There are only two things you have true control over in life: your thoughts and your behaviour. No one else can choose either one of these for you. But sometimes, intrusive thoughts about unwanted events can flood your mind and it can feel like your thoughts are controlling you. Whether it is something that happened in the past such as a fight with your partner, or a future event you are worried about, such as not having enough money to pay the rent or not doing well at a job interview, negative rumination robs you of your present moment’s well-being and over time can lead to serious problems like depression or anxiety.
So why do we ruminate on negative things?
● Sometimes you are trying to figure out a solution to
a problem.
● Sometimes you are expecting something to go wrong and you are trying to avoid an
unfavourable outcome.
● Sometimes it might be that a part of your brain isn’t
functioning properly and a set of neurons get stuck firing over and over again.
● Sometimes it is just a bad habit you have.
The problem with ruminating is that most often you are focused on things going wrong instead of how to generate the solution to resolve the situation and make it go right.
Here are 4 ways you can begin with to regain control over your thoughts.
1) Engage in an activity that is on a different emotional frequency.
2) Write down all the reasons why what you fear will NOT happen.
3) Write down all the reasons why even if the worst-case scenario did happen, you would still
be ok.
4) Create an action oriented solution-focused re-frame.
If all else fails, remember that thoughts are only thoughts and just because you think something, that doesn’t make it true. You don’t have to act on your thoughts; you can just observe them and let the unhelpful ones go by.