The Negativity Schema
THE NEGATIVITY SCHEMA
Isn’t it hard to find truly positive people these days? And I’m not talking about the polyanna-ish type of person who could have a dog bite their ear off and respond with a grin, “Good thing I have two of them.” (That type of person likely has a hidden negativity schema, of which I’ll get to later).
Negativity is a tough schema to shake. It’s contagious. And likely, we don’t know the extent of our negativity. If you constantly defend yourself with, “Hey, I’m just a realist,” you might have a negativity schema.
Hey, don’t get mad at me; I’m just being realistic.
So you might be asking yourself how you can stem the tide. That’d be a good start.
I’ll first share a quick exercise, and per usual, I’ll include some extra credit if you want it. Keep in mind, this exercise is not a cure-all, but it’ll be helpful to get you temporarily unstuck.
Ready?
Each day, write 5 things you’re thankful for.
Now before you get all negative about the exercise, picking it apart in 15 different ways, I really want you to give it a fair shake.
Write 5 things a day. And no, don’t think them in your head—write them down. On paper. 5 things. It could be when you go to bed or when you wake up. It could be throughout the day, and sure, you can put more than 5. They can be as simple or complex as you want.
It could be that you’re thankful for food, a car, or a roof over your head. It could be for your pet or the fact that you have a good head of hair. Or it could be living in a city that has temperate weather year round. Maybe a country in which you have the right to free speech and you can pretty much wear whatever clothing you want. Well, almost. Heck, maybe it’s that you don’t live in a war-zone, you have clean water, and you can people-watch at Comic-Con each year.
Try this for 2 weeks.
Choose different things—not the same 5 each day. And when you’re writing it down, take an extra couple seconds. Connect to the experience each thing gives you. For example, if you’re thankful that the checker at the grocery store looked you in the eye and acknowledged your human presence, take 3 seconds to think of how that experience made you feel.
Yep, an extra 3 seconds.
Let me know how this goes.
Extra Credit:
As you’re trying this practice, you might notice something strange. The more you practice being thankful, when it comes to normal circumstances, your brain might feel like it’s eating a peanut butter and ketchup sandwich. Like it’ll almost feel like you’re short-circuiting.
You see, when we operate on auto-pilot, we don’t contemplate other realities. We lose perspective. We become unaware of our self-talk. As you practice thankfulness, when an idiot cuts you off on the highway, instead of automatically screaming at him, you might have another, slight narrative of thankfulness…it might be a blip of a thought.
Perhaps you’re thankful for your car. Or airbags. Or car insurance. Or that you’re not running late for once so it doesn’t matter if the entire freeway cuts you off. Maybe it’s that you weren’t cut off in rain, snow, or black ice. Or maybe it’s just that you have all 10 of your fingers, especially the middle ones.
Here’s the short-circuiting. You’re thinking multiple thoughts that induce multiple feelings. It’s usually only when you’ve identified another narrative that you can now begin to separate yourself from the former, negativity narrative.
If you’re wondering, you can actually do this with all the schemas. Each schema has a voice and mind of its own, that's not your truest voice. It’s a part of you, but it’s not the truest you. These schemas suck our energy. Unless you work to identify what each sounds like, you’ll just think it’s your only voice. It’s not. So here’s the next thing you can do with a negativity voice.
Just talk to it a little.
Don’t berate it or chastise it. Befriend it. Each schema is emotionally young, so talk to it like it’s young. Like it’s a 5 year old. So imagine a negative and pessimistic 5 year old. Would you yell at him or her? Would you be aggressive? Or would curious and compassionate with him or her. Would you be softer and ask, “Hey, what’s going on? Would you mind if I asked come there’s so much hostility over something so small?”
This is a lifelong practice. This is how you begin to develop a healthy relationship with yourself. For the purposes of this blog, it’s also how you begin to heal a negativity schema.
Next, I want to make a clarification. The goal of healing a negativity schema isn’t to be positive all the time. You know, that one Pollyanna type person, whom you know if you bring up anything weighty, will tell you to see the silver lining.
This might surprise some of you but that Polyanna voice is actually just managing the deeper negativity schema. It’s technically an ‘overcompensation coping technique.’ If you notice anyone in Polyanna mode, please be kind. Don’t point it out. It’ll be confusing. Most likely, they don’t even realize it. Somewhere down the line they made a decision in their life to look at the glass half full for their emotional survival.
Anyway, that’s it. Write 5 things you’re thankful for a day and begin to develop a healthy conversation with the negativity voice when it appears. The latter part is a difficult process because schemas are unconscious. It’s part of the work that we’d do in therapy. If you want to keep this conversation going, feel free to reach out.