Three to one is ideal

May require effort

Heard any good news lately?

That’s not a trick question.

I’ve been reading stuff that says we need three positives to counteract the impact of one negative thing in our lives.

One of the researchers is Dr. Barbara Fredrickson, a positivity researcher at the University of North Carolina. She says that for every heart-wrenching negative emotional experience you go through, you need to experience at least three heartfelt positive emotional experiences that uplift you.

Given the environment around us these days, three positives to one negative may take a bit of effort!

Tough times

We’re living in hard times with the pandemic. Sometimes, it’s hard to stay positive with difficult challenges most of us have never faced before. Plus, at least where I live, it doesn’t look like things are getting better any time soon.

That’s added to all the pressures we had before the virus. Those previous pressures did not go away. Some days, it might be hard to find a gleam of light or something to smile or laugh about.

That can make it a challenge to find three positives for every negative.

Hard-wired for the negative

There’s another reason that creating three positives for every negative could take a bit of effort. We are hard-wired to look for the negative.

Psychologist Rick Hanson says, “The brain is like Velcro for negative experiences but Teflon for positive ones.”

Example: I once gave a presentation in which participants were asked to evaluate the speaker. Eighty participants wrote evaluations. Of those eighty evaluations, one was negative. The only comment I remembered? You guessed it. The one negative comment.

Yep, we’re hard-wired to focus on the negative.

Why is that? Well, it’s probably a survival thing. Our brains are wired to look for danger. Deep in our brain, a little gland called the amygdala has the job of watching for danger. Its sole purpose in life is to scare us! Or at least, to make us aware of things that could possibly harm us.

Good things are nice, but our brains are set up to look for things that could harm us. I have a fantasy image of my little amydala waving a red flag and shouting, “The sky is falling! Danger! Danger!”

That brain characteristic might be trying to protect us – even save our lives – but it does not make us feel positive.

So, what can we control?

Okay, there are things beyond our control. But what can we control that would make it easier to identify three positives for every negative experience?

·       Choose your words

Adam Miller, author of Creating Your Best Life says, “In order to flourish, whether in a marriage, at work or in any other type of environment, you need three positive comments or interactions for every one negative.”

We can choose to use “three positives for every negative” in our words and actions with the people in our lives.

Since I read that, I’ve been paying more attention to what I choose to speak about with others, and how I speak about it.

·       Choose positive people

We can be intentional about the kind of people we choose to spend most time with.

As much as possible, we can choose to be with happy people and positive experiences. The more challenges and the more negative news we’re exposed to, the more we need to seek out positive messages and connections.

I remember once having a friend who only ever talked about her unhappiness. Being with her always left me feeling drained. I didn’t exactly remove her from my life, but decided I just wouldn’t initiate contact with her. Gradually, over time, we stopped seeing each other. That was a good thing.

Positive messages don’t have to be from people who are close. A British Medical Journal report says a happy friend who lives within about a mile of you can raise your odds of being cheerful by about 25%.

The happiness of a friend of a friend boosts your chances by about 10%, and the happiness of a friend of a friend of a friend lifts your cheerfulness by about 5%.

And if, unhappily, in some part of your life you cannot avoid non-positive people, try to inoculate yourself with positive people before your contact with negative people, and replenish with positive people afterwards.

·    A treasure chest of positive moments

"Most positive experiences flow through the brain like water through a sieve, while negative ones are caught every time," says Rick Hanson.

We can change that. We can, each day, decide to watch for positive moments. And when any tiny moment of delight or hope or whimsy or beauty or affection happens, imagine you’re catching the moment and putting it into a mental “treasure chest of positive moments” somewhere in your brain.

At times when you could use an uplift, open up your mental “treasure chest of positive moments” and pull one out, to lift your spirits in the current moment.

·       Be aware of our presence

The more we choose to be upbeat in our interactions with others, the more we contribute to their happiness, and (no doubt) the more they will appreciate contact with us.

THAT – choosing to be upbeat – is something we can control!

This week’s reflection question

When, in the next week, will you be especially attentive to
three positive comments or actions for every one negative?