Dr. Aziz offers five steps to break the rumination cycle: label the obsessive thought, ground yourself with breath, ask what you're really afraid of, mentally surrender to worst-case outcomes, then act from a calmer place. Rumination is just rubbing your nose in it, he says. Self-compassion works better.
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You probably shouldn't have said that thing. You shouldn't have texted it. Oh, that was probably the wrong decision. You make a lot of wrong decisions. You shouldn't have done that. Oh, man, that's probably going to lead to something worse. Everyone's going to see that's going to lead to a calamity in your job and your career. Oh, my gosh. That person's going to leave you. Oh, my God. Everyone's going to think you're an idiot. You're doing it wrong. I'm sorry, was I too close, too in your head? Well, I'm just going based upon what happens in my head when I'm obsessing over mistakes. And that's what we're going to talk about in this video on how to free yourself from obsessing over all those mistakes that just wind you up and rob you of joy, make you anxious, feel uncomfortable, feel more insecure, moving into the next time you have to make a choice or decision interaction. Let's shift that right now. So how do you stop obsessing over mistakes and just let you do you. You live as you be you in this moment and just have a little bit of peace? So how do we do that? Well, first things first is slow down for just a minute and label it, say, okay, I'm obsessing right now, or whatever you want to call it. I'm spinning out on this. I'm obsessing about this because what. And that step might seem obvious, but here's the thing. We get caught into this loop, we start obsessing over a mistake. All the bad things that are going to happen, that are happening, we imagine. And then some partners might say, like, huh, I could focus on something else right now, or I gotta get to work, or I could go do whatever. And your mind's like, no, you will. Look at that mistake. You will. It's like. It's like a bad dog owner who wants to rub the dog's face in their poop after they poop. But it's been like three hours. The dog doesn't even know why you're doing it. It's not even teaching it anything. It's just you getting all your anger and aggression out at your dog. That's what we're doing to ourselves. Like, hey, I could just not focus on that mistake and everything would be fine, right? No, you look at that mistake. It was awful. It was bad. Rub your nose in it. And that's what our mind is trying to do. It's trying to protect you. In a fucked up sort of way. But it's like trying to make sure that you don't do that ever again by rubbing your nose in it. Now, does that work for dogs? Maybe you don't know. Maybe you've never had a dog. But no, it doesn't work. I studied potty training for the stint in which we had dogs. We don't have dogs anymore. But study potty training is like, yeah, it doesn't work. You got to do more subtle reinforcement, actually be kind with them, train them over time. So the same thing with yourself, rubbing your nose in, it doesn't actually protect you from future mistakes. So you got to realize, like, whoa, okay, I'm obsessing right now. I'm spinning out on this right now. Whatever language you want to use, and remember that that doesn't serve you. That's not going to protect you in the future from other mistakes. That's not going to solve anything happening right now. If you do need to address something, that's not going to help in any way. So remember that. So as you identify, oh, I'm obsessing right now. That's not going to help me. Sometimes when I'm really anxious about something, I'm like, there's no solution from this state of anxiety. Whatever answer I come up with right now is not going to be a good answer. It's going to be a low quality. I'm sure I could come up with better solutions when I'm not spinning out like this. That's the first step. The next thing you want to do, start to breathe a little bit, slow down. Maybe you can take a second to just look outside. If there's a window nearby, even step outside if you can. Is there a tree nearby? Look up at the sky. Just be like, okay, all right, let's just orient here. I'm getting spun out, lost in my head about this. The world's still going on around me. Okay, it's not the end of everything. Then from this place, you want to say, okay, what is it that I'm so afraid of? There's some outcome, there's some experience. There's something that my mind is just freaking out about. And maybe it's judging me for the mistake, it's replaying the mistake. But underneath that is just fear. What am I afraid of? What am I really afraid of? And if you slow down and ask yourself that question and breathe, you'll get an answer. I'm afraid of. This person's gonna be upset with me. They're not gonna wanna work with me anymore. They're gonna fire me. I'm afraid that I'm gonna lose this client. I'm afraid this client's gonna give me a bad review on yelp, and no one's gonna wanna come to my restaurant. I'm afraid that this person's gonna not want to date me because. Because I said that stupid thing over text. That was clearly a mistake. Right. So what is the outcome? I'm gonna be, they're not gonna date me. And then is that the ultimate thing that I'm afraid of? Well, not just that. It's actually I'm afraid I'm gonna be alone forever. It's not just I'm afraid I'm gonna get fired from this job. It's that I'm afraid that I'm never gonna have a job again. Or no matter what job I get, I'm always gonna get fired. This pattern's gonna keep happening. I'm afraid that that person's gonna get upset with me, and then they're gonna do something to harm me. Like, what is it that I'm really afraid of? And you want to face that because as long as you're in this illusion that if I just beat myself up for my mistake enough or ruminate on it enough, that somehow I'm gonna be safe from future mistakes, it's insanity. So slow down, calm down, get on your own side a little bit. And say what? Let's face this together. Me and me. Aziz, old buddy, old pal, let's face this. What are we afraid of? That person's gonna be upset with me. They're not gonna wanna work with me anymore, and that will lead to problems in the business, problems in life, danger. It's like, okay, so now we're facing the real thing. Well, now what? Now you wanna let that shit burn. Let it burn. Like, whatever it is that you feel like cannot happen. If you get to a place where, okay, that might happen, and if that's what happens, okay. And you surrender to that. And when I say let it burn, it means, like, some part of you is going to be like. It feels like it's sizzling away, but that's maybe the best thing to sizzle away, right? That part's like, this person. I need this person to like me. What if they don't like you? Ah, yeah. Let it burn away. And then as it burns away, something better will emerge, which is like, you know what? I'm okay. Yeah, but what if no one's ever, ever, ever going to want to be in a relationship with me ever again. Okay. It's a little extreme, but okay. What if I were single for the rest of my life? Can I surrender to that? If that's truly what's meant to happen for me, I really don't think it is, because I have millions of opportunities to keep learning how to do this and get better. I could even check out that handsome Dr. Aziz guy's course at a confidence university called Dating Mastery, Understand how to master my dating and relationships and maybe learn some things that would help me in this area of my life. There's many, many opportunities to learn. But even if I were single and that was what my destiny was, can I surrender to that? Now, as we're talking, I'm unbuttoning my shirt. Calm yourself. I'm unbuttoning the sleeve on my shirt. I don't know if you can see this. People sometimes ask me when they see this tattoo, what does that say? And I got this tattooed on my arm maybe three years ago, and it says, there's more to it. But the two lines I want to share with you are, thank you, I surrender. It's got this little triangle on there too. And the triangle represents to me. I'm not going to explain all the whys, but the triangle to me represents, like, infinite in the life, right? What do you call it? Life, the universe, God, the infinite, intelligence, whatever you want to call it. It's like that. My two key responses are thank you and I surrender. So thank you in that I want to find gratitude in everything. Gratitude and what I aspire to. Have my initial response to everything in life to be thank you. Even the things that are painful, even the things that I don't like. Thank you, and I surrender. Because there's a part of me is like, no. It's like, okay, thank you, I surrender. Because that is the fastest way to realign with life, Realign with what's happening. And then when you're able to do that and you can calm yourself a little bit, then you can start to see that, wow, the likelihood that I would never find anyone in my whole life to date me, the likelihood that I'm gonna get fired and never, ever have a job again, the likelihood that I'm gonna lose all my money, my business is gonna fall apart, and I'm never, ever gonna be able to, like, make ends meet again for the rest of my life. That's. It seems so extreme. And not in the Good Mountain Dew kind of extreme. Just, like, stupid extreme. And then I could say, okay, is there anything right now from this calmer space that I need to address regarding this mistake. You know, maybe I blew up at somebody. Should I go apologize? Maybe I made a hasty decision and I actually want to go further the conversation with the person and say, you know what, maybe I was a little hasty there in deciding that maybe we should have another dialogue about it, have another conversation about it. Or maybe it's nothing, there's nothing you need to do. Maybe it wasn't a mistake at all. Maybe we just need to let it ride. You'll know when you're in this calmer place and then go take that action. So hopefully as you watch this, you're taking this in. I'd say save this video in a playlist and come back to it if you notice yourself beating yourself up over mistakes. And again, I think you'll absolutely love my book On My Own side. Have a link down below. It's available on Amazon, Audible, Kindle. To be able to really transform your relationship with yourself, because this is a part of that, beating yourself up for mistakes is just one symptom of not being on your own side. So share down below. What do you find most valuable? What are you going to use in your life until we speak again? May have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome. I'll talk to you soon.
