Our brain has a tendency towards negativism.
Except for those who are born optimists, most people are negative.
Neurologists explain that this negativism is linked to our evolutionary history.
The survival of our ancestors depended on the effect on the brain of negative experiences. Those who learned from them were the ones who survived. Those who responded to the warning and danger signs, and defended themselves, were more likely to live than those who did not learn from the negative experiences.
Being vigilant, in order to identify possible threats, helped in survival, but the cost of this was anxiety, fear, and suffering.
Negative experiences leave a much larger mark on the brain than positive experiences. Even if the positive experiences are in greater quantity, the ones that remain are the negative ones.
Negative events are registered in the brain, ready to be reactivated as a warning for the future. Even if the positive experiences outweigh the negative ones, what is recorded are the failures, sadness, losses, guilt, shame, anger.
This penchant for the brain for negativism was important for the survival of our ancestors. But they are no longer needed for our survival.
Even though this state of alertness and attention to danger is no longer necessary, the tendency of our brain is to emphasize problems, increase obstacles, underestimate the ability to solve problems, imagine things worse than they are. And all of this is created by the brain that creates obstacles that often don't even exist.
These ways of thinking cause intense suffering and a feeling of inability and weakness.
As the brain is the creator of suffering, it is through it that we can reach a cure.
Being the negativist brain, there must be an active effort to retain positive experiences and to drive away negative ones. It takes a lot of effort to be positive or at least neutral.
Calming the brain, reassuring it, is a learning process that demands energy.
We have to record the positive experiences in the brain so that they fight the negatives that will insist on appearing and stand out.
When we store positive memories, good feelings, pleasant images, this produces brain changes.
When we direct our attention to what is good and pleasant, to what we like, we imagine reassuring scenes; we remember good things about ourselves and other people, we change our brain.
This active effort to replace negative experiences with positive ones changes neurological connections. And, from there, other changes will come.
Health and the immune system will be reinvigorated; stress will be under control. Emotionally, we will be more balanced, the mood will improve, and we will be more strengthened to face painful and traumatic experiences.
Psychotherapy that seeks to strengthen the positive aspects and the potential of people, learn to relax and breathe calmly and deeply, meditation are instruments that help in brain changes, making the brain more positive and maintaining control over negativism.
