheryljreynolds.
(10:55):
com for more information andvaluable resources while you're
there.
Sign up for the newsletter soyou never miss an episode, and
if you want to find the link towork with me one-on-one, you can
find it there.
Remember you have a powerfulmind and it can be changed to
support the life you want tolive.
In the meantime, enjoy your dayone minute at a time.
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