When it comes to traumatic experiences, there are two common pieces of advice for being able to move forwards functionally:

1. Process whatever thoughts and feelings you need to process
2. Do not ruminate

The latter can seem, at first glance, a lot like the former. So, how to tell them apart, and how to do one without the other?

Getting tense

One major difference between the two is the tense in which our mental activity takes place:

• processing starts with the traumatic event (or perhaps even the events leading up to the traumatic event), analyses what happened and if possible why, and then asks the question “ok, what now?” and begins work on laying out a path for the future.
• rumination starts with the traumatic event (or perhaps even the events leading up to the traumatic event), analyses what happened and if why, oh why oh why, “I was such an idiot, if only I had…” and gets trapped in a fairly tight (and destructive*) cycle of blame and shame/anger, never straying far from the events in question.

*this may be directly self-destructive, but it can also sometimes be only indirectly self-destructive, for example if the blame and anger is consciously placed with someone else.

This idea fits in, by the way, with Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s “five stages of grief” model; rumination here represents the stages “bargaining”, “despair”, and “anger”, while emotional processing here represents the stage “acceptance”. Thus, it may be that rumination does have a place in the overall process—just don’t get stuck there!

For more on healthily processing grief specifically:

What Grief Does To The Body (And How To Manage It)

Grief, by the way, can be about more than the loss of a loved one; a very similar process can play out with many other kinds of unwanted life changes too.

What are the results?

Another way to tell them apart is to look at the results of each. If you come out of a long rumination session feeling worse than when you started, it’s highly unlikely that you just stopped too soon and were on the verge of some great breakthrough. It’s possible! But not likely.

• Processing may be uncomfortable at first, and if it’s something you’ve ignored for a long time, that could be very uncomfortable at first, but there should quite soon be some “light at the end of the tunnel”. Perhaps not even because a solution seems near, but because your mind and body recognize “aha, we are doing something about it now, and thus may find a better way forward”.
• Rumination tends to intensify and prolong uncomfortable emotions, increases stress and anxiety, and likely disrupts sleep. At best, it may serve as a tipping point to seek therapy or even just recognize “I should figure out a way to deal with this, because this isn’t doing me any good”. At worst, it may serve as a tipping point to depression, and/or substance abuse, and/or suicidality.

See also: How To Stay Alive (When You Really Don’t Want To) ← which also has a link back to our article on managing depression, by the way!

Did you choose it, really?

A third way to tell them apart is the level of conscious decision that went into doing it.

• Processing is almost always something that one decides “ok, let’s figure this out”, and sits down to figure it out.
• Rumination tends to be about as voluntary as social media doomscrolling. Technically we may have decided to begin it (we also might not have made any conscious decision, and just acted on impulse), but let’s face it, our hands weren’t at the wheel for long, at all.

A good way to make sure that it is a conscious process, is to schedule time for it in advance, and then do it only during that time. If thoughts about it come up at other times, tell yourself “no, leave that for later”, and then deal with it when (and only when) the planned timeslot arrives.

It’s up to you and your schedule what time you pick, but if you’re unsure, consider an hour in the early evening. That means that the business of the day is behind you, but it’s also not right before bed, so you should have some decompression time as a buffer. So for example, perhaps after dinner you might set a timer* for an hour, and sit down to journal, brainstorm, or just plain think, about the matter that needs processing.

*electronic timers can be quite jarring, and may distract you while waiting for the beeps. So, consider investing in a relaxing sand timer like this one instead.

Is there any way to make rumination less bad?

As we mentioned up top, there’s a case to be made for “rumination is an early part of the process that gets us where we need to go, and may not be skippable, or may not be advisable to skip”.

So, if you are going to ruminate, then firstly, we recommend again bordering it timewise (with a timer as above) and having a plan to pull yourself out when you’re done rather than getting stuck there (such as: The Off-Button For Your Brain: How To Stop Negative Thought Spirals).

And secondly, you might want to consider the following technique, which allows one to let one’s brain know that the thing we’re thinking about / imagining is now to be filed away safely; not lost or erased, but sent to the same place that nightmares go after we wake up:

A Surprisingly Powerful Tool: Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing (EMDR)

What if I actually do want to forget?

That’s not usually recommendable; consider talking it through with a therapist first. However, for your interest, there is a way:

The Dark Side Of Memory (And How To Forget)

Take care!

We’ve written before about managing various emotions, including “negative” ones. We put that in “scare quotes” because they also all have positive aspects, that are just generally overshadowed by the fact that the emotions themselves are not pleasant. But for example…

We evolved our emotions, including the “negative” ones, for our own benefit as a species:

• Stress keeps us safe by making sure we take important situations seriously
• Anger keeps us safe by protecting us from threats
• Disgust keeps us safe by helping us to avoid things that might cause disease
• Anxiety keeps us safe by ensuring we don’t get complacent
• Guilt keeps us safe by ensuring we can function as a community
• Sadness keeps us safe by ensuring we value things that are important to us, and learn to become averse to losing them
• …and so on

You can read more about how to turn these off (or rather, at least pause them) when they’re misfiring and/or just plain not convenient, here:

The Off-Button For Your Brain

While it’s generally considered good to process feelings instead of putting them aside, the fact is that sometimes we have to hold it together while we do something, such that we can later have an emotional breakdown at a convenient time and place, instead of the supermarket or bank or office or airport or while entertaining houseguests or… etc.

Today, though, we’re not putting things aside, for the most part (though we will get to that too).

We’ll be dealing with shame, which is closely linked to the guilt we mentioned in that list there.

See also: Reconsidering the Differences Between Shame and Guilt

Shame’s purpose

Shame’s purpose is to help us (as a community) avoid anti-social behavior for which we might be shamed, and thus exiled from the in-group. It helps us all function better together, which is how we thrive as a species.

Shame, therefore, is often assumed to be something we can (and possibly should) use to ensure that we (ourselves and/or others) “do the right thing”.

But there’s a catch…

Shame only works negatively

You may be thinking “well duh, it’s a negative emotion”, but this isn’t about negativity in the subjective sense, but rather, positive vs negative motivation:

• Positive motivation: motivation that encourages us to do a given thing
• Negative motivation: motivation that encourages us to specifically not do a given thing

Shame is only useful as a negative motivation, i.e., encouraging us to specifically not do a given thing.

Examples:

• You cannot (in any way that sticks, at least) shame somebody into doing more housework.
• You can, however, shame somebody out of drinking and driving.

This distinction matters a lot when it comes to how we are with our children, or with our employees (or those placed under us in a management structure), or with people who otherwise look to us as leaders.

It also matters when it comes to how we are with ourselves.

Here’s a paper about this, by the way, with assorted real-world examples:

The negative side of motivation: the role of shame

From those examples, we can see that attempts to shame someone (including oneself) into doing something positive will generally not only fail, they will actively backfire, and people (including oneself) will often perform worse than pre-shaming.

Looking inwards: healthy vs unhealthy shame

Alcoholics Anonymous and similar programs use a degree of pro-social shame to help members abstain from the the act being shamed.

Rather than the unhelpful shame of exiling a person from a group for doing a shameful thing, however, they take an approach of laying out the shame for all to see, feeling the worst of it and moving past it, which many report as being quite freeing emotionally while still [negatively] motivational to not use the substance in question in the future (and similar for activity-based addictions/compulsions, such as gambling, for example).

As such, if you are trying to avoid doing a thing, shame can be a useful motivator. So by all means, if it’s appropriate to your goals, tell your friends/family about how you are now quitting this or that (be it an addiction, or just something generally unhealthy that you’d like to strike off your regular consumption/activity list).

You will still be tempted! But the knowledge of the shame you would feel as a result will help keep you from straying into that temptation.

If you are trying to do a thing, however, (even something thought of in a negative frame, such as “lose weight”), then shame is not helpful and you will do best to set it aside.

You can shame yourself out of drinking sodas (if that’s your plan), but you can’t shame yourself into eating healthy meals. And even if your plan is just shaming yourself out of eating unhealthy food… Without a clear active positive replacement to focus on instead, all you’ll do there is give yourself an eating disorder. You’ll eat nothing when people are looking, and then either a) also eat next to nothing in private or else b) binge in secret, and feel terrible about yourself, neither of which are any good for you whatsoever.

Similarly, you can shame yourself out of bed, but you can’t shame yourself into the gym:

Is there positive in the negative? Understanding the role of guilt and shame in physical activity self-regulation

Let it go

There are some cases, especially those where shame has a large crossover with guilt, that it serves no purpose whatsoever, and is best processed and then put aside.

For example, if you did something that you are ashamed of many years ago, and/or feel guilty about something that you did many years ago, but this is not an ongoing thing for you (i.e., it was a one-off bad decision, or a bad habit that have now long since dropped), then feeling shame and/or guilt about that does not benefit you or anyone else.

As to how to process it and put it aside, if your thing harmed someone else, you could see if there’s a way to try to make amends (even if without confessing ill, such as by acting anonymously to benefit the person/group you harmed).

And then, forgive yourself. Regardless of whether you feel like you deserve it. Make the useful choice, that better benefits you, and by extension those around you.

If you are religious, you may find that of help here too. We’re a health science publication not a theological one, but for example: Buddhism preaches compassion including for oneself. Judaism preaches atonement. Christianity, absolution. For Islam, mercy is one of the holiest ideals of the religion, along with forgiveness. So while religion isn’t everyone’s thing, for those for whom it is, it can be an asset in this regard.

For a more worldly approach:

To Err Is Human; To Forgive, Healthy (Here’s How To Do It) ← this goes for when the forgiveness in question is for yourself, too—and we do write about that there (and how)!

Take care!