Have you ever sat in an audience at a concert or presentation when the microphones start producing “feedback”?  There’s a sharp, high-pitched whine that fills the room and seems to stab into your ear drums.  What’s happening, as described by Wikipedia, is: “a signal received by the microphone is amplified and passed out of the loudspeaker. The sound from the loudspeaker can then be received by the microphone again, amplified further, and then passed out through the loudspeaker again. This is a good example of positive feedback.”

It’s called positive feedback (even though it hurts the ears) because each pass through the amplifier is increasing the power of the sound.  As it cycles it increases in volume and pitch, which is why you get a loud, piercing shriek. 

Feedback loops can be found in many places, but one of the most common places that we find them is in our communication with ourselves.  They are very common in our self-talk when our thoughts reinforce and build on our existing state of mind.

These are positive feedback loops by the definition above (because the effect keeps growing), but we call them negative feedback loops or negative emotional spirals, because the process usually happens with negative emotions like fear, worry, and anger.   It’s easy to see this when someone is in a very bad mood.  The loop goes something like this:

• Bill feels a little cranky (maybe he’s tired or hungry)
• Something happens that is irritating (maybe the bus is late).  Because he’s already in a poor state of mind, Bill views it as a bigger negative; and it reinforces his bad mood and makes him a little more cranky. 
• Next, something happens that is really negative (a colleague is late with a report he needs or the boss yells at him).  Because he’s already viewing things through a negative lens, he sees this as a big problem and his emotional framework worsens
• At this point, no matter what happens during the rest of his day, Bill takes it as a negative and uses it as further fuel/support for his foul mood.

These feedback loops, then, tends to keep us stuck in a negative frame of reference.  It can also happen with positive emotions, but unfortunately, that’s much rarer. 

It’s important to be able to recognize these negative feedback loops, because once you can recognize them, you can interrupt them.  It can be useful (if challenging) to step back and realize that there isn’t a causal connection between each of the steps in the negative feedback loop.  An effective tool is to envision a stop sign when spiraling out of control – and using that as an reminder to Stop! the out-of-control growth of the negative feelings.

By learning to recognize and prevent these feedback loops in your self-talk, you’ll find you are much more likely to pull yourself out of them.  You won’t be mired in the negative emotions, but instead you’ll be able to deal with each situation on its own merits.