Stop Believing Everything You Say to Yourself
You could be lying.
How we talk to ourselves plays a major role in how we feel. Engaging in negative self-talk, falling into all-or-nothing thinking, or catastrophizing about what may never happen is our brain trying to keep us safe and driving us crazy at the same time.
We have a built-in brain mechanism that is vigilant in every aspect of our lives at all times and is wired to notice any potential danger. Because of our evolutionary need to quickly recognize and respond to potential danger, research done by John Cacioppo, Ph.D., shows that the brain reacts more strongly to negative stimuli than positive ones
When we become stressed or overwhelmed, when we are faced with anything that challenges our sense of safety, our early warning system is triggered. Unfortunately, it doesn’t distinguish between a venomous snake and a quickly approaching deadline. We become focused on everything that is or could be or might be or may never be wrong in order to stay safe.
“Even in the modern world, our mind always churns to find hazards and opportunities in the data we derive from our surroundings, somewhat like a search engine server. Our brain goes one step further, however, by also thinking proactively, a task that takes even more mental processing.” — Professor Barry Gordon, Johns…
