How do you handle good things that happen to you? Do you relish in the success or let your mind go to something that brings you down? You might be inadvertently sabotaging your own happiness by allowing negative thoughts to creep in when something good comes your way.
For instance, consider something good in your life – a small accomplishment on your work project, the desire for the chocolate ice cream cone you are ordering, the joy of your team winning a game, or the connection you feel with the person you are talking to. You can then amplify the positive of any of these by savoring and focusing on the good feelings. Or, you can deflate and dampen the positive by minimizing the good. This happens in your thinking. It is an automatic response. Researchers refer to these as up-regulation and down-regulation.
Negative, Dampening Thoughts
Some of your negative thoughts can absolutely crush your positive feelings and in turn, make you more vulnerable to negative mood states. If you want to feel bad and dampen a good experience you are having, then try on these 7 dampening thoughts that researchers have been studying:
[For more on this story by Ryan M. Niemiec, Psy.D, go to https://blogs.psychcentral.com...-your-own-happiness/]
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