You Can Stop Ruminating!
Julia Papale, Advanced Clinical Fellow
“Worry is like a rocking chair – it gives you something to do but gets you nowhere.”
I wish I knew who said this so I could give them credit, because darn it’s good. The mind is a beautiful, sneaky thing that acts as our shield to protect us against vulnerability and pain. The mind can also be exhausting. If you’re someone whose mind likes to do mental gymnastics, fixate, ruminate, and future-trip – you know what I mean. Endless thought loops about what our schedule looks like tomorrow or whether our child is going to get sick allow us to feel like we’re in control but get us nowhere. Instead, it keeps us stuck within the prison of the mind like a Chinese finger trap we can’t get out of – fighting desperately for control as a form of relief but entrapped by it all the same.
Rumination often looks like us trying to solve a problem, or thinking about a problem, which is why it can be easy to justify. When we are trying to figure something out that cannot be solved at that moment, that’s rumination. Dr. Michael J. Greenberg explains that the way to stop ruminating is to stop ruminating. The practice is to stop trying to solve the problem entirely. It’s important not to shove it out of attention or work hard to stay with the thought. I repeat – suppression of our thoughts, or intentional distraction from the thought is unhelpful. Instead, just let the thought sit there in the background – you’re not paying active attention to it, but you’re not ignoring it either. The idea is that we are doing nothing, we are not engaging with or directing any sort of attention to the problem. Think of the part of your mind that finds comfort in the habit of ruminating as a fishhook. When the first thought pops into your mind that might lead you down that familiar spiral, you can decide not to hook into it, you can choose to drop that fishhook instead of being taken on a wild, uncontrollable ride.
Dr. Michael Greenberg explains that you will know when you’ve stopped ruminating when your anxiety level is down to near zero, as anxiety is often a result of rumination itself. Secondly, you’ll know you’ve stopped ruminating if you feel a sense of ease because once you’ve let go of whatever thought loop wants to bring you down, it should feel like a big sigh of relief. Dr. Greenberg equates the experience to getting off a treadmill not onto one. Note, however, that while a sense of peacefulness should arise because of not ruminating any longer, the actual action required to get to that point is not always easy. It’s a practice – one that takes effort and commitment. If you know me you know I’m big on meditation, and I am a very strong believer that meditation, which cultivates mindfulness, helps to create the necessary space in our mind for us to navigate our spiraling thoughts in the first place. A thought is just a thought, and with some space and ease, we can let that be so without getting swept up into an anxious state of rumination. While we can’t control the first thought, we can control the second, third, and so on. Again, this is not easy. But it works, so keep practicing.