Are you a deep thinker? Do you often ponder over the meaning and purpose of your life or on the impermanence of Life? And why and when can this type of thinking become a threat to your mental health?
In my practice I have found that depression and anxiety are two of the three major problems that bring individuals to see me (the third one being relationship problems).
I have found that low mood and anxiety are inevitably fueled by recursive, negative thought patterns or ruminations.
In the case of depressed thinking, clients will often ask themselves questions such as:
“Why do I feel this way?” or “How did I get to feel like this?” and/or existential questions such as “What is the purpose of my life?” and “Why is this happening to me?”.
Anxiety based questions usually begin with “what if” such as “What if I never feel any better than I feel now”. The words “always” and “never” feature prominently in ruminating thoughts.
Are these types of thoughts always a bad thing?
Of course the answer to this question is “no”. We all need to ask ourselves “deep” questions from time to time to ensure that we are living authentic and meaningful lives and that our behaviour is in line with our values and goals.
However, when we ask ourselves these questions when we are not in a good space (psychologically speaking) we run the risk of intensifying the negative emotions that are being experienced.
So the take home message is as follows: debate the big issues when you are feeling upbeat about life!
In a following post I will make some suggestions regarding how to stop negative thoughts and ruminations.