7 Reasons Why We Go Negative

Loretta Graziano Breuning, PhDInner Mammal Institute

And How To Go Positive Instead

Our brain sees the world through a negative lens

it zoomsin on bad and skims past good

Negativity is natural,but you can build a corrective lens that

lets in the positive

The Science of PositivityStop Negative Thought Patterns

By Changing Your Brain Chemistry

InnerMammalInstitute.org

The dog poop paradox

an oops makes people mad but the enormous progress never made people happy

Why does your brain go there?

1. Your brain is designed to learn from pain

Pain is a surge of

cortisol,the “stress

chemical.”

Cortisol connects all the neurons active at that momentThat wires you to turn it on fasterin the future.

Your ancestors survived because they anticipated pain and acted to avoid it.

2. Mammals evolved social pain

The mammal brain rewards you with oxytocin when you find safety in social support.

It alarms you with cortisol when you wander away from that social support.

The mammal brain constantly weighs the anticipated pain of

social isolation against the anticipated pain of lost opportunity

3. Cortisol feels awful because that works

The bad feeling commands your attention until you do what it takes to make it stop

If you relieved cortisol by climbing a tree, the good feeling of relief

wires you to scan for trees

If you make it stop byeating pizza, that wiresyou to scan for pizza.

Distraction doesn’t protect you from predators but it relieves the anticipation of pain temporarily. Then you seek another distraction.

4. Your brain is constantly filtering information because the world floods our senses with more detail than we could process

Your filter is not conscious:it’s the neural pathways built from pastrewards andpain

The electricity in your brainflows like water in a storm,

finding the paths of least resistance

5. Disappointment triggers cortisol

The mammal brain rewards you with the good feeling of dopamine when you expect a reward, but it alerts you with cortisol when the reward doesn’t come

6. Social comparison

The mammal brain rewards you with the good feeling of serotonin when you see yourself in the position of strength

It alerts you with cortisol when it sees you in the weaker position

7. Your brain builds its superhighways in youth

- We humans are more helpless & vulnerable at birth than other creatures

- Crying is a big cortisol surge; it’s one of our only pre-wired behaviors

- So the foundational circuit in your brain is a sense of urgent needs you are powerless to meet

A young brain is full of myelin, which coats neurons so they conduct

electricity at super speeds

Each brain sees the world through the lens of its myelinated neurons

our myelin years are before age 8 and during puberty

Our brain is not designed for happiness.It evolved to motivate survival

behaviors.

Negative experience builds big pathways, which is why your electricity tends to go there.

You can build a positive pathwayto give your electricity

a new place to flow

Spend 1 minute searching for good3 times a dayfor 45 days

You will build a new lens that lets in the positive

You may think“if all that goodwere there,I would have done this already”

That’s your natural negativity

Fortunately, you don’t have torescue orphans from burning buildings and perform in Carnegie Hall to create positivity

You can build a new pathway in your brain just by noticing the absence of dog poop on the path in front of you

New pathways build from repetition, emotion & youth

Youth is fleeting.Emotion leads to pizza.

Repetition is your friend

Carving a new trail through your jungle of neurons takes tremendous effort

And after all that effort, your new trail soon disappears into the undergrowth.

This is why old paths are so tempting.

But if you slash through the new trail every day,

a new pathway will build

It’s hard to go positive when everyone around you is going

negative

Going negative brings social rewards

You may think you’ll be weak or isolated if you go positive

But onceyou build your new positive lens,you’ll be glad you did!

You can PARE your negativity with Personal Agency & Realistic Expectations

Personal Agency

is taking pleasure in choosing your next step

Results are unpredictable,but you always get to choose your next step

Realistic Expectations

awareness that a cortisol surge is not a real survival threat

You will end up with cortisol because our efforts often fall short of our expectations

You can find the good without depending on immediate visible rewards. Most of human progress came from efforts that did not bring immediate visible rewards.

People like to find external positivesbecause it’s easier that finding

internal ones

So here are some external positives

on my website https://innermammalinstitute.org/positivity

Each of us sees the world through the lens we built without effort or intent from our unique individual past experience

You can build a new filter to let in the good that your old filter ignores

Free resources from the Inner Mammal Institute

Learn more aboutyour happy chemicals

podcastsvideosinfographicstraining certificationslide shows (incl this)5-day Happy-Chemical Jumpstart

www.InnerMammalInstitute.org

Books by L. Breuning, PhD

The Science of Positivity Stop Negative Thought PatternsBy Changing Your Brain Chemistry

Habits of a Happy BrainRetrain your brain to boost your serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin and endorphin

I, MammalHow to Make Peace WithThe Animal Urge for Social Power

Loretta@InnerMammalInstitute.orgcontact me

one more thing

Don’t compare yourself to others

Don’t compare yourself to others

Don’t compare yourself to others

Don’t compare yourself to others

Don’t compare yourself to others

Don’t compare yourself to others

Don’t compare yourself to others