A Load of Laundry

devabritow
Apr 6
6 min read

You know how your washing machine and dryer have filters that build up with lint? The brain also tends to do that, and mine is due for a clean.

THE NEGATIVITY BIAS

I first learned about The Negativity Bias when I read Martha Beck's Beyond Anxiety, a book I covered in That Funny Feeling. The phrase means exactly what you think it means. It's a proclivity to focus on what makes us feel worse, and I am certainly guilty of that. Beck explains it really well:

"The negativity bias is our hair-trigger tendency to see danger everywhere...(it) makes us worry about social and emotional risks, as well as physical ones. If someone gives you three compliments and one bit of harsh criticism, your brain will focus on the insult... When the negativity bias spurs our anxiety spirals into action, our thinking can quickly become delusional. In a state of anxiety, we actually stop noticing any information that tells us there's no need to fear."

Several weeks ago, I listened to The Mel Robbins Podcast, where she speaks to Martha Beck. It blew my mind, so I'm glad to be able to weave Beck's insights on anxiety into this blog post. They're both giants in the self-help/life coaching/motivational space. In only a couple of months, I have read three of Robbins' books and will likely start Beck's Finding Your Own North Star tomorrow.

"Take Control of Your Life with One Simple Habit"

**It is pretty simple if I'm honest...**

I first read about this book when I was working my way through The Let Them Theory. Robbins has published five books, one of which is a journal version of The 5 Second Rule, which I covered in Everyday Courage. I couldn't wait to get stuck into The Let Them Theory, so I approached Robbins' bibliography a little haphazardly—reading her latest book first and then her second and third.

I must admit that I was a little sceptical when I first heard about The High 5 Habit. The thought of looking into the mirror and high-fiving myself just seemed corny. Robbins herself writes, "At first, the high five will seem simple on its face, even stupid or weird." Yep, it felt weird. I'm working through a fair amount of written and audio content, so it's hard to keep track of some of the sources, but I first heard about the process in one of the author's podcasts. It detailed a failproof set of habits one can introduce to one's morning routine to set the tone for the remainder of the day. I've saved the routine, and while I'd love to say I've wholly embraced it, I've fallen short in this area, too. Within the context of the book as a whole, The High 5 Habit is anything but corny, stupid or weird. On the contrary - this book has worked its way into the top spot of my favourite books, and I adopted the morning routine the first morning after I finished the book.

Returning to negativity bias for a moment, many of my subconscious thoughts tend to be critical and belittling, undermining my self-confidence and certainly impacting my mental health. In Beyond Anxiety, Martha Beck mentions "the anxiety spiral" - feeling so scared and threatened all the time, even when we're in perfectly safe situations. This is where I find myself a lot of the time, which is why I had a panic attack a few weeks ago. It is the hardest thing to bring yourself out of, and it can take me hours to stop the thoughts and shake the feeling. In the final quarter of The High 5 Habit, I made a note in the margin with the words 'panic attack' alongside the following excerpt:

"If you're in a stressed-out state, your brain flips into survival mode. It won't let ANY new positive information into your higher brain, where you learn new skills and create new memories. Instead, all it wants you to see are the threats around you. That's why stress and anxiety in the morning can feel like a gravity blanket pinning you to your bed."

This so accurately describes the experience, and I have mentioned feeling particularly anxious in the morning in the following posts:

Everyday Courage

Mindfulness and The Fight or Flight Response

Mel Robbins details the same experience, and The 5 Second Rule helped her overcome it.

In The High Five Habit, Robbins writes that:

"Just like that dryer filter, you and I have all kinds of crap inside of us that has built up over time. Those inescapable negative thoughts. They're like fuzzy residue from your life. The residue has been accumulating since you were a kid in the form of: other people's opinions, negative self-talk, rejections, disappointments, heartbreak, discrimination, trauma, guilt and self-doubt. These experiences have created mental lint. It clogs your mind and blocks you from being able to celebrate you.

Gosh, I have learned so much from these books. Robbins goes on to write about the Reticular Activating System (RAS), a network of neurons she likens to a filter (hence the laundry metaphor). When bombarded with experiences and thoughts from the past, our RAS sticks, and we can get stuck there. Dr Joe Dispenza wrote the same thing: "When you think from your past experiences, you can only create past experiences."

But this is a self-help book, of course, and the author provides the reader with a solution.

The High 5 Habit is so good that I marked it up and added hearts and arrows to some of the passages. I could spend several blog posts on this work alone, but I'd be doing the work a disservice, and as always, I encourage you to read it yourself. By page seventy-five of the book, Mel Robbins suggests that "It's time to clean your filter" and then tells the reader just how to do it.

BE YOUR OWN CHEERLEADER

Remember this quote from That Funny Feeling?

"You've been criticizing yourself for years, and it hasn't worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens." (Louise Hay)

Mel Robbins says the same thing but in a beautiful, funny, practical way that makes you believe that you can change and that your life doesn't have to be one big anxiety spiral after another. The High 5 Habit, while literal and straightforward, is so much more than that. The book is more than a symbolic gesture of lifting one's hand to a mirror and saying 'well done' or 'you can do it!' Robbins backs the idea with science and the testimony of many of her avid followers who have embraced The High Five Habit and can speak to its efficacy.

SWEAT EQUITY

It's going to take work, though. Anything worth having is worth working for, and I have come to realise over the last seven months that I cannot wish for change; I have to work for it.

I ended my post, One Wild Precious Life, with the following paragraph in which I tried to express the impact The Let Them Theory had on me:

"There's a quote from the film 'As Good As It Gets', where Jack Nicholson's character (Melvin Udall) tells Carol Connelly (played by Helen Hunt) that she makes him, "want to be a better man". At the end of the podcast, Dr Nerurkar tells Mel Robbins that she is "the ultimate in parasocial relationships". Do you know what that is? Don't worry, I didn't either. Dr Nerurkar explains it is "when you feel a sense of connection with someone, but you have no idea, you've never met them" (taken verbatim from the SiriusXM transcript). If you're familiar with Mel Robbins from her books, talks, podcasts or social media, you'll know how personable and relatable she is. She refers to her followers as friends and always signs off her video posts with a kiss (at least in all the videos I have seen). Given that the author continuously drives home the point that the power rests in us, she'll probably baulk at this, but she makes me want to be better. The Let Them Theory made me want to aspire to what Mel Robbins assures is latent inside me. How can I not feel a sense of excitement and the air of possibility when she ends her book with the following quote":

"And if you don't know where to start, Let Me help you take the first step. In case nobody else tells you, I want to be sure to tell you: I love you, I believe in you, and I believe in your ability to unlock all the magic and joy that your amazing life has to offer. All it takes is two simple words: Let Me."

I feel the same about The High 5 Habit. Please read it. You won't be sorry.