Why do my thoughts automatically go to the negative, especially after a crisis or traumatic situation?

Today I want to blog about something that I find common among people who are currently experiencing a crisis or traumatic situation, have experienced a crisis or traumatic situation, have something bad happen to them no matter how big or small, or just because it is a Tuesday. A lot of people ask me, “Why does my mind always go to the negative?”.  First and foremost, it is a lot easier to be negative than positive. When you are negative you have a perceived control over yourself and the situation. While being negative, you have a perceived notion that you will not appear weak, will not get taken advantage of and, again, have a perceived control over the situation. The reason behind this is your brain. Your brain stores negative things that have happened to you as well as negative events you witness happening to someone else. Your brain does that to keep you safe. This goes back to the caveman analogy. Let us say a caveman is walking past the tall grass, then a saber tooth tiger comes out and attacks the caveman. The next time the caveman goes outside and sees talk grass, he would associate that with the saber tooth tiger attack. His thoughts would automatically go to the negative, basically telling him that he is going to get attacked again. Then the self-doubt comes in because the caveman does not know if he can defend himself. The caveman’s self-esteem and self-worth goes down also since he is not able to provide for his family or tribe. Fast forward to today and nothing changes because your brain works the same way. Negative things that have happened to us or negative things that we witnessed are stored in our animal or reptilian brain. Our reptilian brain only reacts base off survival. The thoughts go there first because it is in your brain’s best interest if you survive. So, any crisis or traumatic event that happens to us, anything bad or negative that happens to us or anything we perceive that happens to someone else is stored there. When we are about to get to the same or similar situation, our brain produces those negative thoughts to keep us out of that same or similar situation and keep us safe. Our brain does not want us to get hurt or put in a bad or negative situation ever again, so it will produce those negative thoughts as a deterrent. This is where our human brain comes in to put logic to the negative thoughts to balance that out to neutral, so that we are not afraid staying in our homes all day. Unfortunately, our brain does not recognize that by doing this, hinders us instead of helps us. Again, therefore we have the human part of our brain put in logic and reasoning.  Though, that is the long version of why your mind goes to the negative.  

Coresair Mack MS.ED, LCPC, NCC