Henchman

If this is your first time seeing one of these, you’re welcome to hop in and give it a go, or you can start with the first one.

Image Credit: Cartoon Network/Phil Rynda, Paul Linsley, Nick Jennings. No copyright infringement intended.

This is the twenty-second episode in a series designed for absolute newbies to meditation or for those who really want to focus on the basics. This track includes ten minutes of meditation practice; if that feels like a lot to you, maybe start at the beginning!

Turn on the TV, get comfy, and play this track after you’ve watched the episode: Henchman (Season One, Episode Twenty-Two).

P.S. If you’re curious, here you can find out why I started this project.

Recording Transcript (Meditation Begins at 6:26)

Hello again, diving buddy. So good to be with you again.

Today we’ll be continuing to build our skill of clarity, of paying attention to what we find when we pay attention to our minds. As today’s episode reminds us, sometimes we are afraid of things that we don’t need to be, sometimes our impressions of a circumstance make it worse than it actually is. This certainly isn’t to suggest that bad things never happen, we know that they do. Or that we need to deny negative emotions or experiences, we definitely do not and that is not what meditation is about.

But when we see things more clearly for what they are, sometimes we discover that things aren’t as bad as we first believed. Sometimes, we’re really lucky, and they aren’t bad at all.

But it’s not like you’re unique if you tend to feel more bad things than good, or if you feel bad things more strongly than good things. This is actually a well-documented phenomenon called “negativity bias” or “positive-negative asymmetry.” It refers to the fact that, when conditions are equal, when there is a balance of good and bad stimulus, we naturally tend to pay more attention to the “bad.” And we also linger on the bad.

So if through your day, someone gives you a compliment and someone else says something bad about you (or even just something that rubs you the wrong way), when you’re laying in bed at night, you’re more likely to think about, and perhaps obsess over, the less than positive experience than you are to recall the wonderful compliment someone gave you. And this experience is profoundly normal; almost the only people who overcome their negativity bias are the ones who have become aware of it and worked to intentionally change this default process with time and practice. And meditation is one such way of doing this.

I encourage you to do more research about negativity bias, if you’re curious. When I learned about it, I began to pay more attention to my own thoughts and increasingly discovered how true it seemed to be in my own experience. And there was something reassuring in this, like, “oh, I’m not crazy. This is just kind of how brains and people are. I’m not alone in feeling terrible all the time, or in paying attention to things that suck.”

It seems that there may be some evolutionary basis for this, that paying attention to things that are bad helps us to learn faster and stay alive. If that’s true, then ironically, we have a lot to be grateful for negativity bias. The brain is this amazing, wonderful, awe-inspiring problem-solving machine, the only trouble, it seems, is that a lot of us can’t seem to find a “rest button” or “turn down” button.

After all, knowing that negativity bias is normal doesn’t mean it’s any less suck-y. It’s still super reasonable if you hate it, if you wish it was different. But I think that before you begin to try to change it, it’s important that you accept it. That you welcome it. That next time you’re giving yourself a hard time for how angry or depressed or frustrated or impatient or whatever you find yourself being, that before you take out a whip to lash your own back, that you take a deep breath and say to yourself,

“Wow. I recognize that this feeling sucks, but it’s okay that I feel this way. I’m not stupid or bad for feeling this and there is nothing wrong with me.”

I think that this posture of acceptance actually makes it easier to move through the feelings, to respond differently. Changing patterns that are set and reinforced by evolution, social conditioning, and self-talk are really deeply rooted, so they take time to mold. Many paths are tread slowly, with repetition more than force. Just remember you’re not alone and you can begin to combat negativity bias by responding to yourself with kindness, self-acceptance, and curiosity.

I also think it’s helpful to remember that whatever frustrates you about yourself is there for a reason. It’s on your side. One of the best definitions for trauma that I’ve heard is “a maladaptive coping mechanism.” It’s a behavior or way of thinking that may frustrate or terrorize or threaten who we feel we are now, or who we want to become, but it served us well in the past. Trauma responses are usually formed in situations where we have little or no autonomy, our brains and bodies do whatever they must to survive. And we don’t need to judge ourselves for this. It’s not our fault. And if it weren’t for these coping mechanisms, we may not be alive. So it’s reasonable that sometimes these patterns are difficult to release, to let go of, or stand in the way of creating new responses.

And that’s okay. It’s okay to be frustrated by that and it’s okay to feel it. Just be gentle with yourself, setting the intention not to judge yourself for whatever comes up. Your experience is your own and whatever it is, it’s totally legitimate. And when voices of self-hatred or self-doubt or self-antagonism creep in, just lightheartedly say to them:

“I’m not falling for your junk anymore lady. You just like saying poop that jacks with my brain.”

And of course, you will fall for it, again and again, but each time is a moment you can practice letting go and beginning again. Remember: you can’t possibly have a wrong experience.

Okay. Let’s get into it.