Your Thoughts Are Trying to Tell You Something – How to Process Rumination
Written by Johnna Key, Spiritual Guide & Teacher
Johnna Key is known for her calming and serene voice when guiding meditations. She is the author of the newly published book Making Space to Breathe and the YouTube channel Journeys with Johnna.
Intrusive thoughts and rumination are hitting us hard right now, leaving each of us who overthinks with the daunting feeling of being trapped in our minds. I’ve had several questions from those I work with about “how to stop the loop” and find peace and clarity in the mind. Here’s what I’ve learned.
As someone who has struggled and still does with intrusive thoughts, I understand that feeling of being trapped in the mind, not able to be free from a series of thought patterns, needing a way to escape the noise. Without the proper tools, discipline, or awareness, those intrusive thoughts can quickly become an overthinking mind or irrational behaviour. The modern world has set us up with so many distractions that, while they feel good in the moment, they unfortunately perpetuate the pattern of ruminating on intrusive thoughts.
An intrusive thought is an unwanted or involuntary thought that enters the mind without warning or prompt. A ruminating thought is the action you take after the intrusive thought, getting into a loop of replaying it to “solve the problem.”
Let’s say an intrusive thought comes into the mind. Often, these are unkind thoughts, something that could stem from childhood, an internal story that’s been in the back of your mind. It can also cause a reaction or action that is outside of one’s normal behaviour. Do you acknowledge it, or do you notice what the thought is bringing up? Do you distract from it or numb out? Sometimes we might do both, depending on the day or scenario. It’s important to notice your pattern, in any direction.
That intrusive thought can become a ruminating thought, or it can reveal its message and lesson and then go away. The latter sounds easier, yet it's the one we resist most on a subconscious level, turning the intrusive thought from teacher to tormentor.
Here’s a method I've used for years that has worked well for me and my clients.
Begin by letting your mindset shift into curiosity rather than critique. Much easier to write than to put into practice. However, part of the re-wiring process is being open to not controlling the outcome. As your awareness slips into curiosity mode, you can view yourself a bit more easily. It can be hard to look into the mirror, so it’s okay to take this step slowly.
Acknowledge the intrusive thought. If you're used to cutting it off or distracting yourself, this might take time too. Acknowledging a thought from the space of the observer allows you to see what the thought is, the simple message, not the one wrapped in trauma or fear.
You can acknowledge the thought in various ways, stating it clearly out loud or writing it down. I encourage writing it down because that initiates the process of “letting it go.” By writing the intrusive thought down, you’ve essentially heard the message, taken time to acknowledge it, and let it go, for now.
Leave the thought there on the page, set it aside, and walk away. Go do something different and immediately shift the energy. Don’t distract, just shift. For example, go for a walk or another type of movement you enjoy, perhaps do something small on your to-do list. Shift the energy in the mind and body. While doing this task, your mind will naturally want to refocus on the acknowledgment, and you can begin to say, “I see you” or “I hear you.” Our subconscious is sometimes desperate to be heard, so acknowledgment is a huge step toward avoiding rumination. Work to keep your mind focused on this new productive task while confirming that you're present with yourself, not fully distracted.
You can return to where you wrote the thought down and read it aloud again. This time, acknowledge and process the emotions that arise.
When you’re ready, take time to process the emotions that arise from this intrusive thought. This is a deeper layer to alleviating the rumination. Acknowledging the thought was step one. Step two would be to acknowledge the emotions.
Slow down and take time to process the emotions attached to the intrusive thoughts. Notice whether the emotions are driving you to distract or numb, or whether you can sit with them. Cry it out. Get angry. Feel the grief. Feel the feels. Whatever is arising has a message to help you let go of the rumination pattern, let go of the intrusive thought, and, in time, release it from your body.
Ways to process the thoughts
Ask questions: You’re already in curiosity mode. Ask yourself questions. When did you first notice the thought? What was happening in your life then? Etc.
Journal: Write it out. This is a physical act of letting the thought go. You don’t need direction or critique. Just write what’s in your heart. Set a time and days of the week, like it’s a personal date, and make the time to get to know your own inner thoughts.
Therapies/coaching/mentorships/healed friends: Working with others one-on-one or in groups always helps support a healing journey. Use your discernment, ask questions, don’t let yourself get pressured into working with anyone, and follow your gut on who is right for you right now. If you’re confiding in friends or family, discern who can receive certain parts of this process. Not all friends, or even those who care for you, can hold deep emotions. Many are not prepared. If so, allow yourself to be vulnerable with those who can hold you. They will truly let you feel seen and loved. If those people don’t exist for you right now, go find them. They’re looking for you too. Resist the fear telling you to stay alone. You need support.
Somatic movements: Yoga, QiGong, ThaiChi, to name a few, are great ways to intentionally move the body and connect with specific energy channels that process stored, stagnant emotions. Stagnant energy in the body will cause ruminating thoughts. Remember, emotions are energy in motion, so moving your body helps those stored, dense emotions move through to the other side.
Stop It. The best way to stop ruminating thoughts is to simply stop it. Don’t let it continue to build momentum. Visualize your ruminating thought as something tangible that has energy, something that needs more energy to grow. i.e., a snowball, a baseball, a mudslide, a tsunami, a moving vehicle, etc.
For example's sake, I’m going with a snowball. I know that if a snowball is created, it needs energy to be molded and shaped to grow. So, if one takes a handful of snowflakes, i.e., intrusive thoughts or emotions, and molds them together, they will need energy to grow into something bigger, into a snowball big enough to be thrown at someone else.
You can take an intrusive thought that’s landed like a snowflake in your mind and observe it, noticing the tiny details that create it. You can see it for the beauty of the message it holds. Then you can choose to let it melt without giving it more energy to grow and let it go, or hold your hand out for more flakes, more thoughts, and mold them into a snowball you can hurl down the hill, building momentum and more energy as it grows. As more momentum builds, so too does the anxiety, fear, depression, overthinking, panic, etc. Nothing uplifting comes from this path.
On a personal level, having chosen the latter approach for many years, I can say that it exhausts the mind and body to continue to let my intrusive thoughts torment me and freeze me in place with the energy I give them. Choosing to observe the snowflake that had a message and let it go has served my mind, body, and spirit much better.
This takes practice and intention. It takes a self-boundary that you can easily set. Watch the thought come in, process it, then stop it from looping back around.
Seeing the loop as a notification
Each time this intrusive thought comes in, it’s an opportunity to get to know yourself a little further. Each time you slow down to get to know yourself, you give yourself a love that goes deep to the soul.
Taking time to process intrusive thoughts to break the pattern of rumination will bring your mind peace and calm over time. That feeling of being trapped in your mind will ease out, and in its place, you can take comfort in yourself.
Stay mindful of those intrusive thoughts. If they’re repeating and you’re struggling to shift the energy or let it go, then there could be an underlying cause. The mind could be experiencing a chemical or hormonal imbalance. There could be disease lurking beneath the surface. Parasites often cause rumination. An unhealthy lifestyle or environment–any one of these will deter your intention of letting those ruminating thoughts go. So give yourself time to check whether something deeper is happening. Most of the time there is, and with that knowledge, you can heal yourself and change the pattern.
Yoga Nidra helps to stop the pattern of rumination or overthinking. Our minds are very, very powerful. We take the power they hold for granted because it often hides behind intrusive thoughts or fear. Let your mind get healthier and stronger through this practice, designed to retrain it into mindfulness and focus.
One of the most profound things you can do for yourself is build a strong, healthy relationship with yourself. When we process these emotions from the torment of these thoughts, it leaves a space in the mind & body that needs to be refilled. What you refill it with matters immensely.
If you do work on yourself to process out emotions from a trauma yet leave a void where those emotions once sat, they will come back in another form of trauma. Replacing those thought patterns with new ones is imperative to moving forward and not looping back. It strengthens the mind-body connection to yourself. When you refill yourself with encouragement, love, grace, motivation, acceptance, or gratitude, these things will change your life. Taking the time for a yoga Nidra to plant the seed of worthiness and gratitude will only benefit you in the long run. Not taking the time will keep you trapped in your mind.
Read more from Johnna Key
Johnna Key, Spiritual Guide & Teacher
Johnna Key is a certified Yoga and Meditation guide & Spiritual Teacher, leading others to calibrate their nervous system and ease overwhelm within the mind. Derived from her experience in the Western medicine system as a child and divorce from a narcissistic relationship as an adult, Johnna has learned and implemented tools to heal the mind, body, & spirit from traumatic experiences to exit karmic loops and generational patterns. Her passion is teaching others to find self-acceptance for their experiences and the emotions or perspectives that can surface. She's passionate about helping others calm a busy mind, ease tension in the body, and learn to meditate to find joy and self-worth in the journey we call life.
