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November 23, 2006

Negative and positive thinking

David Maister, one of my early gurus, has written a great piece about negativity that prevails in all of us. He starts by asking the question, if we are too negative in our world outlook and ends with the conclusion that we are, because it is so much easier to focus on the negative parts of others and ourselves.

Well, more on others, right?

And he is so right - but why is that so?

Well, for once, it is a reader generator. In blogs, when you right something negative, or condemning, wow, the readership rises. And then there are plenty of commenaries that confirm what you wrote.Bashing and smashing and agreeing with your negative statements.

On the other hand, positive news is boring. Not worthwhile reading. We rather focus our attention on the killings in Malaysia, Lebanon, Iraq, and anywhere else in the world, read with furiosity, how someone was cheated of the money, about car and bus crashes and so on. At least, we have something to talk about, isn't it?

Okay, there are positive news that we like to read - such as when Siti Nurhaliza got married recently Datuk Khalid Muhamad Jiwa. But here again, we focussed on the age difference, we focussed on the fact that he divorced his wife to marry her and that she gets a rich husband. Jealousy? Envy? You know it!!

What, do I ask you, is happening to us, when we constantly think negatively, and absorb this negative material?

A couple of things will happen.

When we think something or when we see something, we create an internal representation of it. A picture, we hear sounds, or have feelings. Or we talk to ourselves - our selftalk. As easy as that. Just think of the colour of your first car, and you know what I mean by internal representation.

But hey - all these negative staff that goes into us, is also forming how we feel, and see the world. And, ultimately, it is how we act in this world. What we read is what we become!! Why? Well, the picture of your car that you just had in your mind, is was somewhere inside of you before, right? It was a memory. And, don't you know it, that memories are also stored inside of you as neurochemicals or, ultimately, energy?

Just think of the many rape cases in Malaysia. Now, these cases are in everybody's mind. What happens? We act more carefully. Women going around, suspicious of every man. Men go around and start talking negatively about women who, according to their opinion, are not dressed up to their standard (because it is only their standard and their standard of thinking). In the end, all this combined thinking then changes how the society might act or react.

I am not saying that we shouldn't talk about shit that happens and educate about it, because simply, awareness is necessary and required. It is not that I am saying that we put the negative stuff somewhere, and we ignore it totally.

But what I am talking about is the apparent fascination with something that has such a negative impact on us. How many are reading the political news in the different papers, vis-a-vis the articles, that describe something bad that has happened?

While we are all so educated in "trying to think and speak" positively, how deep, how really deep is this in us? I believe that you just need to scrap a few milimeter, and there is a lake of negativity in anyone's mind. I don't exclude myself, by the way.

We need to take more care of what we are thinking, how we are thinking, because what we are thinking is what we become. How we act in the future - and for me, I rather have a future without fear, without suspicious, where people are what they desire to be, not what others are make them to be. Got it?

Again, this is something that I am going to talk about in my NLP Certified Practitioner Training in January. Interested in knowing more?

Just send me a mail to NLP AT asiaminddynamics.com

Andreas


Posted by Andreas at November 23, 2006 05:25 PM

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