14/11/2025
There are two clever ways the mind tries to avoid pain: ‘intellectualising’ and ‘rumination’.
One turns emotion into theory, the other turns theory into worry. Together, they make us feel like we’re making progress, when really we’re just circling the same ache in slightly different words.
Intellectualising often begins with the best of intentions. It’s the mind’s way of trying to make sense of what hurts, to bring order to chaos. We analyse our heartbreak, our shame, our fear, hoping that if we can understand it, we can control it. But understanding isn’t the same as healing. We can know everything about our pain and still be standing outside it, unable to move through.
Rumination starts when the mind begins to panic. It’s when we replay the same scene, the same conversation, the same regret, again and again, as if thinking about it one more time might finally change the ending. Rumination isn’t really thinking. It’s the mind trying to do with logic what only gentleness and time can do.
Both habits come from care. We ruminate because we want to make things right. We intellectualise because we want to make things clear. But both are, in their own quiet way, ways of avoiding what we don’t want to feel.
Moving beyond them doesn’t mean we stop thinking. It means we start thinking differently. It means letting the mind serve the heart, instead of trying to replace it. It means allowing the ache to exist without rushing to turn it into an idea or a conclusion.
Sometimes the wisest thing we can do is stop intellectualising. Sometimes the kindest thing we can do is stop ruminating.
To simply sit with ourselves, without trying to solve or explain anything. To let things be unfinished for a while.
Because healing doesn’t come from finding the perfect answer. It comes from giving ourselves permission to feel what’s really there, and to trust that this, somehow, is enough.
