Rumination. Taking you where many women and men, boys and girls have gone before. Places like, off the deep end, into the abyss of depression, into the shadows of anxiety, into the past, into the future that has yet to happen, and often bringing you back in worse shape than you were before you went on this mental trip. It can even warp between past, present, and future at mind boggling speeds. It’s not just overthinking in my opinion.

What is rumination?

Rumination is a form of perseverative (getting stuck on a thought) cognition that focuses on negative content, generally past and present, and results in emotional distress. -National Library of Medicine

Rumination involves repetitive thinking or dwelling on negative feelings and distress and their causes and consequences. The repetitive, negative aspect of rumination can contribute to the development of depression or anxiety and can worsen existing conditions. -Psychiatry.org

What happened?

Recently, I went to bed and found myself dreaming about a situation that happened last month. I woke up thinking about it after dreaming about it and I was “pissed” for a lack of better words. “God, why am I still thinking about this?!!!!!!! I didn’t even do anything wrong!!!! They are wrong!!!” Quietly, I heard, “It’s stuck in your subconscious. Clear your subconscious.” Me: How do you do that?

Later on that day, I realized that I had been ruminating about this situation. Why? Because it reminds of past incidents and scenarios. Of course some spiritual people say you cannot clear your subconscious. And I was like what? Well, how can I clear something that cannot be wiped away? And where are childhood memories stored in the brain? Turns out they are stored in several places but, what stood out the most to me was the amygdala. Oh, and they have even found that memories can be stored in between the cells and also in your liver and kidneys! I digress.

So, how can I “clear” this thing stuck in my subconscious? How can I stop things from getting in there and sticking? I first looked up the word rumination. Oh, I know it’s something that I do and it affects anxiety and depression. But, I really wanted a deeper understanding other than being fixated on a thought or spiraling. I wanted to understand it from psychological and brain perspective.

And now I want to know HOW to stop it. But first, clearing it, I was given to meditate and through effective prayer. Uh…ohhhhhh…kay. It was late and I was ready to go to bed. I went to YouTube University to find a mediation and this one was SO GOOD!

I listened to it as I laid in bed. I listened to it because I knew I had began “thinking” too much about “that” situation, my birthday plans, finances, life, etc. I knew I needed to “chill out” and I wrote my thoughts out in a journal but, I still felt “agitated”. I began to worry that I might not be able to fall asleep with so much on my mind so close to bedtime.

So, it’s obvious to me that one of the things I need to address this year in a major way is rumination. It can paralyze me. It can make me drag out doing things that will HELP my future. It can cause me to lose FOCUS on the REAL important things in my life. It can cause me to go down in my mood. It is a “weapon” used by the enemy (devil? self? ego?). It is a major distraction. So, this will be part of my journey this year. Challenge accepted. I may update here from time to time.

~Nikki (Sorry, that was quite a bit!)