Why don’t we ruminate on the positives as much as the negatives?

We’ve all been there: ruminating on something unpleasant.

Maybe it was a mistake we made. Something we said that came out wrong. Something we didn’t mean. Something we couldn’t have seen coming.

It’s extremely common for us to ruminate on these negative feelings.

To ruminate simply means to ponder deeply. So why, then, does it often have the connotation of negativity?

Of spiraling, or sinking, or being ‘stuck’ reliving an unpleasant experience?

Well, survival has something to do with it (our brain taking what it deems as an ‘unsafe’ scenario and replaying it in an effort to learn how to avoid such risk in the future). And upbringing and society have something to do with it (pressure to be punitive to ourselves as a method of self-correcting).

But actually, I’m not here to talk about what “negative” means, or lessons learned from hard moments, or even (for now) how we can strive to change as a society from one of incarceration and punishment to one of compassion and cooperation.

Instead I’m here to ask you this one simple question: Why don’t we ruminate on the positive just as much?

Rome wasn’t changed in a day. But new habits are built one day at a time.

We have a library of positive memories. Beautiful things we’ve seen, places we’ve been, positive acts where we felt loved or empowered or proud.

And yet, we tend to only play back the negative memories, the regrets, the ‘failures’, the moments where we DIDN’T feel loved. And we re-experience these emotions in our bodies long after the event has actually taken place.

Without meandering into the realm of toxic positivity here, is there a way to use positive memory – positive rumination – to elicit greater well-being?

The short answer is YES.

This is a new lens of mindfulness: not just becoming present and zooming in and out of our experiences to change perspective and cultivate awareness, but the practice of choosing to ruminate on the positive… At least as much as the negative, if not a full replacement in the moment (opposite action).

How do we build up that practice?

1. Have self-neutrality, if not self-acceptance, if not self-love. We must find ourselves worthy of stopping the negative rumination cycle in favor of the positive rumination.

2. Practice mindfulness through meditation – dedicated time during the day to become present with oneself in silence and stillness.

3. Release the negative or stuck experiences – through movement or journaling or talking with a friend or therapist, for example.

4. Invite in the positive experiences – through simple remembering or a gratitude practice.

5. Literally replace a thought with a positive one when you notice it arise. Without rejecting the original thought or being judgmental towards oneself or partaking in toxic positivity, we can use willpower to place a thought aside with the attitude of “not right now” and replace it with any positive thought or memory (related or unrelated to the negative one).

6. Sit with the positive. Absorb. Be present. 

[It almost always comes back to presence, doesn’t it?]

This is not a practice of demonizing the mind for the way it currently operates, or of totally bypassing and opting out of processing negative experiences altogether, but of befriending the mind and directing in ways that cultivate greater well-being.

Happy ruminating, friends.