Overcoming Natural Inclination?

I have been prey to negative thoughts from childhood and I have always struggled to deal with them. There is significant evidence that people have a clear bias to positivity or negativity which is genetic. That doesn’t mean that it’s a fait accompli because there’s things you can do to combat, if not overcome, your basic nature.

First of all, balanced reflection can be very helpful to some people if done in the correct way. You can look at both sides of a situation and try to balance out your natural pessimism by using a pro and con approach but, of course, my own pessimism becomes a self fulfilling prophecy because I instinctively place more weight on the cons than the pros!

What has worked for me over the past few years has been meditating and trying to develop a stillness in my mind. This is very much a continuous work in progress though, albeit with peaks and troughs that are less pronounced than they used to be. Even after meditating I can be as thoroughly negative as I was when I started, but I feel as though the journey through that negativity is perhaps not as hard. Yoga has also been helping by giving me a focus and a flexibility that makes me feel better about myself.

Last year, as regular readers of my blog will know, I finished year round work and in doing so gave myself more of an opportunity to concentrate on my health both mental and physical. It’s not clear to me that it has had any affect on my basic nature at all. Yes, I have more time for self care but I also have more time for overthinking. On balance I think the day to day is a little easier but the overall medium and long term situation has not changed.

To start to combat a natural inclination towards negativity you need to recognise that you are prone to it in and of yourself. Outward influences can only have so much effect so the internal battle will continue.