You’re going along with your day, driving to work, making dinner, or doing some other task, and suddenly you don’t know how you got to work, or maybe that dinner that was perfectly on track is now burning because you find yourself lost in thought about an experience you are having repeated difficult emotions around.
A term for the experience I just described is rumination.
The American Psychiatric Association defines rumination as repetitive thinking or dwelling on negative feelings and distress and their causes and consequences. It further states that the repetitive, negative aspect of rumination can contribute to the development of depression or anxiety and can worsen existing conditions.
Getting caught up in highly repetitive rumination cycles is a common experience for nurses when we are trying to process difficult emotions that arise from experiences we’ve had at work.
Neuroscientist Mary-Frances O’Connor writes that there are two types of rumination:
Brooding rumination happens when we find ourselves swept away by thoughts, can’t stop thinking about the situation, and are “shoulding” ourselves with what we should and should not have done.
Reflecting rumination happens when we intentionally turn inward and engage in problem solving around the thing we are experiencing difficult emotions about. (Journaling can be a form of this.)
Brooding rumination may feel like it can give us some relief in the short term, but in the long term, it is detrimental to our mental health.
Reflecting rumination is associated with intention and awareness and can be constructive in helping us problem solve or process the situation we are experiencing difficult emotions around.
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But even reflective rumination can be detrimental to our health if we stay in rumination and out of action or agency around the experience we are having.
When I have an experience that I find myself frequently brooding over, I do a couple of things:
I ask for help.I may phone a friend to get their input or discuss it with my therapist.I will use outside support systems to break the brooding cycle and put together a plan for processing through the difficult situation that I am getting caught up ruminating about or to put together a plan of action to address the situation by taking action around the things that are in my control as they relate to the situation.
I take action.Sometimes, that action is as simple as making a choice to move through the experience so that I can let it go. Letting it go is easier said than done and may require more processing work on my own or with my therapist. It can also involve moving my body or doing breathwork to process the experience. To let it go, I also have to choose mindful intention and acknowledgment that thoughts do just pop up, but that as soon as I am aware of those thoughts, I have a choice in how I continue to think. Sometimes, the action is going out and making changes in my life or relationships. This isn’t easy or comfortable either, but taking action in any of these capacities beats the long-term impact of staying stuck with holding something I am ruminating about and not moving through. I love what O’Connor shares about her own experience with rumination in her book The Grieving Brain. She relates that she found herself communicating with her friend repeatedly about the same thing she was having difficulty with. When she realized the cycle that she was caught up in, she made a pact with her friend that if she came to her about the same thing more than three times, at that point she had to stop talking about it with her and start taking constructive action.
Darling, how would your life change if this week, when you find yourself in rumination, you choose to step into agency and become reflective about the situation and then take action based on your reflection?
~Sarah
3 ways MOOXLI can support you in stepping into the power of your choice and out of rumination:
1. Join us for the Fall 2024 retreat and earn 20 CEs while getting real clear on how to go from feeling swept along by your thoughts and feelings to living a life of agency. We had to create extra spots at this retreat because it sold out. Grab one of the last extra spots before they're gone!
2. Science shows that it takes community to live an empowered life, and we built just the one to help support you. Earn 2 CEs with us monthly during our Micro Retreats and have access to over 50 videos in the MOOXLI library of supportive content!
3. Head over to our FREE resource list and pick up the book The Choice by Dr. Edith Eger.
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