Rumination isn’t a word you hear everyday. It isn’t a very obvious word to understand either. But it’s a common experience, and one that can be very damaging to mental health and wellbeing. While there are diverse ways to help halt or ease rumination, coaching and creativity may have an important part to play.
Overthinking, brooding, feeling trapped by negative thought patterns, these are all ways that rumination can be experienced. It’s a common factor in depression. Another thing I’ve discovered is that rumination is considerably more likely to impact women (as found by a 2016 study in The Lancet of women’s mental health). Most common mental health problems such as anxiety and depression present in some way as cycles of negative thoughts, and breaking these cycles can be one of the biggest hurdles in recovery. Remembering my own lived experience of health anxiety, I know how all-consuming such thought cycles can be, blocking concentration and returning inevitably to their starting point once again. Picture the turning of a “cycle”, a wheel, as it moves round and round, and round again.
Over time, rumination’s negative thinking patterns can allow limiting beliefs to take hold. Gradually a thought might become a conviction, and limit what you feel you can do or how you can live. Coaching encourages a person to explore these beliefs, to consider how the belief might be limiting their life choices, and to choose a different, more positive belief to pursue or small goals to follow. When the negative thought cycle has you in its grasp, it can be very difficult to distance yourself enough to identify and understand the limiting beliefs. That’s why coaching can help. It won’t break the cycles or present you with straightforward solutions, but it can open up a space to think in new or different ways, to let in other ideas and glimpse other ways ahead.
Creativity can also open up space and time in your thinking patterns. That might be art or craft, or dance, or singing, or writing, or drama, or comedy, or all these. Any art form might become breathing space, even if only fleeting, and gradually infuse spontaneity and change into thinking patterns. You could use creativity to shut out the ruminating for a little while, or to think through what might be behind the thoughts – maybe by journaling, using symbols or visualisation (art) or using role play (drama).
If you would like to think about having life coaching, take a look at https://medley.live/life-coaching or give creativity a go at https://medley.live/news
Medley 
Hi Isobel, I used to ruminate. It drove me to a breakdown in 1997. Then I saw the late Ken Dodd in a dressing room, feeling intense stage fright (believe it or not). He would tell his anxiety to “go to your room”. Now I do the same, and I never ruminate on negativity. Stoic philosophy also helps.
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Thank you for sharing this Rona, and what a fantastic thought from Ken Dodd, I so like the idea of taking control over the anxiety by telling it where to go!
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