Why Kindness Beats Negativity in Everyday Life Kindness is the fastest way to beat negativity, and it starts with a choice. Nicole Phillips, author of The Negativity Remedy, teaches this through her own turning point with kindness. I teach it through the lens of neuroscience and Scripture to break through anxiety and eliminate automatic negative thoughts. We recently sat down to talk about inspiring others to default to kindness. Two different paths, one shared conclusion: choosing kindness changes how your brain works. Nicole's Turning Point: The Column That Changed Her Life "What I realized was I had stumbled into neuroplasticity and confirmation bias. Like, what you look for is what you'll see." — Nicole Phillips My Turning Point: Naming the Automatic Negative Thought My own path has run through hard seasons. The summer of 2026 was a challenging test. "We can choose to just let those automatic negative thoughts rule our world, ruin our relationships, and really take all the joy out of our lives, or we can get curious about how we can bring more positivity through things like kindness." — Dr. Robyn Graham Nicole's Six Ways to Draw Kindness In Nicole outlines six practices in The Negativity Remedy. Three are: expect kindness from others, look for the silver lining, and verbalize your gratitude. The other three are to smile often, slow down, and offer one word of encouragement to someone else daily. None of these require money or a personality change. My Catch, Challenge, Change Method I teach a parallel three-step process. First, catch the automatic thought. Second, challenge whether it's true and helpful. Third, change it into something accurate and kind. Practiced consistently, this builds confidence, consistency, and genuine contentment. Nicole reached a similar conclusion from a different direction. She calls her version catch, reject, replace. The overlap between our two methods, developed separately, suggests how reliably this pattern works. "So the first thought is automatic. The second one is where your power lives." — Nicole Phillips Kindness Rewires an Anxious Brain "When we take these opportunities, it's just like practicing gratitude. We change the neural pathways in our brain, and we can access our prefrontal cortex." — Dr. Robyn Graham Putting Both Approaches Into Practice "When you smile at someone, you can change their trajectory of their day and potentially their life." — Dr. Robyn Graham The Science of a Simple Smile Smiling and frowning are both contagious. Choosing What You Believe About the World Negativity bias is real. "The negative is just louder. ... There is so much good happening in the world." — Nicole Phillips The Ripple Effect of Kindness Every act of kindness sends a ripple you rarely see land. Read the full show notes and access all links. Learn more from and connect with Nicole by visiting her website.

Ask this episode

“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.

Transcript

Related