Ruminating gets you nowhere.

“People who live in the past generally are afraid to compete

 in the present.  I’ve got my faults, but living in the past

is not one of them.  There’s no future in it.” 

~Sparky Anderson, elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2010

            Mindy: Ruminating about our past or future is a common problem.   I’m not talking about over-thinking, a problem we’ll tackle at a later date, but ruminating about and living in the past or future, which is more debilitating.  

            When I first started working as a therapist (a million years ago), I’d be so concerned about what I was going to do in the next session that I wasn’t focused on what the person in front of me was saying.  I missed out on things professionally and it impacted me personally.  I literally wasn’t hearing what people were saying to me because the noise in my own head was so loud.  I had to learn to change because not being present in my daily life caused me a great deal of anxiety. 

            How did I “cure” myself of this never-ending chatter in my head?  The older I got, the more I realized how I was wasting my time and energy mulling over what was done and couldn’t be undone.   

The next thing I did was teach myself not to live in that negative place.  Imagine yourself as a 16-year-old (you may be 16 and not have far to go on this imaginary journey, but for me that was a long time ago).  Now picture yourself trying to talk to that boy you thought was cute.  I wasn’t cool or suave, so the conversation was awkward.  I spent many hours dwelling on what I could have, should have, would have said, “if only”.  You know the fantasy: if only I could go back in time and do it better because I’d have thought it through and been prepared.

The older I got, the more I accepted that whatever the conversation was about, it was history.   I also realized that the person on the other end of the conversation was more concerned about what they’d said than what I’d said.  

When a client tells me she’s ruminating over something that’s already happened, I ask her to recall the conversation as a whole.  She usually sees that even if everything she said wasn’t perfect, she’s the only one still focusing on the details. 

My clients who succeed in conquering the demon of ruminating recognize how much time and energy they waste by over-thinking each issue.   They accept that there is no changing the past.  Finally, they realize that since everyone is so overly focused on what he or she is saying, no one is too worried about what you’re saying. 

Ruth:  A lot of therapy is about what happened in the past…when we were kids, based on the theory that what we’ve done makes us who we are today.   So where’s the dividing line between benefiting from our experiences, learning from our mistakes, not letting history repeat itself and ruminating?

Do you spend too much time thinking about the past?  Can you catch yourself doing so and focus on the present?