Overcoming Retroactive Jealousy: 5 Thinking Traps to Avoid (and What to Do Instead)

[@M0rT0n]

Listened to a few of your videos now, I find your content & delivery very helpful as a sufferer of profound rumination for over a year now. Most of the advice is to just withdraw and engage in another mindful activity. Challenging stuff

[@JasonDeanTherapist]

Thanks and I'm pleased it's helpful 🙂Agreed re the standard advice to engage in something else, and there's something to be said for that. But yes, it's difficult. With most clients I work with, we're looking to develop a different attitude towards RJ thoughts - one of acceptance, curiousity but retaining agency over where our mind goes and how we react moment by moment. More on all that coming up!

[@jamesnbd57]

Another very helpful piece Jason, avoiding the third trap is easier said than achieved. Breaking the habit of trying to ‘solve’ intrusive thoughts by thinking them through, goes against the grain of the brain’s normal behaviour. Especially if one’s natural state is a high cortisol, problem solver.

[@JasonDeanTherapist]

Thank you and I completely agree. We are problem solvers and thinking it through works well in so many areas of our lives, so it's natural that we try to apply it to unresolveable doubt too. And it's not easy to stop - rumination feels compelling and alluring. I'll be putting out some more suggestions on ways to go about this.

[@dannelson4181]

I found that as soon as I TRULY focussed on what was happening in my body when I had a bout of RJ and rumination, it completely changed my world. By using ERP and IE I was able to control when my body experienced the anxiety, which gave me a really strong sense of what the different parts of me were 'sensing'. Then I would sit, focus on these sensations (mostly in my chest, hips, legs and feet) and wait for them to subside...oddly, when they'd subsided, I felt calmer and the rumination had stopped. I did IE every day for weeks and still do little bits here and there. Now, when intrusive thoughts come up, the first thing I get is the sensation of anxiety in my legs and feet which I acknowledge and almost automatically it passes within 2 or 3 seconds and I carry on with my day. It's like I trained my brain to take a different route when the thoughts come up.

[@JasonDeanTherapist]

@@dannelson4181 Thanks for sharing and that's spot on. It takes courage to willingly sit with the sensations in this way; it feels so counter-intuitive at first. I'm pleased that you're so clearly feeling the benefits!

[@stratelite1337]

Marry a virgin or don't marry.

[@JasonDeanTherapist]

Is this advice specifically for men by any chance? 😂