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I am feeling stuck on a situation in the past

User Profile: Summershy
Summershy July 7th, 2023

Hi:

I have the tendency to ruminate on things that happened years ago that are not the end of world.

For example: This situation happened 14 years ago and I am not longer friends with either women. Basically, we had planned a ladies' night out and we were kicking it off with eating out. Being that I had been on the road and had just gotten in, I was hungry. So when one friend and I went to meet our other friend, we didn't end up going straight to the restaurant. Instead, we ended up helping her shop for a birthday card and a balloon for another friend. Then after that, we went back to drop off card and balloon while this friend seemed to take her time. At that point, I ended up getting hangry and expressed it with a growl of annoyance.

Anyway, as I have been processing this, I realize that I was not only frustrated over being hungry but had expectations that were not met right away.

2
User Profile: hopefulPond6108
hopefulPond6108 July 7th, 2023

@Summershy I like to think of thoughts as sticky, like hot chewing gum on the sidewalk sticks to your shoe. Thoughts+emotions make it an even sticker substance. Replaying the thought gets it even sticker.


Mindfulness practice acknowledges the thoughts and emotions as they pop up and some suggest treating these kindly as one might treat a house guest. Or perhaps treating them as a natural phenomenon like the weather. In real life, if it’s cloudy I may not like it, but it’s kind of one of the things I expect of weather and I know it’s not permanent. Treating our troubling memories in this way makes them less sticky.

When we learn something in school we do so through repetition. This repetition makes these facts stick in our heads. More neurons in our brain are activated to ensure this information is not lost. Sticky.

You didn’t like that your friends were not responding to your needs. Your reaction was in self protection and that is an admirable quality in my opinion. Embrace that quality but if you find yourself repeating the movie of that event maybe you can decide to change the channel.

I have some ruminative experiences as well. One of the least important was from over ten years ago. I was on a road trip and two bikers passed my car. One flipped me off as he passed. It made me angry for miles and had a somewhat similar effect when I remembered it several times years later. It seems a silly grudge to carry around, but I’m not responsible for how my brain encodes events.




1 reply
User Profile: Summershy
Summershy OP July 7th, 2023

@hopefulPond6108

I would say I carried a grudge, rather, my brain takes a long time to process information.

Actually, it was the one friend who was holding everyone else up by having us help her shop for a birthday card. My other friend was also expecting to go right to dinner as well. However, she was much more patient than I was. Luckily, they recognized that I was frustrated and I was able to tell them that I was hungry.

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