For many, meditation is the best way to find serenity after a long or difficult day. While sitting alone with your thoughts can be helpful, it can also be a trap. Overthinking about a specific topic can easily become a serious problem for your health, wellness, and feelings of spiritual centeredness. When you’re sitting in meditation or trying to fall asleep, you may notice that you’re fixating on scenarios that played out throughout the day. In the world of psychology, this is called ruminating. Though casual ruminating can be helpful, it is a slippery slope with rough consequences.
The more you fixate on what you can’t control, the more you’re likely to feel stressed, anxious, or depressed. What’s worse, it can be hard to even realize you’re ruminating. Whenever your mind has a spare moment, it might suddenly jump to an embarrassing memory from your day or a conversation where you wish you could have said more. To find a bit of peace, you need to break the habit and find healthier ways of thinking through these worries. Check out these tips and see what might work for you.
Here and Now
When your mind is plagued by failures of the past and worries for the future, it doesn’t get a chance to focus on the problems of the now. “Living in the moment” might be a phrase most people have grown sick of hearing, but there is still some importance to be gleaned. If you find yourself repeating the same moments over and over in your head, you need to understand why. Often, it is something right in front of your face that you haven’t had the chance to address yet that is causing you all this worry.
Are you always ruminating upon how you’re performing at your job? This could be due to the fact that you feel uncertain about your future with the company you work for. Instead of feeling this way, speak to someone who can give you answers. This might open up a conversation that helps you understand how you’re currently performing and what you could do to increase your efficiency. In time, this might reduce your worry and help you shrug off more of the stuff that piles on your shoulders.
Teachable Moments
Every moment is a teachable moment. Well, maybe not every moment, but a good deal of them. When you’re a parent or a teacher, you’re likely to be more in tune with picking out these moments to help guide your little ones. As an adult, you’re less likely to view your own failures as teachable moments. Instead, you’re more likely to feel disappointed or angry or confused. While you might not understand where this is coming from, your subconscious is bringing it to the surface whenever it can.
Ruminating can be dangerous, but it can also be focused. When you realize that the moment you keep playing in your head is one you can learn from, you can help yourself overcome the emotions attached to the perceived failure. Whether it’s a conversation you wish went better or plans with friends that fell through, you can make things work the next time by using the moment to teach yourself where you went wrong.
Speak With Someone
Finally, you can always find help by speaking with a trained professional. Visiting a therapist when you can’t stop fixating can help to uncover a deeper understanding of your own machinations and motivations. If you felt sick, you would go to a doctor. When your mental state feels off, you should definitely seek the right counseling.
Ruminating can be a dangerous path. While thinking about the past can be beneficial, it needs to be honed in the right ways or it will become overwhelming. Learn how to stop your mind from fixating on moments you can’t control and find the serenity you deserve.