How To Stop Ruminating - Dealing With The Inner Critic (Day 6)

Ever catch your mind replaying a cringe moment on loop? We take you inside that spiral and show how mindfulness breaks the pattern—not by arguing with thoughts, but by starving the loop of fuel and returning attention to the raw, steadying details of the present moment. Instead of wrestling with the inner critic, we practice kind curiosity and let the body lead the way back to clarity.

Across this focused, guided session, we map the hallmarks of rumination—repetition without resolution, shrinking perspective, and rising tension—and explain why the brain confuses looping with problem solving. Then we offer a step‑by‑step reset that anyone can try on a commute, in bed, or during a stressful workday: feel gravity where your body meets the chair or floor, listen for the rhythm of sound without chasing its source, open to the colors and light in your field of view, and notice texture and temperature on the skin. As attention reconnects with the senses, muscles soften, breath evens, and new angles on the same situation emerge.

You’ll hear how this shift reduces the power of harsh self‑talk and creates conditions for wiser choices—like making an apology, adjusting a plan, or simply letting go. The aim isn’t to silence the mind forever; it’s to relate to thoughts differently, with gentleness and precision, so they lose their grip. If you’ve felt stuck in overthinking, this practice offers a grounded path out of the loop and back into the world right in front of you.

If this resonated, follow the show, share it with someone who overthinks, and leave a quick review with one insight you’re taking into your week. Your notes help others find practical mindfulness when they need it most.

Transcript

Naming The Rumination Spiral

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome back. We're now on day six of dealing with the inner critic. I'm Sean Fargo. Have you ever made a mistake or felt like you had a really bad day and you can't stop thinking about it? Or you replay the events over and over and over in your head to the point where it just drives you crazy? Might be laying in bed just rehashing the stupid thing you said or the dumb thing you did, or how somebody probably doesn't like you anymore because of what you did. And you just can't get it out of your head, and you're just ruminating over and over. You're on the train or the subway or going to work and you just can't stop thinking about it. It's not actually like you're solving the problem or getting down to the crux of the matter. You're actually just repeating the same thing over and over. Mindfulness can help. That's the bottom line. Mindfulness can bring your mind back to the present moment, to what's actually happening in the moment, to bring a kind curiosity to the unfolding present moment. And what that does is it decreases the fuel of your ruminating mind. It takes away the power of the repeated thoughts to the point where they lose steam, to the point where you tend to notice your surroundings more, your body tends to soften, and you're able to think more clearly. You're able to actually see the same situation through a different lens, a lens that had probably never occurred to you before, in the middle of ruminating over and over with a negative incantation. So invite you to practice this coming back to the moment, coming back to your senses, quite literally, senses of taste and touch and hearing and seeing thinking. So I invite you to notice when you're ruminating and come back to your body to notice that feeling of gravity as you touch the chair or the ground or your bed.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

To notice what that feels like. To come back to your sense of hearing, noticing all the sounds around you.

SPEAKER_01 3:10

Not getting lost in what it is that's creating the sound, but in the actual sounds themselves.

SPEAKER_00 3:20

The raw physical data, the rhythmic waves of sound as they hit your ear. The colors around you coming back to your sense of sight. What colors do you notice all around you?

SPEAKER_01 3:48

Maybe there's shades of grey and maybe there's some bright colors. I'm just noticing all the different shades of colors.

Practice Mindful Noticing Daily

SPEAKER_00 4:03

And coming back to your sense of touch. What do you feel on your skin? Maybe there's a sense of pressure or texture.

SPEAKER_01 4:22

So this is the practice of mindfulness, of kind curiosity. So the next time you find yourself ruminating, next time you find yourself just repeatedly rehashing some situation, come back to the senses.