“Shut up, she tells her monkey mind. Please shut up, you picker of nits, presser of bruises, counter of losses, fearer of failures, collector of grievances future and past.”
― Leni Zumas – Red Clocks.
Do your thoughts get stuck on repeat?
How come the endless monkey chatter in our brain doesn’t just swing along the monkey bars, happily processing emotions, highlighting new insights that strengthen us and lead the way to sensible solutions that resolve our problems?
It depends on the nature of the chatter! Rumination can stem from too much self-focused thinking about emotional distress, mistakes, upsetting events, unresolved concerns, uncertain futures, perceived inadequacies and trauma.
We’re mistakenly hoping for relief and instead paying attention to our distress, rather than seeking ways to destress, if we do any (or all) of the following,
- Have a negative filter on.
- Talk to ourselves in a self critical way.
- Tend to overanalyze situations.
- Replay past conversations or conflicts.
- Dwell on the past and only focus on what went wrong.
- Spend too much time guessing people’s intentions.
- Constantly second guess our own decisions.
- Catastrophize.
- Make mountains out of molehills.
- Chew over the what ifs… the did I… and the how comes…
- Try to perfect or control future events.
- Predict imagined futures and the many ways they could play out.
Leanne French Relationship Expert & Counsellor 