TALKING ABOUT OUR PROBLEMS…is our greatest addiction.
Break the habit, for your own happiness.
Think about your JOYS instead.
TOXIC POSITIVITY IT AIN’T
This is NEUROSCIENCE.
Pathways in a wood
See, our brain is like this beautiful forest with lots of little pathways crossing and criss-crossing through it.
Each time we learn something new, or practice a new skill or way of living, we create a new pathway.
Like piano, or break-dancing, or Spanish, or brain surgery.
It’s not a big path at first, this new neural pathway we’re making in the brain.
It’s only a track, really, with lots of brambles and sharp thorns still sticking out, lots of stuff to trip over on the uneven surface, and so it takes lots of footfall before it widens out, flattens down, becomes easier to use.
That’s why learning new things takes practice.
Learning New Things… new pathways in the mind
But every single time we use this new path it gets broader and easier to use- fewer brambles, fewer obstacles- and so we can go along it easier, faster, better each time.
And that’s great, when the New Thing we’re learning is something good, something helpful. Like brain surgery.
But the pathway metaphor works just the same for negative habits too.
Negative Thinking becomes a broad path
Like, when we get into the habit of thinking and talking regularly about our problems – we start to carve a pathway for negative thinking in our brain.
This is made broader and wider when we get into the habit of talking and thinking about these negative things more and more often each day…how someone doesn’t like us, how we will never get what we want, how life isn’t fair, how things aren’t working out, how we are so stressed and our job is RUBBISH, how life is actually really HARD and we never seem to be HAPPY…how our knee really hurts and it’s getting worse and worse, how the world is going to hell in a handcart, how no-one is friendly anymore, no-one cares, how the system is broken and we are all doomed…
The SUPER-HIGHWAY OF GLOOM…
How to make the negative pathway broader –
- Hanging around with people who think and talk this way too. Following people on social media who think and talk this way too.
- Exposing our brains to negative sights and sounds and information. Stuff on the news.
- Stuff on social about people being mean/unhappy/etc
- Gossip about other people.
- Fears. Ours and other peoples. Real and imaginary.
- Remembering past events and using them to predict how the future will go.
- Imagining the future as a worst-case scenario just to keep us safe from disappointment.
Making the Sads AutomaticBefore you know it, this new pathway in our heads becomes a super-highway of gloom, one we travel lots and lots of times every day – and worse – the brain makes the paths we use the most, AUTOMATIC.
So now, we automatically (or unconsciously) think the worst about every given situation- every dodgy expression on our friend’s face, every silence when we enter a room, every message without an emoji. That’s just how the brain works.
We now go down this negative neural pathway UNCONSCIOUSLY whenever we try to understand anything about our lives. When we try to interact with others. When we try to plan for the future.
You can see where this is going, right?
The road to nowhere, that’s where.
Without even choosing, we get to a place where we automatically see everything from the worst possible perspective.
RESULT?
Low mood
Anxiety
Sleep disturbance/nightmares
Tummy problems
Fears and Phobias
Relationship problems
Stress and Overwhelm
And the rest..
SO, what can we do about it?
LET’S DO A LITTLE PRUNING… 
Start noticing the little things that are good in your life, instead.
Hack back the brambles and thorns which have grown over your positive pathway – the one you used to notice Good Stuff on. Each time you consciously decide to notice something good, pleasant, hopeful or kind, you broaden THIS neural pathway, the one that lead towards happiness.
Contentment.
Security.
Safety.
Peace.
Love.
All the good stuff.
Make this your NEW automatic route, through regular use and practice.
The modern world doesn’t promote positive thought, positive imagery, positive speech.
But we can only walk one path.
WHICH ONE WILL YOU CHOOSE?
‘Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.’
Robert Frost
*Solution Focused Therapy helps you actively re-wire your brain, broadening the positive pathway and letting that ole’ negative one grow over, nicely. Give me a shout for more information. 