1.
7 Reasons Why We Go Negative
Loretta Graziano Breuning, PhD
Inner Mammal Institute
And How To Go Positive Instead

2.
Our brain sees the world
through a negative lens
it zooms
in on bad
and
skims
past good

3.
Negativity is natural,
but you can build a corrective lens that
lets in the positive

4.
The Science of Positivity
Stop Negative Thought Patterns
By Changing Your Brain Chemistry
InnerMammalInstitute.org

5.
The dog poop paradox
an oops makes people mad but the enormous
progress never made people happy

6.
Why does your brain
go there?

7.
1. Your brain is designed to learn from pain
Pain is a surge of
cortisol,
the “stress
chemical.”

8.
Cortisol connects all the
neurons active at that moment
That wires you to
turn it on faster
in the future.
Your ancestors
survived because
they anticipated pain
and acted to avoid it.

9.
2. Mammals evolved social pain
The mammal brain
rewards you with
oxytocin when you
find safety in social
support.
It alarms you with
cortisol when you
wander away from
that social support.

10.
The mammal brain constantly
weighs the anticipated pain of
social isolation against the
anticipated pain of lost opportunity

11.
3. Cortisol feels awful because that works
The bad feeling commands your attention
until you do what it takes to make it stop

12.
If you relieved cortisol by climbing
a tree, the good feeling of relief
wires you to scan for trees
If you make it stop by
eating pizza, that wires
you to scan for pizza.
Distraction doesn’t
protect you from
predators but it relieves
the anticipation of pain
temporarily. Then you
seek another distraction.

13.
4. Your brain is constantly filtering information
because the world floods our senses
with more detail than we could process
Your filter is not
conscious:
it’s the neural
pathways built
from past
rewards and
pain

14.
The electricity in your brain
flows like water in a storm,
finding the paths of least resistance

15.
5. Disappointment triggers cortisol

16.
The mammal brain
rewards you with the
good feeling of dopamine
when you expect a
reward, but it alerts you
with cortisol when the
reward doesn’t come

17.
6. Social comparison

18.
The mammal brain rewards you with
the good feeling of serotonin when you
see yourself in the position of strength
It alerts you
with cortisol
when it sees
you in the
weaker position

19.
7. Your brain builds its
superhighways in youth

20.
- We humans are more
helpless & vulnerable at
birth than other creatures
- Crying is a big cortisol
surge; it’s one of our
only pre-wired behaviors
- So the foundational
circuit in your brain is a
sense of urgent needs
you are powerless to meet

21.
A young brain is full of myelin, which
coats neurons so they conduct
electricity at super speeds

22.
Each brain sees the world through
the lens of its myelinated neurons
our myelin years
are
before
age 8 and
during puberty

23.
Our brain is not designed for happiness.
It evolved to motivate survival
behaviors.

24.
Negative experience builds big
pathways, which is why your
electricity tends to go there.

25.
You can build a positive pathway
to give your electricity
a new place to flow

26.
Spend 1 minute searching for good
3 times a day
for 45 days

27.
You will build a new lens
that lets in the positive

28.
You may think
“if all that
good
were there,
I would have
done this
already”

29.
That’s your natural negativity

30.
Fortunately, you don’t have to
rescue orphans from burning buildings and
perform in Carnegie Hall to create positivity

31.
You can build a new pathway in your
brain just by noticing the absence of
dog poop on the path in front of you

32.
New pathways build from
repetition, emotion & youth

33.
Youth is fleeting.
Emotion leads to pizza.
Repetition
is your
friend

34.
Carving a new trail through your jungle
of neurons takes tremendous effort

35.
And after all that effort,
your new trail soon disappears into the undergrowth.
This is why old paths are so tempting.

36.
But if you slash through the new trail
every day,
a new pathway will build

37.
It’s hard to go positive when
everyone around you is going
negative

38.
Going negative brings
social rewards

39.
You may
think you’ll
be weak or
isolated if
you go
positive

40.
But once
you build
your new
positive lens,
you’ll be
glad you did!

41.
You can PARE
your negativity
with
Personal
Agency &
Realistic
Expectations

42.
Personal Agency
is taking pleasure in
choosing your next step

43.
Results are unpredictable,
but you always get to choose your next step

44.
Realistic
Expectations
awareness that
a cortisol surge
is not a real
survival threat

45.
You will end up with cortisol because our
efforts often fall short of our expectations
You can find the good without depending on immediate
visible rewards. Most of human progress came from
efforts that did not bring immediate visible rewards.

46.
People like to find external positives
because it’s easier that finding
internal ones

47.
So here are some external positives

48.
on my website
https://innermammalinstitute.org/positivity

49.
Each of us
sees the world
through the lens
we built without
effort or intent
from our unique
individual past
experience

50.
You can build a new filter to let in
the good that your old filter ignores

51.
Free resources from the Inner Mammal Institute
Learn more about
your happy chemicals
podcasts
videos
infographics
training certification
slide shows (incl this)
5-day Happy-Chemical Jumpstart
www.InnerMammalInstitute.org

52.
Books by L. Breuning, PhD
The Science of Positivity
Stop Negative Thought Patterns
By Changing Your Brain Chemistry
Habits of a Happy Brain
Retrain your brain to boost your
serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin and
endorphin
I, Mammal
How to Make Peace With
The Animal Urge for Social Power

53.
Loretta@InnerMammalInstitute.org
contact me

54.
one more thing

55.
Don’t compare
yourself to others

56.
Don’t compare
yourself to others

57.
Don’t compare
yourself to others

58.
Don’t compare
yourself to others

59.
Don’t compare
yourself to others

60.
Don’t compare
yourself to others

61.
Don’t compare
yourself to others