Taking in the Good

Why your brain focuses on the negative, and how to rewire it to orient towards the positive.

For most of my life, my brain was a threat-detection machine constantly scanning for danger.

All it took was a delayed reply, a strange look, or a small mistake—and I was bracing for impact.

Then I’d spend hours, days, or even weeks dwelling on the difficult things that happened.

Looking back, I have such compassion for my younger self because I understand all the pain and uncertainty that shaped him.

I also know I wasn’t alone.

Humans have what’s called a negativity bias, an inbuilt tendency to focus on negative experiences and swipe right on positive ones.

Mine was just turned up way louder than average.

Wired for an unpredictable wilderness

The negativity bias is part of evolutionary wiring that helped our species survive.

If you were out in the forest and heard something in the bushes, you would assume it’s a threat and not just the wind. That’s because if you guessed wrong, you might not get a second chance.

(You can read about my own misadventures with this in About That Time I Wrestled a Bear.)

Your brain doesn’t just default to detecting threats; it remembers them. It just takes one bad experience to tag that place, person, or situation as “proceed with caution.”

We’re wired for life in an unpredictable wilderness where assuming the worst-case scenario kept us alive.

The thing is, most of us don’t live in a world where we need to dodge predators anymore. We’re answering emails and shouting at Siri.

But the negativity bias persists.

It causes us to focus on and orient towards difficult experiences—past and present.

I’ve spent a long time unpacking my past and, in the process, realized that most memories of certain aspects of my life are negative.

I can have a day full of many good moments, and still end up fixating on one small piece of negative feedback.

Take a moment and scan your day or week: What’s stickier, the good moments or the one thing that went wrong?

This is the negativity bias in action.

Enter Positive Neuroplasticity

The good news is, your brain can change.

You can train your mind to orient towards the good by practicing positive neuroplasticity.

Neuroplasticity is your brain’s ability to rewire itself over time. The more often certain thoughts, feelings, and reactions happen together, the stronger those pathways get.

Whatever you habitually think, feel, or do ends up getting wired in as your brain’s default setting.

When you dwell on the negative, you reinforce that bias.

Positive neuroplasticity disrupts the pattern.

It starts with paying attention to the positive moments in your day.

(Mindfulness helps here, because it trains your brain to be more aware of your present-moment experience.)

It might be a moment of calm, feeling appreciated, a small win, or even just a sense that “everything is OK right now.”

Our minds tend to gloss over these experiences pretty quickly. This practice is about slowing down long enough for them to actually register.

Here’s the practice (it takes ~30-60 seconds):

• Notice something good

• Stay with it for 10-20 seconds

• Feel it in your body

• Invite it to get more vivid or meaningful

• Let it sink in, becoming part of you.

Repeat this as often as you can each day, whenever you have a positive experience.

As clinical psychologist and mindfulness teacher, Rick Hanson puts it:

“Every time you take in the good, you build a little bit of neural structure. Doing this a few times a day—for months and even years—will gradually change your brain, and how you feel and act, in far-reaching ways.”

It’s not “positive thinking.”

Positive neuroplasticity isn’t the same as positive thinking.

Positive thinking is about deliberately choosing optimism over pessimism. That can be helpful, but it often slips into toxic positivity where we overlook what’s actually true.

That can lead to denial, internal conflict, and challenges in solving real problems.

Positive neuroplasticity is about repeatedly noticing and taking in beneficial experiences so your brain gradually rewires itself to orient towards them.

As Rick Hanson says, it’s about going from “state to trait.”

I learned about positive neuroplasticity from Dr. Hanson a few years ago during my mindfulness teacher training program.

Integrating it into my life and practice has led to some meaningful change. I worry way less, and I’m not constantly scanning for what might go wrong around every corner.

It’s also helped me be more present to the small, joyful moments in my life—ones I used to miss completely when I was stuck in survival mode.

I often use this simple practice with my counselling and coaching clients who are stuck in cycles of worry or self-criticism.

What would it be like to try this today?

The next time something good happens, even the tiniest thing, practice the pause.

Stay with it for a few seconds longer than you normally would.

Let it land.

It might not feel like much in the moment. But over time, these small moments add up and start to shift how you relate to your life.