Ships don’t sink because of the water around them; ships sink because of the water that gets in them.

Your internal world reflects your external - “He iti wai kōwhao waka e tahuri te waka”

Have you ever found yourself dwelling on an insult or fixating on your mistakes?

Criticisms often have a greater impact than compliments, and bad news frequently draws more attention than good. The reason for this is that negative events have a greater impact on our brains than positive ones.

Psychologists refer to this as the negative bias, and it can have a powerful effect on your behaviour, your decisions, relationships, and our ability to hang in there a little longer. As the saying goes, a ship doesn’t sink due to the water around it, or what it displaces, a ship sinks when you let the water in.

This psychological phenomenon explains why bad first impressions can be so difficult to overcome and why past traumas can have such long lingering effects. In almost any interaction, we are more likely to notice negative things and later remember them more vividly, again and again, and again.

We tend to: Remember traumatic experiences better than positive ones. Recall insults better than praise. React more strongly to negative shit in general. Think about negative things more frequently than positive ones. Respond more strongly to negative events than to equally positive ones. For example, you might be having a great day at work when a co-worker makes an offhand comment that you find irritating. You then find yourself stewing over his words for the rest of the workday. When you get home from work and someone asks you how your day was, you reply that it was terrible—even though it was overall quite good despite that one negative incident.

So why, and where does this predisposition to the bad thinking come from?

It’s a deadset result of evolution.

Earlier in human history, paying attention to bad, dangerous, and negative threats in the world was literally a matter of life and death. Those who were more attuned to danger and who paid more attention to the bad things around them were more likely to survive. This also meant they were also more likely to hand down the genes that made them more attentive to danger.

But the year is now 2022, and we can challenge this stinking thinking all day, everyday, here, there and pretty much everywhere. It is vital, for keeping your metaphoric canoe from sinking.

Start paying attention to the type of thoughts that run through your mind.

After an event takes place, you might find yourself thinking things like “I shouldn’t have done that.” This negative self-talk shapes how you think about yourself and others, and therefore directly impacts how you feel, and then subsequently your actions.

A better tactic is to stop those thoughts whenever they begin. Instead of fixating on past mistakes that cannot be changed, consider what you have learned and how you might apply that in the future.

How you talk to yourself about events, experiences, and people plays a large role in shaping how you interpret your human experience. When you find yourself interpreting something in a negative way, or only focusing on the bad aspect of the situation, look for ways to reframe the events in a more positive light.

This doesn’t mean ignoring potential dangers or wearing rose-coloured glasses, frolicking in the clouds, snorting lavender, and sipping lemon Myrtle mojitos. It simply means refocusing so that you give fair and equal weight to good events.

When you find yourself ruminating on things, look for an uplifting activity to pull yourself out of this negative mindset. If you find yourself mentally reviewing some unpleasant event or outcome, consciously try to redirect your attention elsewhere and engage in an activity that brings you joy. Go walking, listen to some decent music, watch something that lifts you up. Remember a time in your past where you were truly happy, see it hear it, feel it, and go there, as the mind will struggle to determine what’s real in the moment and what’s in your imagination.

Honestly, I know from experience and education it takes more for positive experiences to be remembered, it is important to give extra attention to good things that happen. Where negative things might be quickly transferred and stored in your long-term memory, we need to suck it up and make more of an effort to get the same effect from happy moments. Though we have to work for it, against this evolutionary blue print.

So, when something great happens, take a moment to really focus on it. Replay the moment several times in your memory and focus on the wonderful feelings the memory evokes. Even write some great memories down now, so you have a frame of reference.