Quitting the Addiction of Ruminating
I wrote a blog post called Quit Looking at the Nasty in which I addressed the addiction to looking for more evidence of wrong-doing, and the addiction to thinking about regrets of the past or the dread of future tasks. Please read it for more details.
This sort of thinking and looking is considered ruminating:
Rumination is the focused attention on the symptoms of one's distress, and on its possible causes and consequences, as opposed to its solutions.
Rumination is, indeed, an addiction; it keeps us chasing our tails and traps us.
Rumination can involve not only desiring something or someone to change, but also longing for the good you thought you had, or longing for the potential you thought you saw.
Below are ways to quit the rumination addiction. If you’re not ruminating about a person or a relationship, adjust the verbiage to make it applicable to your situation:
Accept that you don’t like what has happened, or what is happening.
Accept that you have free will.
Accept that the other person has free will.
Accept that you can’t change or teach the other person.
Stop trying to explain yourself and your feelings to the object(s) of your rumination.
Take responsibility for your contribution to the problem.
Accept that you made a mistake(s).
Get clear why it was a mistake and why you chose it.
Look at how you will choose differently next time. Trust you will know what to do the next time around.
Apologize to yourself and to whomever else was affected by your mistake.
And let it go.
Trust that you are entitled to want what you want.
Such as the type of relationship(s) you want, the type of life you want to live, who and what you want to invest in
It should go without saying, I’m not referring to anything that causes harm to others or others’ personal property.
Accept that others, perhaps most people, might not agree with what you want.
Accept that you are not going to get what you want from this person.
Trust that you don’t have to give up what you want—even if you don’t have it right now.
What you want is part of what makes you, you.
Accept that this person might have to offer some really great traits which you like, but they also have some really painful traits which you don’t like.
When you blend together the person’s painful traits that you don’t want with their really great traits which you do want, it creates an addictive ruminating trap. It creates cognitive dissonance* which is so consuming.
Remember that the person is an entire package. With the good things in the package, also comes the very painful things.
Stop rearranging your plans, choices and actions in attempt to catch the other person “in the act” or to try to influence them into changing their ways.
This only feeds into your ruminating.
Enjoy not having to be a part of what the other person is into.
When you are ruminating about the other person’s (friend/partner/relative) behaviors and choices, say to yourself, “My kind of friend/partner/relative wouldn’t do that.”
This validates what you want.
This helps you to see you are separate from the other person and their behaviors and choices.
This helps you to detach from the other person.
Feel the relief of not having to be part of what the other person is doing. Thus, you no longer have to compete for their attention, to prove yourself, to justify yourself, etc.
Take this a step further and imagine what your kind of friend/partner/relative would do instead.
This helps you hone in on what you want and who you are.
This allows for you to create inspiring, enjoyable thoughts and ideas.
Use these thoughts and ideas to know what you want to improve within yourself (see below).
When you begin ruminating about longing to be close to the other person, say to yourself, “Remember who this person is. Remember they are an entire package.”
You don’t have to ruminate about the painful traits again in order to remember who you’re dealing with. You already know. Just these two statements should remind yourself to stop ruminating about your longing for them.
Put attention and focus on improving yourself to be a match for what you want (be the friend/partner/relative you want to have for yourself).
Being the type of friend/partner/relative you want to have is what makes you know you deserve to have it. You are able to give what you want to have.
This gives you plenty to do, be, and think about—taking over the space and time in which you’ve used to ruminate.
This enables you to enjoy yourself being this way—without needing anyone else to change.
Self-discipline: It’s solely your job to quit ruminating. Put a stop to each ruminating thought as it comes up. Don’t feed it anymore.
Choose peace, growth, healing, learning, inspiration, responsibility, empowerment and maturity…
instead of stress, turmoil, torture, traps, helplessness, victimhood and stagnancy.As with any other bad habit and addiction, a new pathway needs to be created in your mind.
Direct your thoughts to new thoughts, leaving the old thoughts and thought patterns behind.
Have compassion for yourself, but don’t stop there: “Yes, i already know that sucked. But I’m putting my energy into other things now.’’
When a ruminating thought is hard to let go of, ask the thought what it wants and what it’s trying to show you.
See what answers come to you.
Be grateful for this opportunity to learn more about yourself.
Enjoy yourself!
Enjoy the freedom from caring and worrying about what the other person did or is doing.
Enjoy the freedom from your past mistakes.
Enjoy the freedom from being responsible for teaching and changing the other person.
Enjoy the freedom from explaining and justifying yourself to the other person.
Enjoy no longer having to compete for the other person’s attention and approval.
Enjoy having bigger fish to fry now that you’re not chasing a dangling carrot.
Enjoy clarity and knowing what you want for yourself and your life.
Enjoy all the time, space and energy you have now that you are free from ruminating about the other person.
Enjoy creating a life you want to be living.
Enjoy being a match for what you want.
Enjoy being a person of integrity and who has dignity and self-respect.
* In the field of psychology, cognitive dissonance is the perception of contradictory information. Relevant items of information include a person's actions, feelings, ideas, beliefs, values, and things in the environment. Cognitive dissonance is typically experienced as psychological stress when persons participate in an action that goes against one or more of those things. According to this theory, when two actions or ideas are not psychologically consistent with each other, people do all in their power to change them until they become consistent. The discomfort is triggered by the person's belief clashing with new information perceived, wherein the individual tries to find a way to resolve the contradiction to reduce their discomfort.
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