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hey there everybody and welcome back to the doc Snipes Channel today we're talking about five common ruminations and how to stop them
one of the most common ruminations is past mistakes or missed opportunities things that
you regret I Shoulda Coulda Woulda well you didn't and you can't change the past there
are no do-overs in life you can learn from these mistakes and missed opportunities but ruminating
on them continuing to beat yourself up for it or have regrets over it uses a lot of energy that
you could be using in order to avoid making that mistake or missing future opportunities
so learn from it and then move forward use that energy that you're using to ruminate
right now use that energy to move toward the things that are important in your life
social interactions are another thing that a lot of us think about over analyzing conversations or
even interactions maybe you didn't talk at all but what you did in a situation and worrying about how
you're perceived by others can also be a source of ruminations for a lot of people and it can be
helpful to remember that just like in television we all have outtakes there was a time when I
was working in residential treatment that I was wearing a dress and I had stockings on underneath
my dress and I went to the front of the building where our restrooms were and used the restroom
you know washed my hands walked out and started walking down the hall of the residential Center
and at this point I was the treatment director and didn't realize that I had tucked my skirt into my
stockings and so I was kind of flashing my hiney to everybody and and his brother that I walked by
I was mortified I was mortified but it happens there are that happens I mean that particular
thing doesn't necessarily happen to everybody but we all have embarrassing moments in life
and one of the lessons I learned from that was I'm not that important and I know that
sounds harsh to say but people are so involved in their own world in their own thoughts and
their own reality that what I did on Tuesday they probably won't even remember on Thursday
but even if they do you know what's the harm that's going to come from it
I also can you encourage you to use the six week rule think to yourself six weeks from now or a
month from now is anybody gonna remember or care about this yes you may have made a mistake you may
have you know done something that you regret all right it's unfortunate however beside you
how many people are actually going to remember that six days or six weeks from now
and finally turn the table many times we hold ourselves accountable for being more
perfect than we hold other people to if somebody else made the same mistake would
you hold it against them would you think less of them my guess is the answer is no
another common rumination is negative self-image focusing on your flaws your shortcomings or your
perceived inadequacies and again none of us is perfect we all have flaws we all have inadequacies
however some people perceive that they have a lot more inadequacies than they actually do
okay so fine your reality is your reality write down what you think your flaws and shortcomings
and inadequacies are get it down on paper and determine for each one whether they're worth
your energy to try to work on them if for example one of your inadequacies is a lack of patience
think to yourself is this something that's important for me to work on important for
me to use my energy for if the answer is yes okay then you can make a plan
write down your strengths focusing on only your flaws shortcomings and inadequacies can really be
unpleasant yes we all have room for growth however it's important that
we force ourselves to also acknowledge the things about us that are good the strengths
that we have what we contribute to our relationships and the world
focus on unconditional positive regard and that means recognizing that you are lovable you are
worthy because you are you your behaviors may not be so lovable sometimes but you are always lovable
and a final technique you can use is identify people with the same flaws and think to yourself
do I judge them as harshly as I judge myself if somebody is
um not good at math okay and you think that that is a huge shortcoming you have
think find somebody else that that's not good at math especially if there's somebody out there that
you admire and think to yourself do I think less of them if you've got ADHD there's a lot of lists
out there of famous people and successful people who have ADHD and think to yourself
um do you judge them the same way you judge yourself for your ADHD behaviors
and future worries and uncertainties it can be really tempting to
catastrophize or constantly imagine worst case scenarios again that's your brain's way
of saying you know the stuff you've got to do tomorrow there might be a problem
if you don't feel like you're totally in control if you're getting ready
to do something that may put you in a position for rejection or loss of control
then your brain May kind of go into overdrive saying okay okay let's see how we can get power
and make sure that we stay safe tomorrow when we encounter that thing for me going into the
city is huge I hate going into the city it stresses me out and I would potentially if
I had a meeting in the city I might be laying there at night thinking about okay where am I
going to park what happens if I get there and I can't find somewhere to park what if I can't find
the place and I can what if myself into the wee hours in the morning which doesn't do me any good
what can you do about it Envision a successful resolution if you're worried about a job interview
or a meeting you've got or a conversation you're going to have okay well it could go bad I can't
say that something is always going to go well but Envision a successful resolution know that you
have the capability to handle the situation you may not like the way it turns out but
you can Envision okay I don't get this job I can handle it by doing this write down the fears that
are going on with you that are causing these thoughts and assign a probability for these
catastrophic outcomes given the facts what is the probability that this is actually going to happen
and then keep a log of how many times you thought the worst thing was going to happen or you had
these catastrophic thoughts and ultimately turned out to be a nothing Burger the outcome
ended up being either neutral or good keep a log again your brain remembers the unpleasant
things the painful things the stressful things and gives them a lot more weight
so they seem a lot more frequent than maybe they really are just like plane crashes yeah
unfortunately they do crash but when you look at the number of planes that crash every year
compared to the number of flights that go every year it's really a very very small percentage
and finally traumatic experiences many times people who've experienced traumas
remember traumas leave you feeling unsafe and Powerless well the brain remembers that and it
says I don't want you to be unsafe and Powerless again so I'm going to kind of keep replaying this
sometimes people will replay this to regain a sense of control or find someone to blame they're
like okay how did this happen help me understand help me make sense of what happened they may also
replay the event to remind themselves to stay safe they remember whatever it was that happened that
led them to be vulnerable and they want to make sure that they don't do it again ultimately to
stop these kinds of ruminations is going to take processing the trauma it's going to take getting
to a place where you feel safe and empowered in the present so you're going to have to work
to develop that sense of safety you can start out by acknowledging the facts in the current context
whether you're safe and empowered in the current context but again you still have to deal with that
trauma and that underlying sense of vulnerability that you still have as a result of that trauma
and then address the guilt and blame issues the family of if onlys if only I would have done
this or that or if only you would have done this or that then bad things wouldn't have happened
well maybe that's true maybe it's not we don't know how things would have played out if anything
would have changed however the if onlys keep you stuck in the past they keep bringing you back
into the past and saying okay let's replay it and play the scene this way this time
is that a good use of your energy is that going to help you move toward your rich and meaningful
life and does it to any measurable degree actually help you stay safer in the present
ruminations often indicate that you feel powerless or unsafe in some way addressing the underlying
fears can help you ruminate less everybody's going to ruminate sometimes and understanding what it is
understanding its function and then addressing it the function is to help you stay safe so what
is it that you need to do if anything to stay safe given the facts in the current context