Very often human beings are living on autopilot,
reacting automatically to what happens.
– Betrand Piccard,
Our thoughts are constantly helping us to interpret the world around us, describing what is happening, and trying to make sense of it by helping us interpret events, sights, sounds, smells, feelings.
Our automatic brain attempts to keep us safe like an overprotective parent. Scientists have proven that our brains react more strongly to bad events than good. There is a greater surge in electrical activity. Thus, our attitudes are more heavily influenced by disaster and doom than good news.
The Purpose of Our Negativity Bias
Our capacity to weigh negative input so heavily most likely evolved for a good reason—to keep us out of harm’s way. From the dawn of human history, our very survival depended on our skill at dodging danger. The brain developed systems that would make it unavoidable for us not to notice danger and thus, hopefully, respond to it. Read the full article on Psychology Today.
The automatic brain responds only to danger, threat or vulnerability, but these thoughts are also great teachers. When we question them, we can become more intelligent about why we do the things we do.
Believing in negative thoughts is the single greatest obstruction to your success.
Charles F. Glassman, author of Brain Drain
Questioning Our Automatic Negative Thoughts
Recognize when you are confusing thoughts with fact. For example, I woke up this morning and I looked at my schedule and thought, I will never finish everything I have to do today. Oh the dreadful feeling of defeat before dawn. This is not something new for me. This fear-based thought always makes me feel frustrated, unsettled and unsuccessful before I even began the day. It overwhelms me, but is it true?
Now, I have no evidence that I won’t have a productive day. This is not a fact. The challenge for me is to ask myself why I think I won’t finish everything I have to do today.
Perhaps it is because I have over scheduled myself. If I look at this fearful thought as a tool to help me, I realize I have the opportunity to prioritize my list and set up myself up for success by removing unnecessary tasks until tomorrow, or the next day.
I can also ask that negative thought if I have the right tools to have a productive day. I can question the fear of not having a productive day, with “What will it take me to have a productive one?”
Questioning our automatic thoughts can free us from fear and help us alter our attitudes for more positive outcomes in our lives.
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
– Viktor Frankl
Featured Artist
Leonora Carrington Her approach is deemed visionary and strongly personal, while her symbolism is considered entirely new and authentic. The relationship between Carrington’s writing and her paintings is another topic that has been popular among many art critics and scholars. The same goes for an important role in feminism in the new analysis of Carrington’s art. The scholars claim that Carrington’s highly personal visual expression which combines folklore and magic led the way aspiring female artists who wanted to explore new ways of addressing and portraying female identity.
Of Undisputed Origin 