Despite the title yes this is a serious question to which I imagine your response may be a resounding NO! But are you sure??

It may in fact be that you already do the mental equivalent of letting Hannibal eat your brain, yes really… Consider this – when someone upsets you either by criticising or ignoring you, or by being downright nasty, do you:

1. Shrug it off and let it go immediately?
2. Dwell on it for a while and then let it go?
3. Let it consume your life for a time rendering you unable to think about other things properly; and only let it go when you have no option or when something else replaces it in your head?

If you answer b or c you have already succumbed, maybe not to Dr Lecter specifically but nevertheless you’ve handed over control of your mind to someone else’s negativity and allowed it to eat away at your brain…

Ring any bells?

The human trait to prioritise negative over positive feedback is ironic as it means we pay LESS attention to those fine people who give us good feedback, than to our critics…

So how do we turn this around and choose the positive option? Well, we need to make a conscious decision to pick positive over negative thoughts. To start this off it may help to make a list of good things in your life, then you need to deliberately put ALL your attention to ONLY what’s on the list, this could be challenging at first as the mind LOVES to wander, but keep going and it gets easier with practise – repetition being the Mother of Skill.

We are in charge of what our brains think about unless we hand that authority over to someone else… And if we do decide to hand over control – let’s give it to those who give us good vibes.

Do get in touch if you’d like a chat about this, I used to pass the command of my brain over way too often and to any Tom, Dick or Hannibal; thankfully I have a much better handle on this now.

Think happy, #ThinkPIG