The ruminators among us will attest to how debilitating it can be to get stuck in our own heads. While the mind is a G-dly gift and marvelous tool, it is also home to an incredibly complex web of thoughts that can entangle and overwhelm us at times. For some, the mind can have a tendency to get snagged on a point that it feels it can’t let go of. The ensuing compulsion to think about an issue again and again can be quite persistent, making us feel like the process of thinking has taken on a life of its own.
Of all the places we can get lost in life, inside the mind is among the most difficult. It can be depressing to feel crushed under the weight of our own thoughts, as if we’re consumed by a dense cloud of heavy thinking. In this way, ruminating is both a tireless and tiring process, marked by an incessant attempt to get a handle on something that drains us of mental and emotional energy.
Ruminating also contributes to heightened anxiety, as we scramble to sift through and organize various components of our dilemma, or feverishly search for another angle from which to consider an issue. “If I can just crack the code of this problem, it’ll finally go away”, we tell ourselves. Yet the result is always the same – desperately spinning our wheels, feeling jumbled, frustrated, and lost.
What is ruminating?
Ruminating, defined as a repetitive, negative thought process that loops continuously in the mind without end or completion, can feel like being trapped in a mental hall of mirrors. Whichever direction we choose somehow leads us right back to the beginning. Every turn looks like a potential road out of the maze, yet the exit ramp never appears. We follow one path after the next, despite having already explored each several times, all the while knowing that we’re not quite sure where we’re headed. We don’t see a way out, yet we continue to circle.
In my ruminations about ruminating during the holiday of Sukkot, it occurred to me that Shlomo HaMelech depicted a similar phenomenon in his description of the sun (often compared to the mind, or “shining light” within a person): “It goes to the south and turns around to the north, around and around goes its wind, and on its turning, its wind returns.” (Kohelet 1:6). Shlomo HaMelech was referring to the stagnant, unchanging, and repetitive nature of the world, where all is the same and nothing new is ever added. Could there be a better description of the ruminating mind?
Ruminating versus contemplating
Like the circular wanderings of the sun, the mind can spin continuously with nothing ever changing. Remember CDs (or records, for those old enough!) that got scratched and went on spinning while repeating the same words? In a similar vein, ruminating gets us stuck on mental “repeat” while we spiral through the same points over and over, never making any progress.
This is how ruminating differs from contemplating. Contemplation, referred to as hitbonenut in Jewish sources, is a forward-moving process. One works through a problem step by step, following a train of thought and examining its implications. Thinking deeply in this way is an important part of decision-making and effective problem-solving. Although the process of contemplation doesn’t always follow a straight line, the experience is one of methodically turning over one stone at a time until the total picture gradually becomes clearer.
Ruminating, on the other hand, does not move the needle forward, but rather keeps us perpetually lingering in one place. Like the scratched disc, we listen to the same mental tracks time and time again, while the end of the song never comes.
Ruminating versus obsessing
While it is common to confuse ruminating with obsessive thinking, they are actually quite different. Obsessions refer to intrusive thoughts over which a person does not have control. They enter the mind involuntarily and without warning, leaving one with the pressing feeling of having no choice but to think about them.
Rumination, on the other hand, stems from a conscious decision to think about something to try to alleviate an issue. It is done to figure something out, such as how to address a specific concern or prevent a negative outcome. Although rumination may feel reflexive or automatic, it is actually a mental compulsion aimed at ameliorating emotional distress – our fear of how things might turn out.
The fallacy of rumination
Behind our urge to ruminate lies the myth that if we just keep thinking through a problem, we’ll finally solve it. This belief seduces us into thinking there is something we can do to fix things, even when there is not. For as many have noted, if we could have worked out the problem, we probably would have done so already.
The truth is that ruminating almost never leads to resolution. Rarely does endless mental gymnastics bring us any closer to the clarity we seek. Most of us know this on some level, just as we know Einstein’s definition of insanity (doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Yet we convince ourselves that additional sifting through the issue for just a bit longer will finally lead us out of the quagmire.
Accepting the unresolvable
If ruminating is our mind’s attempt at solving unsolvable problems, then the key to getting off the hamster wheel must include letting go of the things we cannot fix.
The hard truth is that there are many complications in life that we can’t do anything about. The extent of our authority is limited, and some situations – or people – just won’t turn out the way we want. Although we may know this intellectually, living with this truth can be a difficult pill to swallow.
We like to feel as though we’re taking steps to deal with the problems we face. Being in a proactive position helps us temporarily relieve our feelings of helplessness and powerlessness over things we can’t control. Even if we end up exhausted from all our mental spinning, at least we feel like we’ve done something.
Getting back to living
To move past ruminating, we must put down the topic at hand and turn our attention to the rest of life. This means reassuring ourselves that for the time being, the issue we face will remain unfinished, and that’s ok. When we shelve a problem upon which we have been fixated, we are freeing up our internal resources to live our lives more fully.
Leaving a dilemma in its incomplete form requires a healthy dose of humility and an understanding of our limited ability to make things right. Of course there are many times when thinking things through once more is precisely what we need to do. After all, our tradition prizes using our sechel, our unique capacity to contemplate life and find answers to difficult challenges.
But there are plenty of times when we must simply let go. When the mind tells us to burrow down into an endless pit of unproductive thinking, it’s time to take a step back and accept that the solution to this particular issue lies beyond our reach.
On a practical level, when stepping back from ruminating, it is often useful to have another topic to focus on (hopefully not in an all-consuming way). Having something better to think about goes a long way towards helping us resist the temptation to get pulled back down the rabbit hole.
They say life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans. For some of us, life is also what happens while we’re busy roaming around in our own heads. Let’s be sure to get out of our own minds and get back to living.