![]() ![]() ![]() And approaching your anxiety like a scientist. This is why I talk about gratitude so often. Allison Answers! We can’t control what life throws our way, but we can absolutely control how we respond. In fact, this is practically the whole premise of Dr. With some intentionality and practice, you can totally train your brain to see the good. You can train your brain to see things differently. In fact, not only does this pattern of focusing on the negative not work anymore, it actually makes things worse! It leads to all sorts of unpleasant stuff, including anxiety, stress, fear, depression, and discouragement. It works when you’re talking about lions and tigers, but not when you’re talking about relationships and work stressors. (And it’s a big problem.) This theory doesn’t hold up for emotional safety like it does for physical safety. It focuses on the negative, trying to keep you safe. When your brain perceives the potential for rejection, judgment, or failure, your brain does what it knows how to do best. ![]() Unfortunately, our brains have kept this old defense mechanism, translating the focus on threats to our physical safety to threats to our emotional safety. We’re not worried about being eaten by a bear or being trampled by a herd of buffalo. It’s actually pretty impressive! The problem is that most of us no longer need to worry about our physical safety on a daily basis. Our brains are wired to focus on threats to survival, ignoring all other information as a way to protect us. Whether it was a hungry lion, a raging typhoon, or the threat of your hut collapsing in on you, humans constantly had to be on the lookout for danger. But this was way back in the cavepeople days when our physical safety was constantly in danger. This pattern was originally a defense mechanism, designed to keep us safe and alive. As I shared in video, it’s totally normal to focus on the negative. ![]()
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