How to stop rumination

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
s an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Rumi

Doubt, fear and other negative emotions often hinder our work. But as long as we are only in a mild state of negativity (transformative mindset), we can use this positively for us to reflect, express our emotions, find solutions and become creatively active (sublimation). Doubts can help us to anticipate possible problems and prepare ourselves accordingly.
It can therefore be useful to engage in creative activities to explore doubts, feelings, problems. These can be completely different activities, from music to dance and art to writing or just general reflection.

While a stream of affect or a mood state are emotional states, the most emotional state you can experience is the actual emotion.
The stream of affect influences how we see the world (a positive stream of affect relates to more openness), while the mood state is general lasting for months and occupies more of your conscious attention and can therefore hinder your performance. Emotions are responses to a trigger event of shorter duration (less than an hour) and prime the body to behave in specific ways (action tendencies).
Emotions demand therefore your attention even more than moods- and can completely control you. (emotional hijacking). Emotions absorb more of your attention if they have a negative valence than a positive one. They are an indicator that something might be wrong, and you have to act.

But there is also the possibility that these emotions are triggered by negative self-talk.
Women in particular tend to get caught up in their thoughts, assuming they can’t find a solution to a situation instead of completing tasks, and let those thoughts wander off and daydream in a negative sense, getting caught up in negative self-talk.

If you are prone to this behavior, it can be useful to consciously block time to doubt and not let the negative feelings block the way to efficient use of time- instead explore them more closely, consciously explore and reframe them. Because our beliefs determine our self-talk and this determines our emotions and outcome.

With every negative belief about ourselves, we build a wall around us that prevents us from truly unfolding and bringing our light to the outside world. We increase our blood pressure, suppress our immune system and start the famous fight or flight response of stress which hinders us to make rational decisions and work creatively on a solution.

What is rumination?

Instead, rumination is reflection gone awry. When we ruminate the default patterns in our brains experiences a disruption that automatically plays thought in a loop by activating the circuit to the subgenual prefrontal cortex. We end up being obsessed about our mistakes, our failures and are not able to focus on the learning process of growth.

We loose ourselves in the following thinking patterns:

• all or nothing thinking
• overgenralization
• exaggeration
• “should” thinking by holding oneself to impossible or unrealistic standards

How can I stop rumination?

The following questions can help you to explore your own thinking patterns regarding to the most common processes of rumination:

• How do you feel?
• What causes this feeling?
• Is the feeling based on accurate thoughts? Do I use all or nothing/overgeneralization or exaggeration thinking? Do you hold yourself/others to impossible/unrealistic standards?
• Is there another way to interpret the situation/problem?
• Will the feeling/problem you face matter in a month/year from now?
• What would a neutral person say to your feelings/problem?
• What would the best and wisest version of yourself say to your feelings/problem? What advice would a friend give you?
• Can you learn from it?
• Didn`t you solve something similar in the past? What strengths helped you to overcome the problem?
• What consequences does your feeling/your rumination have?
• What else could you have done in the time of your rumination?

In can be useful to write about these questions in a rumination journal to help your reflective process. Be aware that writing in the you form might be more advisable for growth than writing in the I form.

When you practice reflective thinking in regard to the question above, you explore your thinking patterns and thought processes from a different perspective which offers you valuable insight to research them further and to find out when and in what way they occur.

However, at the same time note that especially the constant, repetitive thinking and doubting as a habit is often just a practiced avoidance behavior that ultimately increases not only unproductivity but also emotional stress (spiral effect; higher susceptibility to depression, pessimism, self-criticism, neurocism, reduced performance). The tendency to rumination caused by socialition (learned passivity) or stressful life events can be stopped by implementing the RCA framework.
Try to consciously counteract rumination by recognizing that other people or situations invite you to feel a certain way and indulge in negative thoughts, but that it is within your control to accept or not accept this invitation. Therefore, change the language of powerlessness by using a language of invitation (Charles P. Bosmajian).

People only have the power over us that we grant them. Therefore, change the power structure by reframing their actions and feelings.

Sometimes, therefore, it is questionable how long the individual spent with the doubting thoughts, what the consequences of their doubting were, and most importantly, what they could have done during that time. It can therefore be quite helpful to use the doubts as clues to action. (RCA Framework)

Art is a form of therapy. Sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint can escape the mad- ness, the melancholia, the panic inherent in the human situation.

Graham Greene

Resources and further reading material:

• Carson, S. (2012) The creative brain, Jossey Bass: Philadelphia
• Prince, J. (2013)Almost Depressed, Hagelten: New York
• Webb, C, (2017) How to have a good day, Penguin: London
• Weiss, L. (2018) How we work, Penguin: London