Last night I re-watched Pretty Woman for the first time in decades.  

There’s a scene where Richard Gere is talking to Julia Roberts about how he thinks she could be so much more than she is.  Julia’s character then has this classic line: 

“The bad stuff is easier to believe”.

I’m guessing that’s true for most of us.

We have thousands of thoughts everyday.  We don’t particularly choose to have most of them, they just appear in our consciousness.

Some of these are helpful.  They remind us to clean our teeth, to look both ways when we cross, and generally we get through our days okay.

But many of the thoughts are not so helpful.  Psychologists refer to this as the negativity bias of the mind.

Evolutionary psychologists have various theories about why we think so many negative thoughts.  In part this is because (so the theory goes) negativity is better for survival.  Worrying about problems, real or anticipated, or overly looking at what’s wrong with situations rather than what’s right with situations helped our ancestors stay alive.

It’s not that our minds are broken.  They work the way they work for a reason.  But if we don’t see them working and we’re not aware of the negativity embedded in our thoughts, we end up like Julia Roberts – we believe them.

Meditation can make you feel a bit better, a bit more relaxed.  Yet it is so much more.  It helps us take that step back and see our own thoughts for what they are.  Sometimes helpful.  Sometimes not.  Some we can then choose to pay attention to, and some we can choose to ignore.

Take a moment now.  Pause.  Get present in this moment, with this breath.  

Then do it again.