By Angela Heise -
When it comes to dealing with uncertainty and chaos, staying positive is key.
It is easy to say ‘just think positive’ when your biology is not designed to. The fact is, your brain is supposed to alert you to anything that doesn’t work and which may threaten your survival. So-called negative emotions play a crucial role in this process. They let you know that you need to pay attention to things that don’t fit familiar patterns and that could become dangerous. Which is why your brain loves routine. It’s all about predictability: Something happens once, it’s an accident. It happens twice, coincidence. Three times, and the brain starts to physically wire what has repeatedly happened as a predictable pattern. And the more often this repetition occurs, the stronger the neurological wiring, the safer the brain perceives things to be, the more productive you can be in the present moment. On the flip side, this also means you are generally unaware of positive things happening because they are filtered by the brain as something unworthy of attention. And when you consider that every negative emotion needs three positive ones to offset the effect, you know that positivity requires work.
