photo credit: Pink Sherbet Photography

For those who believe, no proof is necessary.  For those who don’t believe, no proof is possible.

— Stuart Chase

Here at BouncebackCafe.com, Ellie and I focus on providing ideas, skills and techniques for helping you to live your best life.  One of the things that I’ve found is that each person is only as open to trying some of these ideas as they are hopeful about their future.

Each and every day, we are bombarded by messages about ourselves, the world around us, the future, opportunities, problems and a million other things that we’re not even aware of.  Without even thinking about it, we choose which messages to accept as true and which we reject as false.  If you’ve been overwhelmed by negativity, it’s hard to try new ideas.

The Chicken or the Egg?

This raises an interesting question.  What determines which messages we accept and which we reject?  Do we feel down because a preponderance of the news is negative or do we hear the negative news because it’s what we expect?

Research shows that “nastiness sticks.”  According to Hara Estroff Marano in the article Our Brain’s Negative Bias published in Psychology Today, our brains react more strongly to negative stimuli.  This is probably because negative stimuli were apt to signal a need for picking up a club to defend ourselves or beating a hasty retreat.  Those who didn’t react strongly to negative stimuli probably lost the evolutionary race and aren’t represented among us – the evolutionary survivors.

So, our evolutionary heritage leaves us always watching over our shoulders – just in case…

How Do You Feel Today?

One of my major challenges is staying in the moment.  When I was in Corporate America my strength was all kinds of planning – thinking through situations and anticipating problems – being prepared for almost anything.  The problem with that is I’m always looking for the thing that’s going to “get me” in the future.  Today is great – but WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN TOMORROW???

In the musical Rent, Life Support is a short song representing a support group meeting of people with AIDS.  The lyrics are part of a conversation:

Gordon feels the best he’s felt all year and yet he’s anticipating when he won’t feel so good.  Over time, with our negative bias, we read/hear/see and remember the negatives that pass by us in life.  So, if we start feeling, “Best I’ve felt all year!” – then our anxiety level creeps upward because we “believe” that something bad is bound to happen.  Things are just going too well.

The Cure – Staying in the Moment

Although some of the time, we face problems – real problems, often we simply anticipate the awful things that might happen.  They might!  But as you look back over your life, were there that many horrible things to justify the amount of time you’re spending planning for the next disaster?  A friend sent me the following video today – which demonstrates the value of staying in the moment.

Those dogs don’t have a worry in the world.  They are WHERE they are WHEN they are there.  Think back.  What do you do that totally absorbs you?  Take time to do that.  Get lost in it.  When you come back from your mini-vacation, notice how you feel.  Hopefully, it’ll be the best you’ve felt in a long time.  Remember that feeling and how you got it.

Repeat as Needed

Research tells us that it takes five times as much positive feeling to counteract the effects of the negative experiences we have; so take that mini-vacation, be in the moment often, do it INSTEAD of looking back over your shoulder for trouble!  Then you too may say: What, me worry?