How Negative You Can Be…

By Dr. William K. Larkin on January 11, 2010

...is the opposite indication of how positive you can be. Consider how quickly you can have a little bit of a negative emotion and how fast you can get there. In an instant, someone can say one little thing, do one thing and zing, you are easily, on our scale of 1-10, at a "3" or "4" or more on negative scale. Then consider how long you think about that negative thing, how much play you give it, how much time you give it, running it over and over in your head, nursing that negative emotion, maybe even being obsessed with it. We can make a negative emotion last for a long time. Then consider how you can begin to think of other times like this one and get angrier or sadder and more upset. You can intensify any negative feeling with great ease.

To the degree that you can do that with the negative is also the capacity that you have to do it with the positive. Everything you can do with a negative emotion - feel it instantly, give it duration over time, and intensify that negative emotion, is everything that you can do with a positive emotion. All you have to do is practice positive emotions as much as you have practiced negative emotions. It takes some time, it takes some practice, but you can stay in an UpSpiral of positive emotion to the degree that you have decided to be there and to the degree that you have decided that it is important to your life and your health, your well-being, and your life-satisfaction.

Most of the things we get negative about we can't change. In fact, most of us keep busy trying to push hard against "what is." What we are negative about usually just isn't our business. The things that bother us the most usually change, over time, without our doing a great deal about them. The only reality that you can change most rapidly is YOU and your response to negative events. Use every negative event as a cue to practice the Emotional Gym. Feel a little bit of love, peace, gratitude and joy every time there is something that is trying to convince you to get "your nose out of joint." Put your nose back and plug the frontal lobes of your brain into place. These are the lobes that help you make the choice about which emotions you want to live.

The emotions you live make you who you are. What is your choice today and this week?