People who struggle to let go of specific events from the past may have experienced trauma. Trauma is a kind of psychological wound that can result from any distressing experience, such as loss, danger, or deep embarrassment. Often, people associate trauma with being involved in a violent event, such as war.
How do I stop thinking about the past? There are a number of ways to stop thinking about the past, including working with a mental health professional, releasing judgment of your past mistakes, letting go of old relationships and other baggage, and focusing on yourself and your future.
It's hard to let go of certain aspects and events in our past because it means we have to accept that what we wanted to happen didn't happen. In some cases, it also feels like we are accepting that someone other than ourselves was right. As challenging as it may seem, you can make the conscious decision to let go.
In OCD, the brain gets stuck on a particular thought or urge and just can't let go. People with OCD often say the symptoms feel like a case of mental hiccups that won't go away. OCD is a medical brain disorder that causes problems in information processing.
'Cognitive immobility' – when you're mentally trapped in a place from your past.
Our personal memories give us a sense of continuity — the same person (or sense of self) moving through time. They provide important details of who we are and who we would like to be. Memories offer us potential solutions to current problems and help guide and direct us when solving them.
When we are not living in the moment, we are reliving the past—or fearful of what might happen in the future. Our experiences also shape our beliefs about ourselves. We like to feel like we're in control… So when something happens that's outside of our control, it's often easier to blame ourselves.
Nostalgia is a longing for our past, albeit a possibly romanticised version. We can be sentimental for people, experiences, places, and things, or even for a version of ourselves we once were. Nostalgia is different from homesickness, where we want to be in another existing space than the one we are in.
Part of the reason that it's so difficult to stop ruminating about the past is due to how our brains are wired. Specific memories, feelings and thought patterns often arrange themselves together if they coalesce around a past event. There's a saying in brain science that goes: What fires together, gets wired together.
Many people feel that referencing the past, and their hurt will give them a better result in the present disagreement. But, bringing up the past can quickly cause an escalating argument. Trying to recall the past accurately is prone to errors.
It can be partly our personality that sees us regret things more than others. Some of us seem to be born with brains that simply think more, worry more, or analyse more. But a large part of a tendency to regret everything and always blame yourself comes from the environments and people that formed your childhood.
The eerie feeling that you've been here and done this before is called déjà vu. It's French for “already seen,” and it can be a very strange and even unsettling experience. Logically, you know you haven't experienced this moment before, but your brain is telling you otherwise.
If you've gone through a traumatic experience in the past, perhaps you sometimes relive the trauma, and this is related to your anxious feelings. Maybe you have gone through a difficult situation that tends to be triggered and resurface when you experience something that reminds you of that situation.
According to research, dwelling over the past problems leads to a loss of positive thinking. It also increases the risk of developing mental health conditions, including anxiety/panic attacks, depression, trauma/PTSD and more.
Existing research suggests how past-negative experiences are often associated with increased incidences of trait anxiety, depression, impulsivity, low self-esteem and poor choices.
We're constantly surrounded by distractions, making it difficult to focus on just one thing at a time. Stress, anxiety, and regret can also make it difficult to focus on the present moment.
People who live in the past find it difficult to accept and embrace change. They are holding onto their well-established routines, familiar places, and the people they've known for ages. They simply don't want to grow and leave their comfort zones. They want things to remain the same.
Imaging studies reveal that feelings of regret show increased activity in an area of the brain called the medial orbitofrontal cortex. Dealing with regret is even more difficult because of the other negative emotions connected to it: remorse, sorrow and helplessness.
The reason why regret feels so awful is because, by its nature, it implies that there is something you could have done, some choice you could have made, or some action you might have taken that would have made something good happen or avoided something terrible.
Simply put, we regret choices we make, because we worry that we should have made other choices. We think we should have done something better, but didn't. We should have chosen a better mate, but didn't. We should have taken that more exciting but risky job, but didn't.