Coulda, Shoulda, Woulda: Why You Cant Stop Obsessing About

the Past
Jenna Birch
Contributing Writer
Yahoo Health
July 16, 2015

A disappointment can quickly turn into an obsession when you cant

mentally resolve a past issue. (Illustration: Erik Mace)
LeBron James cant get over his teams NBA Finals loss last month to the Golden State
Warriors. He says he still has nightmares about specific plays, missed opportunities.
Even his kids know hes in a funk.
You can never get out of it, James told Bleacher Report radio. No matter how much
you try and say you did everything you did, you gave everything that you had and you
move on, I dont feel like you ever move on. Youre right there in the Finals and you
had an opportunity to do something special.

LeBron James admits to obsessing over his teams loss in the NBA
Finals. (Photo: Ben Margot/AP)
A loss in the big game. A missed opportunity. The loss of a job. A breakup. A friends
betrayal. A death in the family. Sometimes we just cant stop turning the past over and
over in our minds, despite the fact that we cannot change it.
Why do we obsess?
A disappointment can quickly turn into an obsession if a person cannot mentally
resolve the past issue, says psychologist Karla Ivankovich, PhD, an adjunct professor
at the University of Illinois Springfield.
In most cases, you ignore, suppress, or redirect your thoughts, she tells Yahoo
Health. You are able to move on after a brief period of time, when you have resolved
the matter to the best of your ability, whether literally or by way of acceptance. But
thoughts turn obsessive when they are recurrent and persistent, and produce
significant anxiety as a result of an inability to cease thinking about the particular
event, thought, or feeling.
From a clinical perspective, this process of obsessing over the past is actually defined
by a slightly different process-oriented term, says Simon Rego, PsyD, director of
psychology training at Montefiore Medical Center/Albert Einstein College of Medicine
in New York.
Related:Why You Should Keep Your Expectations Low (Really)

In cognitive behavioral therapy, the idea of someone going over and over the past is a
process called rumination, he explains to Yahoo Health. You think of a cow chewing
its cud, digesting and regurgitating it, again and again. Its the same idea. Typically, we
see this in people with depressive histories.
The underlying problem is an unresolved issue. When something is not resolved in a
way that feels right in our psyche, we often find ourselves stuck in this area,
Ivankovich says, whether its from a month ago, a year ago, or even from childhood.
It might be harder to let go of something rooted in our sense of identity, according to
Diane Robinson, PhD, a neuropsychologist at the UF Health Cancer Center at Orlando
Health. For someone like LeBron James, he knows hes the best, and winning is
almost like a right. His personality is so invested in it, the obsession becomes
wrapped up in his identity. Its kind of like the loss of a relationship. Think about a
teenage girl with her first boyfriend; when they break up, if shes built her life around
this person, its a part of her identity. If she doesnt have him, shes lost.
Why cant we let go?
The more you think about a specific moment, person, or event in the past, the harder it
is to let go. Robinson says to think of it like a forest, in which youre carving pathways
in the directions of your thoughts. The more you obsess about it, the wider the
pathway becomes, she explains. It becomes the path well-traveled, and your
thoughts move in that direction.
When theres a recurrent negative theme in your history like Jamess four Finals
losses, or a pattern in your relationships that causes them to sour that path becomes
wider and your brains default. For LeBron, with each loss, the past is cemented in his
neural pathways, Ivankovich says. We look back and obsess as a mechanism to gain
understanding into what we coulda, shoulda, woulda done differently had we been
given a chance.
Related:How to Maximize Your Vacation Happiness
To a certain extent, Rego says, its important to realize that rumination is a natural
human reaction. The process falls along a spectrum, he explains. The brain is doing
the best it can to rationalize and accept whats happened.
In most situations, and for healthy individuals, its OK to obsess for a little while
before moving on. It might even be a good thing, as your brain is determining better
ways of dealing with past events that may pop up again in the future. You are able to
address the issue, determine a corrective path for the future, and keep a mental store
available so when it arises again, you can address it differently, Ivankovich says.
Typically, well get more chances to rewrite our personal histories. If someone breaks
up with you, you can address the reasons for the split before your next relationship. If
you get fired from your job, you can make changes to your career life moving forward
into your next position. If a friend betrays you, you can look for similar traits and
patterns that might indicate someone is not trustworthy in the future. If you lose the
big game, you can practice harder and smarter to prepare for the next time it arises.

How to break out of an obsessive thought pattern

Usually, youll be better able to accept the past when you apply the lessons you gleaned
from your rumination phase. We are able to learn from prior events and write a script
for ourselves that allows for differences to be made in the event the situation arises
again, says Ivankovich.
Ivankovich says that you may have to cycle through Elisabeth Kbler-Rosss five stages
of grief denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance in
whatever order your brain decides works best for you.
Also, think back to that well-traveled path of obsession. The way off that road,
Robinson says, is to direct your thoughts and energies down incompatible pathways
entirely unrelated to the object of your obsessive ruminations. If youre trying to get
over a relationship, for instance, you cant just not think about it, she says. You need
to do something new, something completely different like singing at the top of your
lungs with your friends at a bar on a Friday night.
If you really cant stop obsessing over losses, breakups, or other past events, you may
want to try cognitive behavioral therapy. It can be critical for learning techniques like
thought restructuring and thought redirecting, says Ivankovich. You direct your
thoughts away from the negative to a safer, positive thought. This anxiety reduction
technique can be very beneficial.
Related:3 Tricks to Tell If Someones Lying to You
Rego, who specializes in cognitive behavioral therapy, advises his patients to use
several tactics. You can try doing a cost-benefit analysis, he suggests. Ask yourself,
If I review this one more time, how will I benefit and what will the cost be? Write it
down: benefit versus cost. Usually, youll see what the rumination is costing you in
terms of energy and functioning.
Rego also says practicing mindful meditation can help you break your thought
patterns. If rumination is revisiting the past, mindfulness is turning your attention to
the present moment. Youre observing your thoughts in the moment, without reacting
to them or judging them.
If youre struggling with the past and its impacting your day-to-day functioning,
especially if its something thats truly unchangeable, like a death, seek professional
help. But remember that many opportunities in life that we beat ourselves up over do
repeat themselves later on.
And when you get those opportunities to revise your own history, jump on em. The
key is in resolving the unresolved issues, Ivankovich says. In relationships or in
situations.
So, chin up, LeBron. Next years coming quickly.