Why Your Mind Gets Stuck In The Past And How To Come Back
by Lynn Fraser
Ruminating is the mind going over the past obsessively, replaying what was said, what you should have done, looking for some way to regain agency. To a point that's useful, it can act as rehearsal for handling a situation differently next time. The problem is when it takes over completely, when shame gets tangled into it and you can't pull yourself away. Coming back to this moment, offering yourself compassion, and recognizing that your thoughts are not what is actually happening right now is how you begin to loosen the grip, and with practice your mind does change.
Transcript
Two of the main problems with our thinking is when we think ahead,
Which is catastrophic thinking.
Ruminating is when we are obsessively going over the past.
Something feels unfinished.
We're thinking about what was said,
What we should have said,
What we should have done.
In some ways with ruminating,
We're looking for something that will help us feel better,
Some way to regain our agency.
To some extent that's helpful,
Practicing something that we might say next time it happens.
If it's regarding a personal relationship,
Often the person will give us another chance because they're going to do that same thing again.
Sometimes when we look back about what I could have said or could have done,
It is acting as a rehearsal for how I could take my power back if it happens again.
When it's not useful is when it really takes over our whole mind and when we shame ourselves and we have a lot of distress around it.
How is that operating in my mind?
Is it reducing my freedom?
So many times we're stuck in these patterns.
It's not a problem to have a few thoughts about it.
The problem is when we're kind of obsessed about it.
When we can't pull ourselves away from it.
Offer yourself some compassion and kindness.
It's hard when our mind is taken over by these nervous system-generated thoughts.
What is it I could do about that?
When we're in that nervous system response,
We have very little agency.
Our brain believes our thoughts.
We don't have access to our full mind.
We're in a survival response.
Things that matter to us in our real life don't matter to us when we're in a survival response.
We lose connection with our heart,
With compassion.
Sometimes we get caught in the past.
Pause on that and we build resilience and strength.
Sometimes we have to do it over and over again because there's a lot of intensity.
Sometimes we have to repeat this more than once and our mind changes as we do.
So there's a lot of hope there as well.
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