Creating Positivity – One Small Step at a Time

At HELLO POSITIVITY I help in creating a mindset of positivity through Solution Focused Hypnotherapy, which focuses on helping you change your perspective and also to work through a range of different issues. We know that when people engage in Positive activities, Positive Interactions with others, and Positive thinking they produce serotonin which acts as a catalyst for other feel good chemicals.

We then start to develop a change in perspective, getting you to think in a more positive way. This creates a new neural pathway in your brain that gets developed and becomes stronger over time.

“With every repetition of a thought or emotion, we reinforce a neural pathway – and with each new thought, we begin to create a new way of being. These small changes, frequently enough repeated, lead to changes in how our brains work. Connections within the brain are constantly becoming stronger or weaker, depending on what is being used” Brainworks

Creating Positivity and therefore a positive mindset is associated with lower stress levels, higher levels of physical and emotional wellbeing, a stronger immune system, better cardiovascular health and higher levels of resilience in difficult situations.

However, this is not toxic positivity, it’s important to know that all feelings and emotions are valid. Sometimes being positive can seem impossible for some. Why is this?

We all have two different mindsets. The Intellectual and the Primitive. When you are in the Intellectual mindset you are able to see things in a balanced way, you come up with answers based on a correct assessment of the situation. And when you are in this mindset you will find it easier to be positive.

However, there is another part of the brain – our Primitive/Emotional brain, the amygdala. It is involved in many of our emotions, predominately those associated with survival, our fight/fight/freeze response.

When faced with a stressor the rational intellectual part of the brain is shut off and we respond using our Primitive mind. This was a primitive survival mechanism in previous life or death situations which still reacts in the same way to modern day mental stressors.

This brain is NEGATIVE. It has to be, it has to think the worst in any situation to be able to “protect” you from it.

It’s OBSESSIONAL. If there was a real-life threat, it has to remind you of it to keep you from it. However nowadays the “threat” might be a meeting with your boss that you definitely have to attend, so you start thinking about it over and over.

It’s VIGILENT. It had to be on-guard and alert to the slightest sign of danger – but nowadays this equates to paranoia.

As our lives become more stressful, we start to use this part of the brain more frequently which can become a negative spiral.

Solution Focused Hypnotherapy is about slowly interjecting a bit of positivity which can be built upon at the client’s own pace. We all have good days and bad days. In the bad days the best thing you can do is be kind to yourself, tomorrow is a new day to try again.

For example, if someone comes to see me suffering from suicidal thoughts. Of course they won’t be feeling positive, but one positive thing is the fact that despite how they currently feel, they got up, got dressed and made it to my clinic.

Everyone has the ability to create new neural pathways. It’s about getting the right support and guidance to build upon positive habits that help generate the correct “feel good” chemicals that lead to a reduction in feelings of stress, anxiety and depression.

If you feel you would like some help overcoming any of these issues contact me here.