Leaving the Negativity Bias Behind

As I think about this negativity bias and the challenge of consciously working with it in both my own life as well as my couples, I can see that it is a delicate balance. Inviting someone out of their negative story and experience and into reconnecting with all that is going well can have some knee-jerk reactions!

I think it was Tara Brach, another Buddhist orientated therapist, who said that the experience/story that is so negative and painful is ‘real but not true’.

By that she means that it is really the conversation we have with an event that determines how we experience it - or put another way, it is the story we attribute to the event that generates the body reactions, emotions and subsequent behaviours…