Did you know as human’s we are wired to think negatively? When we were hunters and gatherers it helped us protect us against threats of other animals. We had to think negatively about a rustle in the bushes and assume it was a larger animal or one that could harm us because if it was, we needed to react quickly and run away! But in this day and age, when we are not fighting other animals, this innate negativity can mean that we are continually responding negatively to things that are not really a threat. For instance, when we’re bombarded with images on our TV screens or social media of super toned, super food eating small bodied women, we immediately go to the ‘negative’ – comparing ourselves and putting ourselves down. But how do we shift this thinking?
Self-compassion is the art of giving ourselves the same kindness and care we’d give to a good friend. This kindness includes acknowledging and understanding why we might talk to ourselves quite negatively and with comparison. We then have to work on shifting our focus from all of things we don’t have or wish we had, towards all of the positive things we do have in our lives. There is science that shows if we do something as simple as keep a gratitude diary (writing 3 thing down that we are grateful for each day), after 30 days, we can literally start to re-wire the neural pathways in our brain to think more positively!
