Will You Reflect or Will You Ruminate?

                We all make mistakes. It is part of the human condition; there is no escape from it.  Our mistakes come in all forms, sometimes there are embarrassing or annoying mishaps, sometimes we just barely miss a true calamity, and sometimes our mistakes do end up in some form of tragedy. The fact that mistakes happen are unavoidable. In hindsight they always seem like we could avoid them, though in hindsight we have all the information available. You can give yourself the compassion that in the moment, with the information you had available, you made what you thought would be the best choice or give you the best outcome. The point for this passage is not to avoid or forgive our mistakes, it is to discuss what mental activity you can focus on doing. After a mistake most of us tend to ruminate and few decide instead to reflect.

                Rumination is rarely to never effective. It is the process of rehashing whatever negative event over and over again. Your emotional response is continually triggered, and you likely continue to be at a heightened negative response as you fall down the downward spiral of negative thinking. When you ruminate you are almost reinforcing the poor decision and identifying it to your value or worth. Rumination will negatively impact your self-esteem, negatively impact your self-narrative, and negatively impact your motivation for moving forward. Rumination is a waste of mental energy and your time. You will never be able to change what happened by just thinking about the event and outcome and how terrible it was. It happened and it is over. So now what can you do?

                Reflection is a much more effective and helpful process. Reflection allows you to focus on the details of what led up to and caused the mistake. When you reflect on the moment, you see what you were mentally caught up in that prevented a better decision from being made. You would replay the event and points leading up to it with more curiosity to pinpoint what or where did you go wrong. Then comes the most important part of the process, you think about what you will do differently when a similar situation comes up in the future. Now, rather than just feeling terrible about yourself, you can feel empowered with a plan that you will be able to handle the type of situation better in the future.

                Just a couple examples:

You speak out of anger and say something hurtful or disrespectful.  

With rumination you would condemn yourself for being so disrespectful, so out-of-control, so rude and then you stew in the shame.

With reflection you would explore, were you hungry? Were you tired? Were you harboring resentment and just unleashed? - You explore what was happening within you that made a more effective response seem impossible. Then you select options for how to respond to a similar situation, you can ask for a moment, you could walk away, you can use a grounding technique, or you could use breathwork and then respond when you have regained your composure.

You impulsively took a risky opportunity, and it did not work out.

With rumination you would again condemn yourself for being impulsive and/or stupid, then stew in the negative emotions and poor outcome.

With reflection, you would explore what made you think it was a risk you were willing to take. You would want to identify what details were missing that you could look for next time. Did you have a gut feeling that you ignored? Did you blindly jump and realize you did not give yourself a moment to think. Was there too much outside pressure and you realize that pressure sends you to people-pleasing actions? Once you have the information of how you came to your decision, you can then work out what to do to respond more effectively next time. Maybe you decide you must sleep on a decision if certain stakes are involved. Or if there is specific information you will make sure to ask for next time.  

  Reflection helps us gain awareness of where we go wrong, which then helps us have a growth opportunity. To learn from our experiences to do better next time. Rumination is truly a pity party that allows you to wallow in negativity, but does not allow for growth and learning. So, which will you choose to do next time you make the inevitable mistake?

As always, I am here to help, simply reach out.