How your rumination is holding you back in life
I know you’ve been there, we all have.
One moment you’re having a perfectly good day and all of a sudden that embarrassing thing you did in high school pops into your head and that memory comes flooding back along with every bit of the embarrassment you felt at the time. The memory breaks you down all over again and just like that a good day starts going sour.
This is rumination at it’s finest.
Rumination is when you keep thinking about something that stresses you out, over and over again, reliving that experience and the emotions you felt.
Sometimes it can be something small that happened to you in the past, and other times it can be things that are troubling you now. The common denominator here is that it comes up again and again, usually when you least expect or need it.
While rumination can be about positive memories too, in this article I want to address rumination that brings up painful memories for you.
What does rumination look and feel like?
So, how do you know if you’re experiencing rumination or just reflecting on the past in a healthy way?
Firstly, rumination can feel like it comes out of nowhere (unlike reflection where you make a conscious effort to think about that situation).
It pounces on you and is accompanied with a surge of negative emotions and thoughts that aren’t easy to shake off. In fact sometimes you feel like you NEED to go deeper into that rumination.
There’s no real purpose or intention behind going deeper into that rumination, you just feel like you have to.
Questions like ’why’ and ‘what if’ start to pop up and you start to explore different scenarios, all the while feeling bitter or hurt that things didn’t end up a particular way, or that you didn’t make ‘that’ decision.
The worst part is that there never seems to be any conclusion to the thought processes involved in rumination. It just repeats itself endlessly.
With rumination you tend to go over every aspect of that painful situation over and over again, trying to make some sort of sense of it.
What’s so bad about rumination?
If all of us experience rumination then why is it so bad?
The thing to remember here is that while rumination is normal, it’s when it happens constantly that it becomes a problem.
Most people only experience rumination once in a while, but for some it’s an every day, all day occurrence. With that rumination comes the negative emotions, and those negative emotions turn into negative self-talk.
It’s like having a bully in your head reminding you of every painful situation in your life, every embarrassing thing you ever did or said, and every inadequacy you have, all day every day.
This is incredibly damaging to your mental health.
How does rumination affect you?
Firstly, that flood of negative emotions that becomes negative self-talk will start breaking down your self-esteem and self-confidence, bit by bit. You may not even notice it at first, but it’s happening.
This negative self-talk will change the way you see yourself and it can break you down so much that it can even cause the onset of depression.
What’s worse is that rumination is a vicious cycle- you ruminate because of something that happened in the past. This breaks your confidence down and you give up on goals & start to doubt yourself. This leads to more rumination that eventually paralyses you.
Rumination also amplifies the feeling of hopelessness and depression, which can lead to suicidal feelings, anxiety, binge eating, binge drinking and self harm.
That’s why it's so important to stop rumination in its tracks before it gets out of hand.
How do we stop ruminating?
Your mind can be so difficult to control that it can sometimes feel like it has a mind of its own.
If you’ve ever tried meditating deeply for the first time then you know what I mean. The moment you tell your mind not to think, then a million and one thoughts pop into your head. It’s like trying to dig a hole in the beach - it just keeps filling up with sand.
So, simply telling yourself to stop ruminating isn't going to work at all.
Thankfully there are strategies out there to effectively stop rumination.
If you're ready to take on rumination head on, and revamp your life, then my ebook "How to stop Negative Self-Talk" is for you.
This is where I share all my best strategies for ending rumination for good and
revamping negative thought patterns into constructive ones, conquering obsessive cycles, minimising self-criticism, and fostering self-compassion for improved emotional health and heightened mental clarity.
Learn more >>
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