Worry and Rumination
Worry and Rumination
What are these two and what do they cost us?
Let’s think about time
If we draw a horizontal line that represents time, there must be a place on that line that represents now. Anything before now must be in the past, and anything after now must be in the future. We live now, not in the past and not in the future. The future is a dream and the past is history.
So must we avoid the past and the future?
No, the past holds all our memories and the future is where we make our plans. However, we are still only ever living in the here and now. It’s important to remain present in the moment and the popular name for this practice is mindfulness.
So what about worry and rumination?
Because it can be difficult to really be present, sometimes we project forwards into the future and become concerned about what might go wrong. This is called worry.
Another option is to replay events from the past and wish we had acted differently or things had turned out better. This is called rumination.
The cost of worry and rumination.
Someone once told me that worrying is like paying interest on a loan I haven’t even taken out yet!
Rumination is like continuing to pay interest on a loan I paid off ages ago!