When Life Hands You a Turd: The Negativity Bias

My credit card was recently scammed. Boo. Then I got a notice saying my fraud claim had been denied. That old, caustic comfort of wanting to hate absolutely everyone and everything was threatening to stink up the whole day.

It can be hard to see the good in the world when life hands us a turd. This was a relatively small one but it was enough to sprout a bloated rain cloud over my head. I mean, how was I supposed to get on with my day knowing that everyone else was so stupid and just plain wrong?

And that’s how a negativity bias works. We experience something upsetting, painful or downright traumatic, and our mind works like crazy to analyze the situation so it can keep us safe in the future. Then it builds up stories about other people’s intentions, all to corroborate what our hurting and scared minds need to believe in order to cut others down to disposable bits of human garbage.

Thanks brain, but I’m pretty sure not everyone is out to get me.

It can be so freaking hard to believe in people’s own basic goodness. But we can and we should. So how do we start?

We start by trusting our own basic goodness. Not our righteousness or that we are more intelligent, thoughtful or just plain better than other people. Not any of those things because that is our ego trying to carve out a decent spot on the totem pole for us. 

Trusting our innate goodness is about tapping into the part of us that can appreciate a sunset just because, or feels really good about a stray dog getting a new forever home. These examples don’t benefit us in any tangible way but we still feel great from being exposed to them because they are the active form of this innate goodness. It is the warmth when our souls get a much needed bear hug. 

Believe in the bear hug for the soul. Accept the bear hug for the soul. Be the bear hug for the soul...especially when life hands you a turd.