Seneca said, "We suffer more in
imagination than in reality," and that is often the case with a very specific
type of overthinking: depressive rumination. Depressive rumination is a type of overthinking
where you create the habit of dwelling on the past. You rehash all of the terrible things you
can think of over and over and over. Uh depressive rumination says, "Oh, why is my life so awful?" or
"Why am I such a failure? Or "Why can't I ever be happy?" I had one 23-year-old client who we'll
call Ivan, and his girlfriend broke up with him and he just kept dwelling on it over and over.
Years later he'd say, "Oh, why couldn't I make that relationship work? Why couldn't I be better?
I'm never gonna find someone to love me. What's the matter with me? Why am I such a screw-up?"
Now, rumination is like ruts in a road; whenever you're not paying attention, you slip back into
thinking about all of your regrets and trying to analyze the situation to figure it out, but
then you spin your wheels and you think and you think and you never get anywhere. One of my other
clients, Elena, she constantly dwelt in the past. She'd say, "Why did I buy that car? I am such an
idiot," or she'd say, "Oh, why am I so depressed?" and then she'd worry about it for hours every day
for months. But she didn't just dwell in the past; she projected it into the future. So in
session she'd say, "Oh, what if I never get better?" and then she'd analyze that. Now, another
type of rumination is dwelling on how you were mistreated. You know, maybe your dad shamed you
when you came out to him as gay or your boss threw you under the bus at work or your lover ghosted
you/ And and you spend hours of your day wondering why they did that, alternating between resentment
towards them and wondering if it was your fault. Rumination might also look like fantasizing about
how your life could have been better if you had done things differently. You might believe that
thinking about your problems a lot may help you solve them, but here's the thing: in the long
run, rumination can make you pretty miserable. In every quiet moment you find yourself drawn to
dwelling on your mistakes, your your failings, the disappointments, and the let-downs. And the more
time you spend in those ruts, the deeper they get, and then pretty soon it feels like your whole
world is dark. And and not only do you feel depressed, discouraged, or hopeless, those dark
thoughts start to feel like the truth, you know. Dwelling on depressive things becomes your
new comfort zone, and and being out of them feels awkward and weird, and and hope and
light just feel like some figments of some distant imagination. But even though rumination
makes you depressed and unmotivated, you keep doing it for some reason. Right? Be honest with
yourself; it rewards you. Like maybe when you do it you feel like you're righteously punishing
yourself. Or maybe you feel like if you just think about the bad stuff more you could prevent
it. Maybe it's an attempt to regain control over something that you have no control over,
which is the past. Right? Be honest with yourself for a minute. Do you feel a sense of pleasure in
doing it for a moment? Do you get some validation wallowing in how bad you are or how bad someone
else is? Doesn't it feel just a little bit good to remind yourself that you're a complete
failure and there's nothing you can do about it? I get it that, like, this doesn't work and it
doesn't feel good, but you have to admit it's a little bit rewarding sometimes. Now, once when
I was in grad school, I'd been on a handful of dates with this guy, uh let's call him Alexander,
and then things didn't go anywhere after that. And about six months later I'm visiting my parents on
Christmas Day, and guess who knocks on the door? Alex. Now, I had no idea he was coming,
and I was pretty surprised to see him. Uh my parents were like uh wondering if there was
something going on that they didn't know about. It was kind of weird. But we found a quiet place
to catch up on life. And we talked for a bit, and he said, "You know, I really wish we had tried
to see if this relationship would work." He said, "I really regret that we didn't keep dating." Um
now just to clarify, I didn't break up with him or anything. Like, we just were never exclusive.
We just never took it any further. So I basically replied, "There's no reason we can't try dating
again. We're both single. I'm willing. Let's give it a shot." And then he got super awkward and
said something about needing to go fix his car, and basically that was the end of it. Now, for
all I know he had a dozen reasons why he didn't want to date me. Like, that's cool, right? But
if we take it at face value, what he said is the essence of depressive rumination. It's this
whole idea of thinking a lot about your regrets and then never doing anything about them when you
do have the chance. Like, I I don't blame him; he was he was probably just still gaining those
relationship skills like like we all have to do in our life. But this concept of like, "Oh, I'm gonna
think about and talk about all the things I regret but not do anything about them" prevented him from
being able to connect on a deeper level or or form a more meaningful relationship. And I think this
is the type of thinking that's disordered. Right? So now now, I get it, right? When when you're
depressed, it's super hard to get motivated. It's super hard to get yourself to take action and to
make change happen. Uh it's hard to have hope that things would ever work out. Like, I get that. But
we at least have to get honest about the futility of thinking this way. We have to be honest
that this type of thinking is self-deception. It's distorted. Your thoughts are lying to
you. They feel super real, but they're lies. So these regrets and this distress, this feeling
of "Oh, nothing is ever going to work," it's just, it's just not true. And and what we pay attention
to, we get more of. Our brain literally makes more pathways for the things we pay attention to.
So if we constantly pay attention to regrets, we get more regrets, not less. If we constantly
pay attention to what we don't have enough of, our brain makes more pathways to pay attention
to scarcity. The more you think about something, the deeper the grooves it creates in your brain,
making it easier for you to think that way in the future. And if it's negative or unhelpful
thinking, then that's a hard cycle to get out of. So let's talk about how to stop ruminating. And
and real quick, let me mention that this video is sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp provides
counseling with a licensed professional in your area that you can message anytime and you can
talk with over the phone or video chat. So they make it really easy to start getting the support
you need to change how you think and improve your mental health. So if you'd like to learn more,
check out the link in the description to get 10% off your first month. Back to how to stop
rumination. Let's start by making these thoughts super obvious. You can't change the things that
you aren't aware of. So it could help to ask someone to point out when you're ruminating or to
use a mindfulness timer, like Insight Timer app, to check in with your thoughts throughout the
day. Where do you ruminate? What time of day do you ruminate? What type of triggers set you off?
Uh write down your common ruminations, and hang it on the wall so that when you start down that path
you can catch yourself. Now that you're noticing that you're doing it, you can start to replace
rumination with these with these five rules. All right. Rule number one is no "why" questions.
So ask "what" questions instead. So instead of Elena asking, "Why am I so depressed?" she can
ask, "Oh, what is one small change that I can make to be healthier?" And she could choose to go for
a short walk every day. Instead of saying, "Oh, why can't I make a relationship work?" uh
Ivan could say, "Oh, what's one relationship skill I can learn?" And maybe he needs to
learn to set boundaries. Right? And and so basically shifting from "why" to "what" can help
convert rumination into action. Rule number two: no vague statements or over-generalizations. So
Elena used to say, "I never make good purchases. I am such an idiot." Right? So these broad
categorizations and labels of herself. So instead, choose one specific event, like, "Oh, I should not
have bought the car from that dealer who pressured me. Next time I will go to a different dealer and
take someone with me to help me not get pressured into a purchase." So just making it very specific
about a single issue and a single solution. Uh with Ivan, instead of saying, "Why
am I such a failure at relationships?" he could do the locus-of-control activity, which
is where you explore what you're responsible for and what you aren't responsible for. By clarifying
this he can he can see that he can't force someone to love him; it's not in his control whether
someone chooses to stay. Right? He can only work on himself. So in this way you let go of the past,
and you just focus on the small, tiny actions you can take. Rule number three: no thinking without
action. Take any situation that bugs you, identify what the value is, and then choose one action. So
if you're annoyed that someone was hurtful, you value being compassionate, act on that. If someone
took advantage of you, you value good boundaries, act on that. This is all about being the change
you wish to see in the world. Okay. Number four is no self-labels. So the new rule is you aren't
allowed to label yourself as anything. You have to phrase everything as a behavior. So instead of
saying, "Oh, I'm such a failure at relationships. No one could ever love me," right, say,
"Oh, I made a mistake in that relationship" or "I did my best in that relationship." Right?
You change it to a behavior instead of a label. Instead of saying, "Oh, I'm such an idiot," say,
"Oh, I'm going to do this one thing different next time." And this is all about changing the story
that you tell yourself. Okay. Here's rule number five: if you point out the negative, you must
counterbalance it with at least two positives. The negative may be true, but your tendency is to
just completely ignore the positive. And I'm not talking here about like a toxic positivity
where you're not allowed to feel sadness. I'm talking about increasing your capacity to
feel both sides of emotions, to see both sides of a situation. So for example um if you messed up
an assignment at work, you might have the thought, "Oh, why am I so stupid? Why can't I get anything
right?" Here's where you slow yourself down. You can't get anything right. Are you sure? Yes, you
did mess up on that assignment, but do you show up to work on time. Have you completed projects in
the past? So so you could say something like, "Oh, I messed up on that project, and I've succeeded
at projects in the past. I can learn from this experience to do better in the future." Okay. So
there are five rules to stop rumination. I know that when you're deep in the throes of depression
the darkest thoughts feel the truest, but they're most likely lying to you. So of course if you can
get some support from a wise friend or a mental health professional. I hope this has been helpful
for you. Thank you for watching, and take care.
