>>14284530I've been researching this exact topic in my spare time.
There are four common explanations, but I'll throw in a cheeky fifth for kek's:
1. Just stop. Your mind is totally malleable at any time and in fact you are actively choosing to brood and ruminate, perhaps because you enjoy it. The mixture of pleasure and pain gives you pleasure. However you can just stop at any time. Stop right now. Think about something else.
2. The Freudian/Subconscious explanation - rumination is the a symptom of problems in your unconscious mind trying to tell your conscious mind about some unresolved conflict within it self. This could be something from childhood. This could be a unsatisfied wish. A failure to behave within your values etc. etc. Through dream interpretation and free-association it is possible to uncover what the unconscious mind is trying to achieve, at which point you can fix the underlying problem and then the symptom: brooding rumination. Will go away.
3. The Pavlovian Explanation - you are conditioned such that when you experience certain feelings or thoughts to go back to brooding. Sort of like when Pavolv's dog's heard the bell they started salivating. You need to discover what the metaphorical 'bell' is that triggers your brooding and ruminating. Once you do that, then you can set about reconditioning yourself. For example, if you brood every-time you hear I Can't Help Myself by the Four Tops, you should have something in place to put a totally unrelated thought in so you don't get the chance to brood.
4. These thoughts while painful and fundamentally useful and that you shouldn't actually stop them, but instead allow them to continue to their full conclusion. They are raising important questions about your future activity.
5. Possession - some devil or daemon has taken possession of you and is putting thoughts in your head.
