My Winning Battle with Negative Rumination
Negative thought loops are hell! But with persistence, perseverance and some key habits, it will be defeated.
My rumination would shift from a relentless onslaught of health fears to an unforgiving tirade of thoughts about every mistake I had ever made.
Always stuck in the regrets of the past, their effects on my future, and the anxiety that came with it. The past was dark, the future was dark, and my present was hell.
I felt like I was going insane.
One day when I came out of being constantly lost in my head, I was overwhelmed by the clarity of real life in the present moment. It gave me a panic attack!
Reality and being present scared me so much I was assaulted by fight or flight. This was bad. I was so close to brink; the only option I thought I had gives me chills.
At that point my sleep was just about nonexistent; my eating habits were rapidly reducing my weight; and I was often wondering around my own apartment lost in thought like a crazy person.
I had to get Valium—and similar—to help me sleep. This was a huge problem for me. I had already beaten a life of substance abuse, one that had brought a lot of my regrets into my world. To have to rely on very addictive substances like benzodiazepines was a path toward even more problems.
It helped me sleep; it helped the thoughts become meaningless to me, but it was a cure that was actually a sickness.
The drugs work, but like all drugs, they’re a distraction.
Rumination is a distraction. These things don’t solve the root cause problem.
I knew all too well that anyone recovering from an addiction would only succeed if the root cause of the problem was addressed and solved. Relapse rates in the first year are 85%. When I quit hard drugs, I only succeeded because I wanted to succeed. It was way more down to me.
You can have the greatest support network around you in the world. You can have all the money in the world. But without the desire to get to the heart of the matter and face the problem head-on, you will just yo-yo between sobriety and addiction.
The ego was the cause and the drugs weren’t the answer.
My rumination was related to another bad state: procrastination. I learnt this was all fuelled by the ego. The ego’s job was to keep you safe. The ego is being kind and keeping you from harm by keeping you in a state of never going forward, because forward is unknown and potentially dangerous.
The ego is an overbearing parent, and when their child is let loose into the real world to fend for themselves, they get a kicking from reality. You become dependent on the ego keeping you in the same state, just like becoming dependent on mind-altering medications.
After understanding the ego’s role, I was able to dig a layer deeper and understand what was motivating the ego.
To spare you having to read 2000 words about my deep discoveries, I’ll summarise my discovery:
I was terrified of the future
My past mistakes made me think I couldn’t have a future.
I wanted to pursue my writing but lacked confidence, and my ego was coming up with countless reasons to not bother.
All my ruminations about health were all part of that too! I wasn’t simply a hypochondriac.
I had to challenge and reframe my thoughts.
I now had an understanding that enabled me to challenge my thoughts and reframe them to be more positive.
When the bad thought came and tried to send me into a negative, never-ending thought loop, I could identify the trigger and choose to do something proactive instead.
I had declared war on the ego, and I had the fighting skills to win!
The power of journaling.
What helped me get to this point was journaling. When I was desperately searching for ways to stop thought loops and get some bloody sleep, I’d learnt that journaling helped because it was a place for the thoughts to go.
Negative rumination is a loop that keeps providing outcomes and desperate searches for solutions, but you always keep going around in circles.
So, I started brain-dumping in my journal in the morning and evening. This, along with meditation to aid sleep, became an integral part of my daily routine.
My journaling developed into reflective journaling. I could identify triggers, work out solutions, challenge thoughts and ideas, and also practice another key ingredient to recovery: gratitude.
Now, I was working stuff out and writing things I was grateful for twice a day. This was a slow process, but it was routine, and the routine was the only thing I had.
It was this routine that gradually turned everything around. I went from needing to meditate and journal to wanting to do it to loving it. I was racing myself from a depressive state to a motivated one.
I developed a very keen interest in my mind and how the mind worked in general. I started adding new practices and exercises to my routine that would further help:
Long walks
Swimming
Affirmations
Breath work
Creating a routine had saved me.
Before I knew it, I had a strict routine of habits that I needed to stay mentally healthy. This routine became a discipline, and this led to me writing about it all and writing with confidence.
Expressing your thoughts through creativity was a thing I always strived to do, and now it was effortless because it was essential. My path to becoming better was finding a healthy routine, one that gave me purpose and helped me develop new skills and opportunities.
I just wanted to sleep! But somehow, through perseverance and persistence, I had done even better.
I had done this on my own terms and without the crutch of drugs and therapy.
It became a simple framework:
Start journaling as a habit.
Reflect on what that journaling reveals.
Stack habits that can help on top (3 habits at a time).
Take 21 days to make those habits routine.
Keep going and add more habits if needed.