Let’s look at Positive Bias and Metacognition as an Emotional Tool. We have talked about our brain bias before and you can find those video links below, but when you use both Positive Bias and Metacognition as an emotional tool it can help create autonomy over your thoughts. Before we talk about these two brilliant partners that make up the emotional tool, we have to look at why we need it.
We have all been there, stuck in what feels like an endless loop of negative thoughts. Whether they are self-induced or a reaction from a negative situation, we find our minds cycling back to the negative.
It’s helpful to know that there is actually a biological reason your brain is pulling focus to what is wrong keeping you looped into the negative, it is called Negative Bias.
Your Negative Bias is there to help keep you safe. It is a biological response from our primal existence. Your brain is always scanning to see what’s wrong so that you can fight it, take flight to get out of the way, or freeze so that you can’t be detected. While all of those tasks can be very helpful, you don’t want your amygdala (the fight, flight or freeze your brain) to run on autopilot keeping you in a pattern of survival.
We all have a negative bias, for some it’s stronger then for other. Some of us are in a physically or emotionally abusive or disrupted space. That fight, flight, freeze helps us survive those experiences. Some of us are physically safe but have unresolved limiting beliefs that keep us locked and loaded always scanning for what can hurt us or what is working against us. Some of us are just running on autopilot living in the very best way that we can but have that pessimistic filter that we see the world through. All of this and more are varying expressions of our negative bias at work.
So here is the thing you have to keep in mind; your brain is itself a tool so that your humanity and divinity to create the life before you. You run it, it does not run you. You ultimately have control over it and the power to use it as the tool it was designed to be in your life. You have the power to choose your thoughts and the direction at which you focus those thoughts.
Now I know that if your brain has been running unchecked from that place of survival, or you have been locked in that negative loop for a while that statement will not sound true. Trust me I get it. That’s why learning this emotional tool is so important. It will help you build a roadmap to your executive function, which happens in your prefrontal cortex, that part of your brain that allowing you to create from a place of higher-level thinking.
So what are Metacognition and Positive Bias and how do you use them as an emotional tool?
Metacognition is your ability to have awareness and understanding of your own thoughts. When you activate metacognition you have the ability to watch yourself, and be a witness to your own thinking and the world around you.
This is a powerful vantage point especially when shifting out of your amygdala to prefrontal cortex, because it allows you stop in the moment of reaction and become a witness before you act. If you can do that then you have become an active participant who can choose where your mind goes and how it responds, rather than just a reactive player in the situation.
Positive Bias is a learned neurological function where you have trained your mind to scan for what is right, good, working, and possible. It is tapped into the higher-level thinking that happens when you have activated thoughts from your prefrontal cortex. The people who seek and point out the silver linings have fostered a positive bias. Optimistic people have that learned neurological function and have fostered their positive bias.
Think of your positive bias like a filter that highlights the positive and mutes the negative.
Let’s take a person on the same four minute walk using both a positive and then a negative bias leans so that you can experience the difference it can make.
Positive Bias:
So you are on a path from your car to a building and are scanning. With a positive bias activated your mind calls out the things that are right, and good. You think how luck you were to find a parking spot. You think back on the traffic you had to sit in to get here and you wonder if you would have even been able to find parking if you hadn’t had to sit in traffic. This idea of feeling like you have good timing floats in and you take it. As you get out of the car the clear blue sky and sunshine feels really good and you have a thought of gratitude for the weather. The colors and patterns on the wild flower are so beautiful and you feel the corners of your mouth turning up as you look at them blowing in the breeze. Looking down you notice your shoes and you think about how much you love them. You make it to the door of the building and someone smiles and holds the door open for you, so you smile and say thank you as you enjoy that small moment with another kind person.
These four minutes helped fostered a positive bias as the you scanned for what was working in their favor, going well, or feeling good to you. You stayed present and were able to pull thoughts from your higher-level thinking.
Negative Bias:
Same situation and same person on the same path from car to building but this time with their negative bias running on autopilot. You find a parking spot but get frustrated at how far you have to walk to get to the building. You think back on the traffic you had to sit in and your adrenalin kicks back in and you think of all the forking people that almost made you late. This adds to your mood of frustration. As you get out of the car you don’t even notice clear blue sky and sunshine instead your mind is scanning for the negative and you start to focus on that thing that frustrated you from earlier in the day. You don’t even notice the flowers growing; because you are replaying how wrong the other person. You make it to the door of the building and the same person smiles and holds the door open for you and all you can do is scoff at them thinking what the heck are they looking at.
The same four minute walk built negative momentum because your mind was on autopilot. Both sets of thoughts are true but when you activate your positive bias as an emotional tool you change your own experience. You gift yourself room to think past the present moment and into the next with this positive filter you make room for anything to be possible.
It is as if you are making room for something good to flow right into your experience one neurological pathway at a time. Actively using this filter quiets the negative bias because your focus is on those silver linings.
I suggest building up your positive bias by creating a practice of it. You can think of it as a gratitude practice if you want. Try gifting yourself a couple times of day where you build up that emotional muscle of scanning for what is right, good, working in your favor, bringing you joy, or that makes you feel grateful. Remember to not only scan for outward things but inward aspects of yourself too.
That way when challenging situations comes up, which they always do, you can more easily activate metacognition and then choose a thought through your positive bias.
Now this emotional tool is not a get out “negative thinking or situation” jail free card. If you are in a physically or emotionally unsafe place you can’t positive bias your way to making that threat all of a sudden safe. And if you have limiting believes that have not been addressed there is good chance you won’t be able to positive bias your way through them either. That negative situation might just be an indicator trying to help you heal through the limiting belief.
However if you can use this tool to help you shift to a different vantage point, and find your way back to a place of higher level thinking then you can find a path to safety and a path to healing those limiting beliefs.
Ok, life will feel better if you learn this tool and practice it until it become second nature to you. Everything will start to feel more possible.
Here are some additional videos about this topic that I think will help.
This video is about creating a practice of optimism that you might find useful.
I am here if you need any help along the way. Leave your questions and comment on the video and let me know where you might be getting stuck or feel free to tell me some of the things that are working in your favor or that you are grateful for in your life.
Subscribe to my emails and my YouTube channel, like and share the video and blog, and until next time, know I am holding a place of love for you where your positive bias if fully activated.
