“My Time-Traveling Machine”: Worries and Ruminations
Tiffany and Ken walk into my therapy office. After we exchange greetings, Ken quickly says, “Don’t ask us anything about the weekend. We tried to remind Mariah to ask for time out if she needed it, but nothing mattered to her; she completely ignored us. I tried to talk to her in different ways, but I got no response. Nothing is going to work, she won’t do anything we discuss in therapy, and she just won’t get better. There is no point in trying; this is how it’s always going to be: us trying and her ignoring us. I can totally see what her future will be.” His gaze falls to the floor, and it’s as though he were no longer present in the room with us.
They come back the following week. While discussing and reviewing empathy skills, Tiffany’s voice softens up and she says, “I just don’t see the point of practicing empathy skills. I already tried this before. I really try to understand her every day, and guess what? I get yelled at. Why should I do it again?” Tiffany sighs deeply after making this statement.
Have you had moments like this when dealing with your teen? Times in which you certainly did your best to connect with her, address her behavior, parent her the best you could, only to have things go south? You may have noticed that Ken, without realizing it, had thoughts about what the future was going to be like for Mariah, such as Nothing is going to work; she just won’t get better. Tiffany, on the other hand, had several thoughts about how hard she has tried in the past and how nothing has worked. For both of them, their thoughts, either about the future or about the past, were activated by their attempts to parent Mariah, and they both got stuck on those thoughts; the outcome of acting on those thoughts was to stop trying. Both Ken and Mariah gave up on their parenting task. Is this something you go through? Does your mind ever say things like this about your teen? Let’s take a look at your personal time machine.
Your Time Machine
There are so many movies, books, poems, and stories about the past and the future, it raises the question of whether our current interest in the past and the future is any different from what it was historically. Evolution answers this question for us: from hunter-gatherer societies to today, humans have always been interested in the past and the future because of survival; our ancestors had to cultivate the ability to anticipate what could go wrong and what went wrong because of ongoing sources of danger: poor weather conditions, predators, or ongoing hostility with other groups. If our ancestors hadn’t developed the ability to go back and forth between the past and the future, they wouldn’t have survived. As a result of this evolutionary process, our modern minds are hardwired to carry a time machine that naturally switches between the past and the future as a survival mechanism, even though we don’t live in prehistorical conditions anymore.
Going back to Ken and Tiffany’s situation, it’s understandable that Ken’s mind began to predict Mariah’s future while Tiffany’s mind began to recall past similar situations; they both saw the situation of addressing Mariah’s behavior as a problem, their minds said danger, and quickly their mental time machine got activated. They both were caught on those past and future thoughts and behaved accordingly; they both got fused with their mind-talk.
Should we take a look at how often or not your own time machine gets activated? Let me walk you through an ACT exercise developed by Strosahl, Robinson, and Gustavsson (2012); this activity is very simple and will take up very little of your time.
Exercise: Your Time Machine
Read the following paragraph of instructions before you start.
- Sit in a comfortable position, and then set a timer for one minute. While sitting, pay attention to what’s going on in your mind by noticing whether you’re having thoughts about the past, the present, or the future. If you find yourself having a thought or image about the past, label it as “past,” if you have a thought or image about the future, label it as “future,” and if it’s a thought about the present, label it as “present.” This may seem like a very silly exercise, but let’s see what happens within your mind with this experiment. Do your best to label every thought and image that shows up in your mind for the next minute. When the timer goes off, notice whether your mind came up with more thoughts about the past, present, or future.
Every time you do this exercise, the outcome could be different based on your time-machine activity, but most often our mind quickly travels to the past or future and rarely stays in the present.
If we don’t pay attention and choose our response, we can easily get hooked on those time-traveling thoughts, ignore the present in a fraction of seconds, and reactively act on past or future thoughts. Distinguishing when your time machine turns on and whether it is bringing in past or future thoughts is another important skill in your parenting repertoire, because the more you get hooked on those thoughts, the less present you are with your teen and the fewer chances you have to choose an effective parenting response in the moment.
Chewing on Your Thoughts
When the time machine gets activated, we spend a lot of time going over and over things about the past or about possible future situations. Like cows, we chew and chew, but instead of chewing grass, we chew our thoughts over and over; we dwell on them. Dwelling on potential future scenarios or what might happen is called worry; dwelling on the past as if we were continually replaying over and over an old CD is called rumination. Worry and rumination have one thing in common: they are hijackers of the present moment, and because of evolution, we naturally struggle being in the present and have the tendency to go back and forth between the past and the future as a way to avoid potential future problems. Our mind, as usual, is just doing its job: protecting us from bad things happening. The question is whether the time machine works for you or against you. Do worry and rumination help the relationship with your teen or make things harder for the two of you?
If you recall, Tiffany and Ken’s time machines took their minds into different places, they ended up behaving based on those thoughts, but the outcome was the same: they both got fused with worry thoughts and ruminative thoughts and ended up being pulled away from what was most important to them—addressing Mariah’s behavior in the present—as if they were prisoners of their time machines.
Exercise: When Your Time Machine Is On
Let’s take a look at what you go through when your time machine gets activated and you get fused with those time-traveling thoughts. Pick up your parenting journal and recall a memory with your teen when your time machine turned on and you got hooked on ruminative or worry thoughts. Briefly describe the situation, how you behaved in that particular moment, and whether your parenting behavior was helpful or not for the relationship with your teen. If your behavior helped you be the parent you want to be for your teen, kudos to you; if it wasn’t helpful, write down what you could have done differently.
When he did this exercise, Ken identified another moment when his time machine got activated when dealing with Mariah: he recalled a conversation when Mariah requested time alone in her bedroom. Kevin’s time machine came up with the following thoughts: Over the last six months, when she goes to her bedroom, she gets depressed, tearful, and really disconnected from us; then she drinks, cuts, or starts posting stuff on Facebook. With his time machine turned on, Ken quickly and firmly responded to Mariah: “You’re forbidden to be in your bedroom alone. That’s not happening. Staying by yourself in your bedroom is not an option anymore.”
When Ken reflected on whether that response was helpful or not when dealing with Mariah’s request in that moment, he acknowledged that his time machine took him into past thoughts and he responded automatically. He didn’t give himself a chance to pause and come up with a different response, such as “I understand you would like to be alone in your bedroom, I get that it’s important to you to spend time alone in your bedroom, but it’s worrisome to me because of what has happened in the past with cutting, drinking, and posting on Facebook. I care for you, and I understand your need for alone time, but we have to come up with a plan together, so I can make sure you’re safe on your own in your bedroom.”
Moving forward, and as a general principle when dealing with your teen, when your time machine turns on, make sure to check whether or not you get fused with those sticky past or future thoughts, and then check whether your parenting response is going to be helpful or not in that precise moment.
The more you notice and practice defusion to unhook from these tricky time-traveling thoughts, the better it will get for you; soon it will feel natural for you to pause in the moment, recognize those past or future thoughts, see more clearly what a helpful response could be, and choose your parenting behavior. This takes practice, and even if things don’t go perfectly, and at times you get fused with future or past thoughts, as long as you notice what’s going on with your parenting mind as you go about your daily life, it will just get better.
Keep it up and don’t let your mind play tricks on you. Your teen needs you in this moment, and there is no one better than you to teach her how to handle tough times.
When the Time Machine Works Well
I am not saying that every time you start thinking about the past or future is necessarily wrong or unhelpful. There have been times when thinking about the past has allowed me to learn a great deal about myself, and thinking about the future has allowed me to come up with future projects, such as writing this book. All I’m suggesting is that it is very important to distinguish when worry and rumination are preventing you from doing what’s important to you as a parent. In the case of Ken and Tiffany, they really wanted to address Mariah’s behavior, but when they got fused with their thoughts, they dropped the ball on parenting their daughter. It’s also completely understandable that as you are parenting a teen who struggles with intense emotions, you might be more apt to ruminate about the past or be on edge about the future regarding your teen, especially when you are in the midst of upsetting situations with her.
Going back and forth between the present and the past or the future is a natural mind activity; your mind, and everyone else’s mind, does it. There is nothing wrong with this back-and-forth by itself; the challenge is when these cousin-thoughts drive unhelpful parenting behaviors, interfering with your ability to parent, and at the end worsen a situation with your highly sensitive teen.
Your mind is just doing its job: generating all types of past and future scenarios, and it will always do so because of the years of training it has had throughout human history. But at the end, you can choose your parenting behavior.
Summary
Again, looking into the past can be very helpful because we can learn about ourselves, others, and our successes and mistakes. Thinking about the future can allow us to plan projects, come up with new dreams, and see new horizons in our lives. However, if you find yourself dwelling repeatedly on thoughts or images about a particular past moment or about the future, to the point that you’re worrying or ruminating, then you’re being hijacked away from the present moment, and your time-traveling thoughts have taken charge.
If you do not pay attention and you fail to distinguish these moments, your parenting behavior can be compromised. The past cannot be changed and the future cannot be predicted; all you have is the moment to choose your parenting response. Learning to check in with yourself, whether your mind takes you into the past or the future, is a key skill that will allow you to defuse from troublesome thoughts and to choose your parenting response.
Weekly Practice: Staying in the Present
Slowing down and staying in the present are difficult tasks for any parents, since more often than not you may have multiple errands to run at once, such as picking up your teen from school, getting groceries or art supplies, going to soccer practice, and so on. Undoubtedly, you’re facing multiple demands for your time and attention. Here are a couple of exercises to try this week to help you stay in the present.
Set three reminders either on your cell phone or on your watch as cues to check in with yourself as to whether your time machine is active or not in that moment. Ask yourself whether you’re in the present, the past, or the future.
Find a comfortable position, and for a couple moments close your eyes. Then, after taking a few slow breaths, imagine that you’re sitting on a bench next to a stream of water that keeps running and carries leaves along. Every time your mind comes up with a past or future thought, place it on a leaf and let it float on by until it is out of sight. If your mind comes up with any thoughts about this exercise, gently place that thought onto a leaf as well and let it float by.