The Turbine of Torment Over Worry! Checkout Your "Worry Log". Things May Be Not as Bad as They Might Appear!

1. To chew cud.

2. To turn a matter over and over in the mind.

v.tr.

3. To reflect on something over and over again.

Not only Fruitless, But Poisonous!

The natural analogy that has occurred over in language makes lots of sense. To turn something over and over again and “chew your cud”, or rumination. If you extend the analogy, there is even more opportunity for color. Gas and bloat tends to be what we get as humans when we continue to chew the cud of our worrisome repetitive issues.

Those who are plagued with this problem will confess that great creative leaps and uncommon confidence and power DO NOT accrue to those who “chew the cud”.

Dr. Herbert Benson in his decades of work showing how positive meditation is also, correspondingly has shown how deleterious and poisonous our self-inflicted stress responses can put us behind the eight ball. “Chewing the Cud” of repetitious worry in our own personal mental terrain has the effect of NOT digesting and allowing our bodies to absorb and assimilate. Rather we get soaked with harmful substances which lead to very real health problems.

But stress hormones that are triggered too often or stuck in overdrive can fuel worrisome health problems—from headaches and heartburn to high blood pressure and heart disease.”

Passive Brooding

The phrase “passive brooding” is well chosen. The “Passivity” makes us in a way “somnambulistic”. Yes, we are awake, but the empty passivity allows the Turbine of Thought to whirl away, putting unnecessary destructive mileage on our hearts, blood pressure and stomach acid levels.

One woman in Pennsylvania with several personal relationship issues put it this way in a counseling session with me, several years ago. “When I actually become alert, or awaken to what my mind has been doing; chewing and chewing on certain thoughts over and over again, I ask myself how long I have been doing this?”

“And what have you discovered?” I asked.

“I have discovered that my “chewing the cud” happens when I am most on “automatic”. It is like I am in the garage with my car on neutral and I am mindlessly pressing on the accelerator. What happens? The garage is full of exhaust. All I can feel is helpless negative doldrums. When I finally wake up to this, I realize that I am not as “worried” as I think I am, I have just fallen prey to this unconscious process that seems to develop a mind of its own.

The Joy that Comes in Realizing that I Don’t Have Four Stomachs

When you hear the “chewing the cud” image, the rumination, you think somehow that it is valid or natural. The truth is we are human, not goats or cows. “Chewing the cud” for me does not make me digest better. It does not give me new and better answers. It just makes me sick.

We had several sessions over the months and she felt that she gained much just by observing her thought patterns. At the last session, she said: “The stuff I was worried about was not that severe. It was life issues and irritating relationships, but it was the perpetuation of thought was very damaging. Now when I feel depressed, I check the cud chewing before I ask, “Who died?”

Generalized Fear - The Insecurity of Unemployment

Now I would say I was dealing with a fear of unemployment at a time of domestic pressure in a new environment. Yeah. But that wasn’t the “problem”. The problem was my Turbine of Torment that tainted family events, outings, dinners ---- just being a Dad. I was depressed, despondent, remote. I had my “off” button on.

Later on when I was counseling at a paralegal school, I often had opportunities to try to buck people up and motivate them in formal teaching and personal situations. I noted that this “cud chewing” had a way of weakening individuals who were under a great deal of pressure. When they were able to break the bonds of their repetitive thinking they were able to discover solutions aplenty.

Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors

SRI's have a way of elevating the mood and getting people out of endless patterns. See a Doctor for this kind of response, but many people benefit even from understanding the very function of the brain regarding “reuptake”.

A Turbine of Torment

Whether you need to address clinical depression or not, is a professional question; but taking a hard look at your mental patterns can be therapeutic at many levels. Many people know if they have a “Turbine of Torment”. Families and loved ones often share these issues and find that somehow genes, temperament and similarity of behavior patterns seem to have a way of helping explain ourselves to ourselves.

Teach yourself to abandon “cud chewing” and you may discover that you are "disempowering" problems that seemed to have great control over you, but now do not. This kind of realization lets you leave the goat herd and join the human race.