I have a negative brain. I’m not a big fan… obviously. It can be hard to like things when you have a negative brain, especially something bad like a negative brain – I’m negative about being negative. That being said, having a negative brain has its benefits. For instance, having a negative brain has helped warn me about potential dangers, which has prevented unnecessary bad situations – yea, for being lame. It has also been an excellent motivator to make me a good worker and strive for better things.
Having a negative brain has left me very attracted to positive things like Christmas and Disney – yea, for being a geek. This also includes needing to watch movies with a happy ending because it gives my brain relief while a sad ending leaves my brain stuck in the pit of despair (yes, that’s a Princess Bride reference, which has a great ending for my brain). Being attracted to positive things also includes Part of this My being drawn to positive people like my mom. Growing up, every morning she would mop the floors whistling a happy tune, and she was always ready to give a cheerful good morning. My sister hated my mom’s morning cheerfulness, but it made waking up easier for me. I was reminded of this last spring when my family slept over at my mom’s house the night before our family trip and even with the 4am wakeup time, she was just as chipper as if she woke up at a normal time. I don’t know how she does it. It doesn’t matter when I wake up, the first words out of my mouth aren’t “Yea, it’s morning!” It’s more a lack of words, “Uhhhhgggg.”
I’m guessing it’s strange I’m starting my lesson about having a negative brain by offering positive thoughts about it, but I’ve been working on being more positive for the last twenty years because the wisest choice a negative brained person can make is to actively try to find the positive. Just because I’m naturally negative, doesn’t mean I have a right to sulk or feel sorry for myself. My starting point for the day might by uhhhhggggg, but I don’t need to stay there. After all, there is always positive to be found if we look for it. One of the more helpful exercises I’ve done has been doing a nightly thankful journal where I list 10 things I’m thankful happened that day (it helps keep my brain trained to look for positive things), giving myself a compliment, and offering a blessing for someone else. I need to do things like this because trying to see the positive is important in my pursuit for being more emotionally healthy.
Pleas know, sharing the positives of a negative brain I’m not saying, “I wish everyone could be negative brained because of the benefits.” Everything has a good and bad side. And what’s the drawback of seeing the negative side of life? It’s seeing the negative side of life – it’s uhhhgggg-tastic. With a negative brain, it’s amazing how easy it is to fall into a slump when something bad happens or if I get lazy with actively working at seeing the positive. It’s like having a slow metabolism. You might be eating the same as the skinny-Minnie beside you, but you’re getting fat while they’re fine. I once worked with a guy at Dofasco who looked very fit for someone his age and what was his secret? He would eat six Tim Horton donuts a sitting. Not exactly a meal of champions. Of course, he might look fit on the outside, but his innards were probably a mess. And there’s the negative part of my brain coming out… in a positive way. My negative brain can protect me by finding the negative of his potentially jealous causing attribute – yea, in a strange way. In my grade six class, I was the heaviest kid, but that led me to starting to exercise, which has developed a routine and appreciation for it that has been a huge benefit as an adult. Meanwhile, people like my wife who were naturally skinny in their teens typically really struggle to get into working out when their metabolism slows down – yea, for being the husky kid.
What’s interesting is my negative brain protects me from certain vices. For instance, some people struggle with shopping and overspending, but that’s never been a problem for me as a grownup because my monthly MasterCard bill helps scare me into good behavior – yea, for being cheap. My negative brain also keeps me from overeating because I hate the feeling of being too full – yea, for less calories in my body that seems to be want to be fat.
At the same time, my negative brain can cause other vices to be incredibly tempting because my brain naturally seeks ways to cope with the swirling brain crap. Ideally we learn to flush the crap away (too bad there isn’t a toilet you can insert into your brain), but it’s so much easier just to numb it with drinking, pot use, and modern video games. Their popularity makes sense. Fortunately, I’ve been too scared to try them – yea, for being a wuss. Even knowing how to flush the crap away and never having tried drinking, my brain will think, “I wish I drank because it’d be so much easier than being healthy right now.” I can only imagine how hard it would be for other negative brained people who do those things not to overindulge.
As a negative brained person I’m more at risk of depression and anxiety issues than many, but that’s not an excuse for me to have depression and anxiety issues. I might be running the race of life with a starting point behind others, but I don’t have to stay at the back. It just means I need to work a little harder to get up and stay with the front of the pack.
I should point out that my experience helps me understand why people can have depression and anxiety issues, but I don’t always have the most compassion for it. My first reaction now is to wonder are you going to wallow in it or do something about it? It’s a good thing I have a social filter (sometimes) and keep things like that to myself (usually). It’s also good I don’t drink because I can’t afford to limit my already weak social filter: (drunk me) “Here’s all the stuff my wife told me never to say… I’ve said them before, but never all at once.”
One of the patterns I’ve found with my negative brain is if I’m not careful it’s easy for me to dread life. This is what happens when I overwork as a therapist because it wears down my brain and I start to dread getting up in the morning. Fortunately, it can be worse (recognizing what could be worse is another helpful tool to fight the natural negative brain). My first summer as a post secondary student I was overworking a landscape construction job (55 to 60 hours a week) on top of working a part time job, playing two nights of Ultimate Frisbee, and doing a project with my comedy team. It was all self imposed (although I didn’t see it at the time), but I started to dread going to bed at night because going to sleep meant I’d have to face another very long day. This naturally caused me to stay up later than I should, which made me more tired in the morning further adding to my dread for the day. When you start to dread life, that’s an obvious sign something needs to change.
Besides looking for the positive, the other most important thing we can do with a negative brain is focus on the facts and not let our brains catastrophize situations. Facts are facts. They’re not insulting or meant to hurt. They are what they are. If you don’t like the facts, work at changing them or if you can’t, accept them for what they are. For instance, I’m middle aged and every day getting closer to being dead – what can you do?
Focusing on facts adds to another important tool: brush things off. Last year I joined the board for my denomination after giving a lesson at the annual retreat to all of the members on what it means to be nice in a healthy way and not mean or a pushover. At the first virtual board meeting, one of the elders was late joining and didn’t realize I was now on the board. When he was asked about the weekend and the first thing he said was the weekend was great, but “Chad was terrible.” That was a real “welcome to the team” moment. It turned out he was upset my lesson for emotional health didn’t use more scripture references. Because his reason was so lame, it made brushing his opinion off really easy. It also helped I could see the good in it (e.g. it was nice to have someone else put their foot in their mouth instead of me for a change). If that happened five years ago I wouldn’t have handled it as well, which is a great sign of growth.
This week may you consider how you can better handle having a negative brain and/or dealing with others who have them.
Rev. Chad David, ChadDavid.ca, learning to love dumb people (like me)