Beware rumination!

We all ruminate. We all ponder, sit around thinking, and find ourselves on a journey to somewhere gloomy.

We won't ever eliminate this completely but we should notice when it is negatively unproductive, upsetting the balance, and becoming indulgently self-absorbing. There is something unhelpfully attractive about beating ourselves up and feeling sorry for ourselves.

Voltaire (1694-1778) lived in an age far away from our present time. Yet he has some words for all times:

'Life is thickly sown with thorns. I know no other remedy than to pass rapidly over them. The longer we dwell on our misfortunes the greater is their power to harm us.'

Next time you find yourself ruminating notice the liberating fact that you can notice what you are doing. When we notice something, we can start to learn and see more clearly. It is not necessary to dive into 'approach' or 'avoidance' strategies. Just observe, see what's going on. You will be able to ask yourself, 'Is this really useful, is it helping me, is it making me feel better or worse, are there better ways to take care of myself ?'

You can then begin choosing your direction rather than blindly following habits and tendencies that rarely if ever improve anything.

We can be strengthened by our thoughts and we can be weakened by our thoughts.

We deepen our misfortunes by dwelling on them.