🔼: [[Symptoms of Unresolved Trauma]] ##### Rumination[^1] >“An involuntary focus on negative and pessimistic thoughts." >— Sandra Garrido, The Way We Never Were Rumination is repetitive, invasive, unproductive, and negative. We aren’t generating anything new or getting any insight or a new way to handle something, we’re just getting carried away by a negative train of thought, having the same thoughts over and over. - Focusing on thoughts - Rehashing a conversation over and over - Rehashing the same memory or period - Worrying about the same thing over and over with thoughts, feelings, and sensations. - - - Our ability to think about the past and future and problem solve is really helpful. We can make meaning from and learn from our past and plan for our future. It can also get hijacked in problematic ways. Rumination is a [[Protector Strategies 🛡️|Protector Strategy 🛡️]] against certain experiences. - It’s often an [[🛡️ Avoiding|🛡️ avoidance]] of experiences, sensations, and emotions, a [[🛡️ Flight|🛡️ Flight response]] from the body. Rumination [[🛡️ Dissociation|🛡️ dissociates]] us from our body. - Other times it can be a habit. - Sometimes it’s Magical Thinking – we have the illusion that it’s helpful, that it prevents something from happening or that we’re doing something constructive by ruminating. If we worry about our kids’ health, it’ll somehow prevent them from getting sick. So long as we’re worried about being in a car accident, we won’t crash. - - - Obsessive Thoughts: - annoying or repetitive, song for months on end — earworms - thoughts that make us feel bad. Lead to negative emotions, provoke guilt, disturbing. It’s well-intended, but there are costs of doing it and there are better ways. Understand the intent and give new ways. Not everything has an answer that can be figured out. So by ruminating we’re not doing anything about it, but we do it anyway. With OCD, the compulsion doesn’t give real lasting relief. Thought examples - Monster under the bed - Someone in the closet - Someone going to break in - Med changes can cause this - Trauma - Is the image a disguised or modified form of something that happened to them? ###### What to do A better option is [[💡 Reflection]]. - acknowledge the image, feeling, thought and name it. “Creepy image” “Worried about x” - Don’t feed it. Acknowledge it and decide to not go back to it. Maybe distract yourself, exercise some will. Parts might keep wanting to go back to it, but it’s appropriate to use top-down will sometimes. Another option - What’s the feeling the thought brings up? What’s the feeling that I would feel if it did happen, then allow yourself to feel it and make room for the possibility. - The imagine might be heping you process something, and by allowing it there can be completion. There might be terror. We don’t want it to happen, we aren’t going to try to make it happen, but it would be tolerable. We’d be here after it passed through. Make peace with it. Complete the Gestalt. Write a detailed account of childhood. Iraq vet recorded a story of a particular stuck-in-the-mind event and listened to it every single night until he got bored. We don’t get better by pushing thoughts, feelings, parts of ourselves away but by getting closer to it. We get better by getting close enough to do something about it, but not so close that we can’t do anything about it. 1. Journal about them in detail. The whole story of the thought, the mental movie. Whole new perspective, can notice cues or triggers. When you had it, what happened around the time it occurred, the narrative of it in excruciating detail, things that might have cued you into it, writing the emotions honestly without judgement. 2. Distress tolerance 3. Mindfulness practices. Breathing through, unblending. Thought suppression doesn’t work, it tends to make it worse. Thought control strategies like distraction can be more effective. Even more effective is thought acceptance. Sometimes to free ourselves of an obsession, it’s helpful to go into it. Dramatize, exaggerate, and intensify it. Say it out loud, loudly, make it even ridiculous. There’s a part of you obsessing over it. Own that part of you, pretend to be that part — a creature, a nasty critic, evil character. Sometimes one of the fastest ways to get off it is to get fully on it and complete the Gestalt. Widen your view. Be aware of the whole room. The whole house. The houses nearby. The city. Sit in the middle of everything. What else is happening in the mind besides this thought? Body sensations that are neutral or positive, other knowledge, etc? Deconstruct the worst possible experience. Tease it apart, it becomes impersonal. Recognize its emptiness, it’s gas-like. Meditation. Ruminating on a 4-5 year old Interaction that went sideways: - Open to all of the feelings. Some unexperienced experience might be here, feelings kept at bay or this event connects with another one with underlying themes or patterns. Uncover and release. - Take maximum reasonable responsibility. You don’t get free by under or over doing it. Make a distinction between stuff that’s worthy of remorse or stuff you just didn’t know. You didn’t come into it will ill-will, you weren’t reckless, but something didn’t go well. Just learn from it. We’re responsible for what we said, but we’ll make a correction for the future. Do all you can. - Widen the view, all the causes and conditions. Their history, your history, other factors, depersonalize it. - Get on your own side about releasing it. Disentangle and disengage. - Claim responsibility and innocence at the same time. Your capacity to claim responsibility, with or without appropriate guilt, enables you to claim innocence. Intrusive thoughts, disturbing thoughts are normal — they aren’t unique to us. Negative Grandiosity, this is happening because we’re just that bad. Open into refuge. Faith. https://drmichaeljgreenberg.com/how-to-stop-ruminating/ - - - [Dr. Tracey Marks | How To Stop Overthinking](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGUouL4ZAN4) Overthinking: - Replaying the same scenarios in your mind without coming to a decision or resolution. Analysis Paralysis; so overwhelmed by possibilities that we do nothing at all. - Feeling more stuck, anxious, or depleted after thinking - Our thoughts are focused on “What-ifs” and worst case scenarios than on practical actionable solutions, leading to loops, frustration, and helplessness Why do we do this? - Fear and anxiety around uncertainty - Not knowing an answer or an outcome feels very unsettling. There’s a need to have more granular control over our circumstances. Some people just need that, while others are fine going with the flow. The more control needs we have, the more anxious we become with uncertainty, the more likely we are to overthink and get into thought loops. - emotional triggers can make us overthink even small decisions - Past mistakes - Perfectionism - Self-doubt - These cloud our judgement and keep us stuck in overthinking loops. Recognize it by noticing when our thoughts are driven by emotions rather than facts. “Am I thinking in a way that’s logical or am I responding to a past experience that’s no longer relevant - but I’m still thinking about it?” Shift from Overthinking to Problem Solving - Identify the root of your thoughts and get clear about what’s on your mind. Ask yourself, “What exactly am I trying to solve here?” or “Is this a real problem or just a ‘what if’ scenario?” - Overthinking is often vague and lacking structure so it’s easy to spiral into endless possibilities. Break down vague worries into specific actionable issues and pinpoint what’s actually bothering you. Then focus on what’s in your control and move toward finding a solution. - Set time limits. Set 15-20 minutes to brainstorm possible solutions, then move into action. Sets a boundary around your thinking so it doesn’t drift into overthinking and encourages decisiveness and action. We’re likely to focus on the more important aspects in with the time limit. If you don’t, take note of where you left off or note possibilities you thought of to pick up on the next timed session. - Challenge thoughts with questions. Overthinking is fueled by assumptions and fears more than facts. Ask, “What’s the worst thing that could happen?” “Is this thought based on reality or am I assuming a negative consequence based on my fears?” “What’s within my control right now?” Shifts us from fear to practical action; emotional reasoning to logical reasoning. - Use mindfulness and grounding to come back to the here and now instead of worrying about the future. ###### Related - [[🛡️ Worrying|Worry]] - [[💡 Anxiety|Anxiety]] [^1]: [Forrest and Rick Hanson | How to Release Obsessive Thoughts: Rumination, OCD, and Fear | Being Well Podcast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvUE56WzxJU)