Negative thoughts – Worse than Swine flu
I had a wonderful 2 hour session today with some boys and girls who are aspiring to be flight stewards and air hostesses in the near future. I was speaking about customer service and I wrote the word “Emotion” on the whiteboard, circled it and asked the guys to come up with all emotions they could think of and demonstrate the same with a bit of body language or facial expressions as they mentioned the word.
First word was “Joy”, then “Happy” which was followed by “Smile”. There was bit of fun and humor in the class as the kids who were in this brainstorming session attempted to facially express these words. Then someone set the ball rolling for the “CONTRA” words. I heard “Sad” after which I did not have time to turn back even to look who was voicing out the words from the group of students. I realized the mood in the classroom getting a bit more serious and within 60 seconds there were 14 negative emotions fired at me without a pause. (I did not think there were so many negative emotions – it included words like Dull, Collapsed, Shock, Frown and so on).
What amazes me is that the human brain faces a big challenge when it has to open the the positive pages of it’s dictionary. It has to first look for the keys, open the book, search for the pages, find the words – My my, that is a humongous task. The brain finds it a lot easier to shift gear the moment it has an opportunity.
When it gets to negative words / thoughts or influences, – beware they can be more contagious than Swine flu. As regards to the disease, everyone realizes that prevention is better and wears a mask. I recommend that you also wear an imaginary helmet to block these negative thoughts as they are silent killers.
Perhaps negative feelings are also like the automatic sensor taps in wash counters of unclean public toilets. Show your hands and the water flows out – dirty water. Withdraw your hands to stop getting more dirty. In other words, pull yourself out when surrounded by the negative – It’s the only way out.
If only we could reverse this and make positivity more contagious, we will not only make a difference to our lives but also to the people around us.
