436-Utilizing Gratitude to Fight Negativity

With endless sad and scary stories hitting the headlines every day, it can be easy to get swept up in hopelessness and fear. However, you can use gratitude to fight negativity. Learn more in the episode! 

 

Transcript:

 

Welcome to Everyday Happiness where we create lasting happiness, in about 2 minutes a day,  through my signature method of Intentional Margins® (creating harmony between your to-dos and your priorities), happiness science, and musings about life. 

 

I'm your host Katie Jefcoat and what we know is that humans are inherently negative.  Let me explain. 

 

We humans have a negativity bias, which means that we’re wired to notice threats in the environment. This is the evolution of humans watching guard at night to not be attacked by a lion.  This is why we get scared in a dark alley when someone is chasing us.  Let’s hope that never happens.  But, this is a good thing – it’s kept our species alive.  

 

But as we evolve, we don’t just want to be alive.  We also want to be happy.  Now we are not faced with a lion in the night, but instead, a global pandemic or anything else you see on the news.  

 

When there is too much of a focus on the negative, gratitude can be a way to nurture a more positive focus, literally using it as a sword to cut the negativity and teach the brain to spend more time on the feel-goods and less time hanging on to the things that suck.  

 

Gratitude builds on itself. We know the brain changes with experience, so the more that gratitude is practiced, the more the brain learns to tune into the positive things in the world. This isn’t something that tends to come naturally.  But the saying, what you focus on grows.  This is how we start to shift the mind from focusing on the negativity and instead seeing the good, because we are intentionally focusing on the gratitude.  Our brain can’t help itself, it wants to give you more of what you focus on.  And that, my friends, is magic.   

 

So, I invite you to focus on the good today and just see what happens.  If you are called to share, I’d love to hear what you are focusing on over at @everydayhappinesswithkatie on social media. 

 

And remember, kindness is contagious.  

 

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