Bothered by Negative Self-Talk?

One thing that corresponds to both anxiety and depression is rumination. Ruminating means that someone repeats a thought or problem again and again without resolving it or taking it to completion. This could include worrying and self-defeating thoughts. For those with depression, the common themes are being inadequate or worthless, leading to hopelessness and helplessness.  The repetition of the feeling associated with the thought raises anxiety, which interferes with the ability to solve the problem.  Then depression deepens.

Negative emotions have been shown to limit the scope of attention.  These negative emotions involve neural, cardiovascular, endocrine and muscular changes as well as the tendency toward the primitive urge of “Fight or flight”. Also, when thinking about a situation in which you felt inadequate or worthless, it lights up a neural network of other situations in which you felt the same way. The brain chemistry creates a loop.

Research with Dr. Frederickson has shown that what she calls “Upward spirals of positive emotions” can counter these spirals of negativity caused by rumination. 

Her research has shown that positive emotions, like love and gratitude, encourage new and creative actions, ideas, and social bonds. When people experience positive emotions, limits fall away and they open up to new possibilities and ideas. At the same time, positive emotions help people build new resources, ranging from physical resources, to intellectual resources, and social resources.

Jacobs research in 2011 also showed that a meditation retreat utilizing positive emotions significantly reduced symptoms of ruminating, worry, anxiety, and depression.

The positive emotions of Praise, Gratitude, Love, and Compassion is only one component of the Art of Ascension.  Ascension Attitudes have 3 parts, the upward spiraling emotion, a component to align you with the Infinite Source, and third part is an area of life to be expanded into wholeness.  It is more difficult to understand than it is to practice.  

The Ascension Attitudes are designed to clear out past beliefs and behavior patterns which inhibit full mental and physical function­ing. By effortlessly introducing these seed thoughts at deeper levels of thinking, the entire structure of the mental framework gradually and gracefully transforms.

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