Reflection vs. Rumination
January is a natural time to look back as we look forward to the new year.
It is the final paragraph in the chapter of your life that occurred over the last twelve months. It’s a time when, either consciously or subconsciously, you look back on where you’ve been, what you’ve accomplished, and maybe what’s gone unaccomplished.
While certain end-state events, like the end of the year, the end of a relationship, or the end of a career, trigger this process, the reality is that our brains are always engaged in a “looking back” process known as retrospective sensemaking.
There are two primary reasons our brains engage in retrospective sensemaking.
Coherence
The first is to establish coherence. Coherence essentially refers to our ability to “connect the dots” on ourselves, others, and the world around us.
Coherence is critical because it influences how safe and secure we feel in the world, based on how confident we are in our ability to identify patterns and predict future events. This is part of the reason why major life events with negative ramifications are so disorienting.
We want our lives to make sense, and it’s unsettling when they don’t.
By revisiting the past, our brain hopes to reconcile these experiences, reducing psychological and emotional strain.
Improve Predictive Precision
The second primary outcome our brain hopes to achieve through retrospective sensemaking is improving its ability to predict future patterns.
Our brains are pattern predictors. When you sat down in the chair you’re currently in, you probably did so with little conscious awareness, yet your brain was assessing the chair, using its model of chairs, and allowing you to sit in that chair without additional thought or concern, because it had (hopefully accurately) predicted that the chair would function properly and support your weight.
One of your brain’s primary functions is to quickly assess variables and make accurate predictions to guide your future behavior in a way that keeps you safe.
As you go through life, you encounter new or novel people, situations, and experiences that your brain must then integrate into its existing model as additional data to make better predictions in the future.
To put this in mathematical terms, we’ve all had experiences where we controlled the input, 2+2, but instead of getting 4, we were met with 3, 5, or even -7.2345.
Naturally, our brain gives additional attention to these situations because they don’t fit into previous modeling, therefore decreasing our confidence in our ability to predict outcomes and keep ourselves safe and secure in similar situations in the future.
Coherence and predictive modeling are crucial to our survival and flourishing, making retrospective sensemaking a natural and mostly helpful psychological process.
However, not all retrospective sensemaking is created equal, and we must be aware when our sensemaking process drifts out of a healthy, productive state known as Reflection into an unhealthy, unproductive state known as Rumination.
Rumination
Rumination occurs when our brains revisit and relive an event without any learning occurring.
We’ve all been there - you had a presentation at work that didn’t go well, you were late to a meeting you completely forgot about, you hired someone with full confidence only to have to terminate them later, or you found out that someone you trusted had broken your trust.
Moments like these weigh heavily on us because they expose our fallibility. Whether through poor judgment, missed execution, or something else, they remind us that we are not as in control as we’d like to believe. As such, it makes sense that in the quiet moments afterwards, our brains would want to gravitate back towards these instances to achieve coherence and improve predictive precision.
But, this is only helpful and productive to the extent that you learn something from that past experience, integrate it into your current reality, and make plans to better approach similar situations in the future.
To the extent that you get stuck in that past experience, it takes you out of the present moment, and becomes a source of shame, guilt, resentment, or fear, the process of revisiting this experience is no longer helpful or productive.
It has created stuck energy.
Reflection
Reflection, by contrast, occurs when we revisit a past experience relatively quickly, capture learning from that experience, integrate the learning into an updated mental model and worldview, and then quickly return to the present feeling prepared to move forward.
Even though it is reflective, Reflection holds positive, future-focused energy. It’s about going back so that we can go forward; rather than going back, futilely attempting to change the past.
Most notably, Reflection differs from Rumination in the emotional experience we have when reflecting.
Specifically, Reflection involves engaging the past experience from a place of curiosity, acknowledgement, and acceptance. This isn’t to say that the reflective process is easy, because the past experience may also fill us with sadness, loss, grief, envy, and frustration, among other emotions. But, even as we experience these so-called negative emotions, we revisit them, understanding that we cannot change them, but rather that we can learn from them to improve ourselves and our decisions moving forward.
Rumination keeps us stuck in the past. Reflection creates momentum for the future.
So what do you do if you find yourself Ruminating versus Reflecting?
Ironically, the thing not to do is to create judgment, as introducing another level of shame and negative self-talk will only reinforce the negative, stuck energy you’re trying to escape. Instead, you should follow four steps, beginning with creating acceptance.
Create Acceptance
Accept that what happened was not ideal, or maybe even relatively catastrophic. Accept that you erred, or that someone else erred against you. Accept that what’s occurred cannot be changed, but you can change.
Shift into Learning
You can do this through self-coaching with questions like:
When we revisit this experience, what do you want me to see?
What about this event feels unresolved?
What learning is here for me?
What can I see now with the benefit of hindsight that will help me in the future?
3. Integrate
After removing yourself from the experience by creating acceptance and shifting into learning, it’s time to reclaim your agency over the situation by leveraging your observations and learning for integration into your current self and reality.
Again, some self-coaching questions can be helpful here.
How does my learning from that experience inform my understanding of myself, others, and the world?
How does this fit with my core values and life principles?*
With this experience, and my values/principles in front of me, who do I want to be moving forward?
If I were to mentor someone going through a similar situation, what would I want to tell them?
Move Forward
This is the “easier said than done” step, but once you feel that you’ve mined that experience for all of the reflective gold it had to offer, the only logical next step is to move forward.
To apply the learning that you’ve gained, and the integration that’s occurred by choosing to continue showing up with courage, boldness, and confidence, moving with intentionality towards your vision for the fulfillment you want to experience and the impact you want to have on others.
