After a few years in a new role, Allison’s relationship with her boss, Paul, deteriorated. In our coaching conversations, Allison would rehash a series of stories about times she’d felt slighted or undervalued.
After Allison repeatedly circled back to the same stories, I realized she wasn’t processing her feelings — she was just ruminating: letting her mind spin in her hurt, rather than making a choice about how she wanted to respond.
I can relate to Allison (name changed), and I’m sure you can too. Getting stuck in our frustrations, hurts, worries and fears is a very human experience. As much as we’d like to think of ourselves as rational creatures at work, we’re just as susceptible to rumination at work as in our personal lives.
Allison’s frustrations with her boss were important signals that the relationship needed attention. But staying stuck in her worry and frustration wasn’t improving the relationship or her work. She needed to step out of the rumination rut.
Rumination vs. ranting & reflection
Before we return to Allison’s situation, let’s take a closer look at rumination and some more productive alternatives: ranting and reflection.
Rumination is repetitive, circular thinking that focuses on problems, negative emotions or distressing situations without moving toward resolution or understanding.
Rumination keeps you mentally stuck in the same loop, rehashing the same thoughts and feelings without gaining new insights or taking constructive action. It’s characterized by “why” questions that spiral and often makes yourself out to be a victim.
Why is this happening to me?
Why can’t I figure this out?
Why did he do that? What does he have against me?
What if I never recover from this?
Why does everyone else seem to have it figured out?
How could they do this after everything I’ve done for them?
Why doesn’t she appreciate my effort?
Why is he being so selfish and unfair?
Rumination tends to amplify negative emotions rather than process them productively.
Now that we understand what rumination looks like, let’s look at two alternatives: ranting and reflection.
Ranting is a focused, time-limited emotional release in which you express frustration, anger or distress to another person with the specific purpose of processing and releasing those emotions.
A productive rant has boundaries. Healthy rants are:
Directed toward a safe friend or colleague who can listen supportively,
Have a clear beginning and end, and are constrained to a reasonable amount of time (minutes, not hours), and
Serve as a pressure valve that allows you to move forward,
A good rant helps you quickly discharge emotional energy rather than amplifying it internally. If you find yourself repeating content you’ve already covered, you’re veering from rant into rumination. If you find yourself retracing the same ground over a period of time (days, weeks, months), you’re stuck in a rumination cycle.
Pick your rant partner carefully — someone you trust is essential. But almost as important is someone who will help you draw boundaries and who can draw boundaries for themselves. You need someone who won’t take on your emotions or attempt to solve the problem for you. And because bad attitudes are contagious, rant to someone who won’t catch your attitude and spread it further.
I also recommend avoiding ranting to someone impacted by the situation or to the same person repeatedly, to prevent caregiver fatigue.
How long should you allow yourself to rant? That depends on the depth of the situation, of course. For most day-to-day situations, a 3-minute rant is a good place to start. That’s enough to offer context and express frustration without dwelling in the details or backtracking to repeat yourself (which is when it starts to become rumination).
Even better than a rant is a time of intentional reflection.
Reflection is purposeful, structured thinking (with someone else or alone) that examines experiences, emotions or situations with the goal of gaining insight, learning or planning for forward movement.
Reflection is solution-oriented and time-bounded. It asks “what” and “how” questions that lead to understanding rather than getting stuck:
What can I learn from this?
What are my options now?
How might I handle this differently next time?
What assumptions am I making that might not be true?
What would need to change for me to feel differently about this?
What’s within my control right now, and what isn’t?
Is there another interpretation of this situation?
Unlike rumination, reflection has a clear endpoint and typically results in either acceptance, a plan of action or valuable self-knowledge.
Instead of feeling like a victim, reflection takes ownership of your next actions.
Getting out of a rumination cycle
The crucial distinction is that reflection and ranting both serve as bridges to move you forward, while rumination keeps you trapped in the same mental space. Reflection builds understanding, ranting releases pressure, but rumination just deepens the rut.
We must get ourselves out of the rumination cycle as quickly as we can.
The first step is to recognize it. This is no small feat. Be proud of yourself for catching the rumination cycle in progress.
The second step is to allow yourself a brief rant — three to five minutes to offload negative emotions and express your frustrations. Try to do this without blaming others — when we blame, we make someone else the villain and ourselves the victim.
The third step is to reflect and reframe, as you identify options and next steps. The questions above can help you identify actionable ideas that empower you.
Sometimes, our best option is simply to accept the situation; we don’t have to like it, but cycling through our negative emotions won’t actually make us feel better. Other times, our reflection can help us surface ideas for next steps, questions to ask or options to consider.
Next, step away from the situation, if only for a moment. If your feelings remain especially strong, pause your reflection and take a break. Go for a walk, eat your lunch, refill your coffee or check the sports page. Give yourself a little space from the situation before you return to it. This space can help us find perspective.
Finally, return and respond (rather than react).
Complicated situations require more than four steps, of course. Breaking rumination may require multiple rounds of work, and setbacks are to be expected. But this simple process is a good starting point for putting rumination in your rearview mirror so you can respond professionally.
One final word on complex situations: involve professional support (your HR team, your therapist) when the situation involves trauma, or a lack of psychological or physical safety.
Stepping out of the spin cycle
Allison’s situation was complex. Through much coaching and reflection, she began to break the rumination cycle.
She realized she was looking for Paul’s negative response in every interaction, and therefore missing signals that were more positive and supportive. This was diminishing her self-confidence and her desire to improve her situation.
Allison resolved to pause the rehashing of old hurts and instead work to proactively strengthen her relationship with her boss, doing her best to see the positive signals that existed. This decision gave her a few less stressful months, which helped restore her confidence as she began to look for work elsewhere.
This wasn’t an easy choice, but it was a healthy one.
Rumination holds us in unhealthy thought patterns that keep us from finding productive solutions or moving toward a better future. But with practice, we can learn to step out of the spin cycle and into the clarity that comes with reflection and intentional responses.
Opinions expressed by SmartBrief contributors are their own.
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