【中英双语】别再纠结你的过失
How to Stop Obsessing Over Your Mistakes
by Alice Boyes
Do you ever find yourself endlessly mentally replaying situations in which you wish you’d performed differently? You wish you hadn’t said that dumb thing. You wish you’d volunteered for that project that’s now winning accolades. You wish you’d spoken up. You wish you hadn’t dropped the ball with that potential client.
你有这种习惯吗——反复回想某件事，希望自己当时换种做法？你希望自己没说那句蠢话；你希望自己主动参加了那个现在大获好评的项目；你希望勇敢地表达自己的想法；你希望自己没搞砸那个潜在客户。
Overthinking in this way is called rumination. While we worry about what might occur in the future, we ruminate about events that have already happened. A ruminative reaction to an event often triggers memories of similar situations from the past and an unproductive focus on the gap between the real and ideal self. Prompted by this one event, you begin to chastise yourself for not being more of something…organized, ambitious, smart, disciplined, or charismatic.
心理学中，这种过度思虑称为“反刍”。我们会担忧将要发生的事，也会反刍已经发生的事。对某件事的反刍常会触发对相似情境的记忆，让我们无意义地纠结于现实与理想的差距。受这一件事的刺激，你开始因为自己不够好而自我批判：不够有条理、缺少野心、脑子不灵光、缺乏纪律性、没有魅力⋯⋯
Rumination isn’t just unpleasant. It’s closely linked to poor problem-solving, anxiety, and depression. The good news is that there are effective solutions for breaking yourself out of this rut, and they’re simpler than you might think.
反刍不仅让人不快，它还与解决问题能力低下、焦虑和抑郁密切相关。好消息是，有一些好用的方法可以帮你摆脱这种折磨，而且可能比你想象的简单。
Identify your most common triggers. You can’t quell rumination without noticing that you’re doing it, but people aren’t always able to spot it in themselves. A great way to get better at this is to think about what has triggered you in the past. Your list might look something like:
识别常见触发事件。要想停止反刍，你必须先意识到自己在这样做。但人们并不总能有这种意识。解决这个问题的一个好方法是，回想一下过去触发反刍行为的事件。你可能会列出以下事件：
Collaborating with people I don’t yet trust /与尚不信任的人协作
Being around people who seem smarter or more ambitious /与看上去更聪明或更有野心的人共处
Taking a step up in my career / 职场高升
Making major money decisions / 做与金钱有关的重大决定
Notice if the dominant pattern of your rumination is blaming yourself or blaming others. Most heavy ruminators lean towards one or the other of these.
要注意一下你主要是责备自己还是责备他人，大多数重度反刍者都属于二者之一。
Get psychological distance. Next, you need to put some psychological distance between you and the things you ruminate about. For instance, you might feel concerned about how you’re perceived by people who have no impact on your success, get hung up about very small amounts of money, or see yourself as an underachiever despite the fact that objectively you’re doing very well. One way to start to get this distance is by labeling what’s running through your head as thoughts and feelings, a tactic described in this article on emotional agility. So instead of saying “I’m inadequate,” you might say, “I’m feeling like I’m inadequate.” You can even be more light-hearted about it: “Oh, that’s just my ruminating mind overheating again.”
拉开心理距离。接下来，你需要在自身和反刍的事情之间拉开心理距离。例如，你可能过于担心他人无关紧要的看法，也可能被一点小钱弄得心神不宁，又或者明明做得很好却自认为不够成功。拉开心理距离的一个方法是告诉自己，脑子里的这堆东西只是念头和感觉而已，这样做能帮助你培养“情绪敏捷性”：你会说“我感觉我做得不够好”，而不是“我做得不够好”。甚至可以更轻描淡写一些：“哦，这又是我那个喜欢反刍的脑袋在作怪了。”
Recognizing the absurdity in some of your reactions can also help you take them less seriously. Look for any subtle entitlement or self-absorption hidden in your ruminations. Do you expect things to always go your way? Do you tend to believe people are scrutinizing you when, in reality, they’re probably thinking about themselves? Do you spend time comparing yourself to business superstars or celebrities? Entitlement and personalizing can indicate that you tend to think the world revolves around you. If applicable, try to see the irony in being both narcissistic and insecure, rather than viewing it as an indictment on your character. You can even try imagining an ultra-neurotic TV character version of yourself. Not every rumination topic is appropriate for this strategy but catch any that are.
认识到自己某些感受的荒谬性，能让你不那么认真地对待它们。你可以在反刍行为中寻找自大和自我中心的迹象：你想让什么事情都合你意吗？你觉得别人在跟你过不去，但人家也许只是在为自己考虑？你是否会把自己和商业明星及网红做比较？如果你有这种心理倾向，可能会觉得世界应该围着你转。可能的话，要看到自恋和不安全感的可笑之处，而不要把它们当作你的人格缺陷。你甚至可以想象一个超级神经质版本的自己。这种策略并不适用于所有类型的反刍，不过可以看情况尝试。
Distinguish between ruminating and problem solving. Occasionally you might have a useful insight while ruminating, but mostly it’s avoidance coping. Generally, the more people ruminate, the less effective they are at problem solving. Either they don’t think of solutions or don’t pursue them quickly or effectively. For instance, one study showed that women who were heavy ruminators took over a month longer to seek medical care after finding a breast lump. To shift from rumination to improvement mode, ask yourself, “What’s the best choice right now, given the reality of the situation?” Start by taking one step, even if it’s not the most perfect or comprehensive thing you could do. This strategy is particularly relevant for perfectionists. If you’re ruminating about a mistake you’ve made, adopt a strategy that will lessen the likelihood of it happening again.
区分反刍和解决问题。反刍偶尔能带来有用的洞察，但大多数情况下只是一种逃避方式。一般来说，反刍越多，解决问题的能力就越差。反刍会让人不去寻找解决方案，或者无法快速有效地执行解决方案。一项研究显示，经常有反刍行为的女性在发现乳房肿块后，要等超过一个月才去就医。要想从反刍模式进入行动模式，你应该问自己：“基于目前状况，最佳选择是什么？”尽管不完美或不周全，你也必须先采取初步行动。这种策略对完美主义者尤其重要。如果你在反刍已经犯过的错误，那就应该采取策略降低再犯的可能性。
Train your brain to become non-stick. As soon as you notice you’re ruminating, try to distract yourself for a few minutes. Engage in an activity that’s short and mentally absorbing but not extraordinarily difficult, like spending 10 minutes filling out an expense report. The activity you pick should be one that requires you to concentrate. In some situations, you might be able to just refocus your attention on what you’re supposed to be doing. You might think: “How could something so simple help with my complex, emotional problem?” But this technique can be surprisingly effective.
降低大脑的“黏性”。当你意识到自己在反刍，可以先设法转移注意力，做一些耗时不长、需要占用精力但难度不大的事情，比如花10分钟填一份开支报告。你选择的应该是需要集中精力的事情。还有些情况下，你也许可以重新把注意力集中到本该做的事情上。你可能会想：“这么简单的事情怎么能解决复杂的情绪问题呢？”但这个技巧可能意外有效。
Physical activity, such as jogging or walking, can also calm a mind that’s prone to rumination. Meditation or yoga can be especially helpful for protecting yourself from sticky thoughts and learning not to over-engage with them. These practices ask you to notice when your mind has wandered off to the past or future and bring it back to what’s happening in the present (often your breathing or other sensations in your body or surroundings.) This is exactly the skill you need for coping with moments of rumination.
慢跑或散步等运动，也可以帮助反刍的大脑平静下来。冥想或瑜伽可能尤其有助于摆脱挥之不去的念头，让你逐渐看淡它们。这些运动和训练能让你敏锐察觉到自己的思绪飘向过去或未来，并把它拉回当下，聚焦于你的呼吸或身体及周遭的变化。这正是应对反刍所需的技巧。
Check your thinking for errors. Sometimes rumination is triggered by cognitive errors. The catch-22 is that you’re not likely to be very good at detecting distorted thinking when you’re ruminating, since it clouds thinking. The solution is to develop a good understanding of your typical thinking errors, over time, in calm moments so that you’re still able to recognize them when you’re feeling heightened emotions. Here’s a personal example: I’ll often read a work-related email and zone in on one or two sentences that irritate or upset me and then misinterpret the overall tone of the message as demanding or dismissive. But, because I’m aware of this pattern, I’ve learned to not ruminate over my initial impressions. Instead, I read the email again after a day’s cool down, and usually see that I had a biased impression of it.
寻找思维陷阱。反刍有时是由认知错误导致的，而在反刍状态中，你恰恰不太能发现思维陷阱，这就让你愈发难以自拔。解决方法是，在平静状态下总结自己典型的思维陷阱，这样你在情绪不好时也能识别它们。说一个我自己的例子：处理工作邮件时，有时我会过于在意让我不快的某句话，然后受此影响，认为整封邮件的态度就是不讲理或轻蔑的。但认识到这个问题后，我试着不去反刍初始印象，而是冷静一天后重读邮件，并时常看清自己的偏差。
Other common cognitive errors include setting too-high self-expectations, misinterpreting others’ expectations of you, underestimating the extent to which other smart people struggle with what’s troubling you, and making mountains out of molehills. If you’re ruminating about someone else’s behavior and attributing a cause to that behavior, at least entertain the idea that your explanation is wrong and try to accept that you might never know the truth. Recognizing that we often won’t understand the reasons for someone else’s behavior is a hugely important skill in reducing rumination.
其他常见认知错误还包括自我期待过高、错误理解他人对你的期待、看不到所谓成功人士和你有相同的困扰、小题大做等。当你反刍别人的某些行为并尝试分析原因时，不妨试想你的看法可能是错的，并且要接受自己可能无法得知真相的事实。认识到我们经常无法获知他人行为的原因，这是有助于减少反刍的一个重要技能。
Rumination is a widespread problem. Before you can break out of it, you need to become more aware of when you’re doing it and have resistance strategies ready to go. This takes time and effort. But it’s important — for your mental health and productivity — to try to nip it in the bud. So, before you go deep into your next “would have, should have, could have” spiral, give one or more of these ideas a go.
反刍是个普遍问题。要想摆脱反刍，你必须先了解自己的“发作”模式并制定对策。这需要时间和努力，但防范反刍对你的精神健康和工作效率非常重要。所以下次拿“不该、本该、应该”折磨自己之前，不妨试试上面讲到的方法。
爱丽丝·博伊斯，博士，曾为临床心理学家，后从事写作，著有《心灵健康工具箱》（The Healthy Mind Toolkit）和《焦虑工具箱》（The Anxiety Toolkit）。
