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MindFull of GOOD

Dr. Rick Hanson's Occasional Collection of Good, Free Stuff

NEW ON THE BEING WELL PODCAST:

Why You Can’t Stop Overthinking (and What to Do about It)

"The thing about ruminating is it's kind of like the proverbial donkey chasing the carrot. It keeps moving around. And yet if the donkey ever arrived at the carrot, it would stop walking. It would stop ruminating. So in other words, let yourself arrive at the carrots that are being produced by the ruminating you had, and then set them aside."
— DR. RICK HANSON

Why does knowing we overthink not help us stop? In this episode, Dr. Rick and Forrest discuss why rumination becomes a self-reinforcing habit, and why insight alone rarely helps. They distinguish between rumination and reflection, and talk about how balancing acceptance and agency can help us go from one to the other. Forrest talks about the relationship between overthinking and feelings of disappointment and failure, and Rick shares practical ways to interrupt the cycle, shift into more concrete forms of problem-solving, and finally stop ruminating.

FREE ONLINE EXPERIENCE:

One Million Acts of Kindness

You may have heard me mention how, drop by drop, we can fill ourselves up with good. The same applies to small acts of kindness doing a lot of good in the world, when we get a lot of people committing to it. And that's the goal of this free initiative from the Global Compassion Coalition, which I hope you'll join!

NEW FROM THE WEDNESDAY TALK/MEDITATION:

How to Claim the Power You Do Have (and Disengage Where You Don’t)

We often give away our power by focusing on what we can’t control and getting pulled into stress, overthinking, or other people’s reactions. This week I focused on how to reclaim your power by focusing on where you actually have influence—your attention, your actions, and your choices—so you can live with more clarity, strength, and purpose

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FREE WORKSHEET:

Break the Cycle of Rumination

Stuck replaying the same conversation or worrying about something you can’t change? Rumination can be exhausting, overwhelming, and isolating—making you feel trapped in your own mind. This free worksheet helps you break that cycle with a simple, step-by-step process, offering practical steps to calm obsessive thinking, shift your focus, and start feeling more clear, grounded, and in control.

ALSO NEW ON THE BEING WELL PODCAST:

Trauma Therapy: What It’s Really Like with Dr. Jacob Ham and Elizabeth Ferreira

Dr. Jacob Ham and associate therapist Elizabeth Ferreira join Forrest to discuss their trauma therapy work. They talk openly about the messy, unglamorous reality of struggle, mistakes, and repair that characterizes trauma work, its nature as both art and science, how their work has changed over time, and what they’ve learned along the way. Topics include self-disclosure, working with shame and grief, dealing with situations where the client wants an apology, the difference between trauma work and more manualized approaches, therapist training and supervision, and “polishing the mirror.”

ASK RICK:

How can someone deal with cruelty, in their mind? How can one stop the mind from ruminating on horrible images of violence, without going back into denial?

First, I share your concerns about hurting other beings for one’s own pleasure.

Second, in a sense you are speaking about trauma in general and how to clear it from the mind. This is a big topic, and I’ll just say here a few things that might help:

• When the painful imagery or related thoughts arise, willfully shift attention elsewhere, especially to things that are stimulating and engage attentions, such as jumping up and down, eating something good, or giving/receiving love.

• Focus on the emotions and sensations of compassion, drawing awareness away from imagery or inner speech.

• Remind oneself what one is doing to help things get better; engage attention to this in rich ways such as reviewing actions or interactions and feeling what’s good about them (not just having an idea that one has sent money to a worthy cause).

• Have confidence that over time painful imagery does tend to fade or at least not preoccupy one, though it can still get triggered.

• If it helps, try EMDR or related trauma therapies.

• You might be able to get value from the Buddhist teaching about the emptiness of all experiences, no matter how wonderful or awful. Experiences exist in some sense, but they are transient, insubstantial, made of parts, and arise due to causes, and therefore they are “empty” of absolute self-existence. In a sense, they are like clouds, not bricks.

RICK'S PICKS:

VIDEO: Compassion Corps

Bad Sticks. Good Slips. (And How to Change That)

MindFull of Good is a free newsletter that highlights new and free content from Dr. Rick Hanson and the Being Well Podcast as well as other free offerings to fill yourself up with good.

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