Positively Negative

positivelyNegative1There I was lying in bed, really tired, ready to go to sleep.


Now I’m not one of those LUCKY people who can just lay their head on the pillow and snoring begins immediately. No…Not me! Sleep is a precious commodity to me because I am able to get so little of it. Most nights I toss and turn. Watch some TV. Read a book. The list could go on and on. And ON. Sleep is like an adversary of mine, never willing to give in. Always fighting my desires and ignoring my gestures of peace. That’s just the way it is for me.


But back to my story. I was lying in bed, really tired, ready to go to sleep. Just a few hours earlier I could barely stay awake and found myself nodding off as I worked.


So I turn off all the lights. I turn on the howling wind sound on my phone. I set the timer for 90 minutes. I adjust my pillow. I slide expectantly into bed knowing that within mere moments I will be in my wonderful dreamland and sweet wonderful rest will be doing it’s restorative miracles with my dozing body.


And a negative thought comes. NO! I’m not going to tell you which negative thought…or what kind of negative thought. You have them, too. Just imagine that mine was one of yours.


Unless you’re a psychopath or something, then I don’t know what to tell you because my negative thoughts are NOTHING like yours. Mine are just normal, everyday, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH negative thoughts.


I thought to myself, “Now where is that coming from?”


Seriously, I was tired. I wanted to go to sleep. I expected to go to sleep. I was about to go to sleep and BAM! Some arbitrary negative thought comes from nowhere and then I start thinking about it and what I’m going to do about it and what could happen if I don’t.


Again, I thought to myself, “Whoa, whoa, what is going on here?”


And then I actually thought these exact words, “I am not a domicile for negative thoughts!”


I was tired, okay. I don’t usually talk that way. But domicile is a cool word. After I said that to myself, I also said “I am thinking positive thoughts and I am going to sleep.”


Wow! It was like magic. I started thinking my positive thoughts that I think on a regular basis, and within moments I was asleep.


When I remembered this later and started thinking about it I went online and found this thing called “Negativity Bias”.


According to Wikipedia, “The negativity bias[1] (also known as the negativity effect) refers to the notion that, even when of equal intensity, things of a more negative nature (e.g. unpleasant thoughts, emotions, or social interactions; harmful/traumatic events) have a greater effect on one’s psychological state and processes than do neutral or positive things.[2][3][4] In other words, something very positive will generally have less of an impact on a person’s behavior and cognition than something equally emotional but negative.”


Oh…so now I get it. My brain has this bias. It wants to be negative. In fact, you could say my brain is “positively negative”. Or it wants to be. But my brain is not the boss of me!


I AM THE BOSS OF MY BRAIN!


I remembered back to that night when I was attempting to go to sleep and my brain started trying to think negative thoughts. I forced myself to think positive thoughts and my brain went along with it and stopped the negative thinking. The negative thinking stopped, the positive thinking started, the peace came and sleep followed.


So Bille why are you writing this kind of post?


Because people often ask why I tweet positive quotes a lot of the time. This is why. I am constantly tweeting positive quotes to my brain because it wants to be positively negative. I want it to be positively positive. So, I keep working on it. Quote by positive quote…I’m working on it.


Now I’m going to bed…I’m tired.


Keep Believing…


Bille


 

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Published on February 18, 2015 20:54
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