When thoughts are like earworms

Ever find yourself singing along to an ear worm? Letting the melody play over and over in your mind? Right now I'm hearing Low Spark of High Heeled Boys. Why? Who knows! It's the last song I heard and now it's stuck.

I think this is akin to rumination—unwanted, unwilled, intrusive, taking up mental space. And has just about as much meaning and sense.

Many (most) of my clients tell me that ruminating thoughts which tend to play over and over again, like an earworm, are among the most difficult to endure.

I think the first step in decreasing the volume of a rumination is to treat it like an earworm—nonsense.