negative thinking

[ahka]

Raising kids and analyzing our own life from the earliest one can remember, it is interesting to observe that in addition to social learning we also have inborn characteristics that make us think certain way.  For some reason almost all of us from birth think negatively about future events. 

For example, I observed myself doing this and now my 5 year old son and of course many other people until they unlearned this way of thinking:  My 5 year old likes to say:  “I will never learn to do this! ”  “She will never like me!”  “I will never get a present!” “My birthday will never come!” "I am not going to win this game!" etc. 

Well, if we keep telling our selves this and no one interferes, we might be right in our negativity because we will just give up and stop trying to improve “the prediction” or be hopeless.  This is just common Cognitive Behavioral Theory (CBT) concept – negative definitive thinking.  It has been a while since I have learned CBT, started using it in my everyday life and my life became much brighter then it was with my negative thinking.

However recently, I have been observing my thinking and found myself fighting with my thoughts in regards to new and unknown things.  My 5 year old started introducing me to a lot of new and unknown previously things such as new games, new toys, new information from school, etc.  I started to see a pattern in my thinking that my brain immediately tells me to shut off and give up even though I know that I just need to take time to read directions and take time to figure it out.  It has been pretty frustrating for me.  The new things suddenly became a threat to my ego, a kick in my brain.  It takes a moment to recover from such threat and tell myself to relax, take my time and figure it out, maybe ask for help from someone else.

The knowledge of the fact that I need to Take TIME to figure new things out was acquired in my 20^th.  Before, as a child or teenager I assumed that one needs to understand everything in a moment and if in that one moment one did not understand, my brain was shutting off.  I was pretending that I understood those new things and was afraid to ask questions to get better understanding.  The fact that I did not understand it in one moment made me feel that I am not very smart.  (of course, friends often contributed by making fun of ppl who don't get things in one moment).  Such behavior caused low self-esteem and kept me comparing myself to other people.  When I compared myself to other people I of course always put myself lower than anyone else.  This of course caused other negative feelings and I was sad about my life and maybe depressed and anxious all the time.  (I just feel sorry for the kids who would have to go through similar experience at some point in their life -- usually teen years).

Why did I bring this subject up?  I am curious, why we were created this way with automatic negative thinking?  Why little kids who had no time to learn about such negativity from their parents would have such negative thinking patterns?  With my son, I always dispute his negative thinking every time I hear it since he started talking.  Is that a desire to create drama in life that drives us to complain and think negatively?  Do we naturally love drama?  What is the purpose in our automatic negative thinking?  I am also curious if there are people who had never had similar experience in their lives?

A.G.