Changing your perspective - give it a go!

How do I persuade myself to see whatever is happening that is upsetting me as ‘real but not true’?

Well, one of my favourite ways is from Byron Katie’s work, ‘Loving what is’.

She says you are either attaching to your thoughts or inquiring. There’s no other choice.

 

Her four simple questions have re-grounded me many, many times and continue to be a powerful tool for me:


1. Is it true?

2. Can I absolutely know that it’s true?

3. How do I react when I think that thought?

4. Who would I be without that thought?



                                               Turn it around.


If you haven’t already tried it then give it a go…..the adventure is on!

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…

The Negativity Bias - do you practise what you preach?

So Rick Hanson, who has done a lot of research into the science of happiness, explores the brain and how the human brain hangs onto lessons learned from negative experiences. As a neuropsychologist , he is particularly interested in the intersection of psychology, neurology, and Buddhism and has some interesting ways to help us understand how we are wired to notice the negative and ignore the positive…after all, it’s the negative that potentially threatens us!

Working with couples I explain this to them because without them knowing this they don’t stay connected with all that is still working in their relationship. I try to practise what I preach and this one is a real challenge for my own life! But if I can’t hold the hope for my own life how am I going to hold it for couples in the face of their own pain and negative bias!

Why do we focus on the negative and forget the positive in our relationships?

We all know how powerful positive thinking can be, so why do we naturally tend to focus on the negative?
This is an important question for us as therapists and coaches to answer on some level because our clients will unwittingly invite us into a negativity bias! Now while we want to be with the clients emotions, thoughts and experience, we also need to find a way to resist getting sucked into the negativity ourselves AND help them to move towards their natural strengths and competence that are also there lurking in the background of all the negativity.

Rick Hanson has done a lot of research into the neuroscience of happiness and has found that we can credit our innate negativity bias to our ancient ancestors. I found this very useful for both myself and my clients to understand, so click here to view a video clip of Rick explaining the evolution of the negativity bias, and how the human brain hangs onto lessons learned from negative experiences.

The moment before you light that flame...

Interestingly many of us in the field working with people and social dynamics are finding ways to package these skills in user-friendly ways that invite people to slow down and notice-and make different choices.

So Daniel Goleman says about flaming:

"When you’re tempted to hit send when angry or frustrated, try this instead:

- Save the message as a draft.
- Take three deep breaths.
- Return to your email.
- Envision yourself as the recipient of the message.
- Would they think the message has a positive or negative tone?
- Revise as you see fit.

Taking an extra few minutes to reflect on your intention and message in an email could save you a couple of hours, days, or even weeks of headache and trouble."

This particularly appeals to me because it applies to communication in the relational space and the intentionality of noticing the body-brain at work!

Flaming...how not to get burned!

Although I didn’t know the word ‘flaming’ I certainly came across this with the couples and individuals I work with!

Very often in face-to-face interaction you get an impulse to do something or say something and your social brain says, “Uh-uh-uh! That’s not going to be effective.” But that message never comes back to you when you’re sitting writing an email, because there’s no feedback loop.

The result is what’s called flaming. Flaming has been known since the earliest days of email. It’s when you’re worked up about something, and you sit down and you furiously type up a message and hit send. For a split second you have a feeling of satisfaction, and then this morbid sense of, “Oh no, why did I do that? Why did I say that?” comes over you. That’s a flame. It’s a disaster. And it’s a disaster that would not have occurred face to face, most likely.

For me there is something here about a wider issue and that’s impulse control in a time where we have increasingly high expectations of both technology and how life ‘should’ go. More and more part of my work with clients has been to invite them into learning and using self-soothing skills to slow and calm their bodies and minds. For me this skill has gone from being a desirable skill for clients (and myself!) to have, to being an essential one in the face of stimulation bombardment!

E-mail and the Negativity Bias

Not only are we missing huge amounts of vital information while e-mailing, but Daniel Goleman tells us:

‘And there is an actual negativity bias in email where senders think that a message was positive, but that’s because they assume all the other cues were clearly received. It’s an unconscious assumption. Receivers think that positive email was more neutral. When the sender thinks it’s neutral, receivers tend to think it’s more negative. In other words, there is a general negativity skew to email.’

Ok…so that’s interesting! It invites me to begin to think about my own use of texting etc. with more consciousness and I think I might just call more and leave texting for concrete information like an expected time of arrival – or to invite a chat time….