Print or export as you go. Your responses are saved on this device only. Clearing your browser data or switching devices will erase your work. Use the Download PDF or Print button above to keep a permanent copy.

Rumination First Aid Kit

Build your personal toolkit for interrupting the rumination cycle.

Week 8

Appendix H

My Rumination Patterns

Common rumination topic 1 (e.g., 'replaying past mistakes')

Common rumination topic 2

When does rumination happen most? (e.g., bedtime, alone time)

My Interruption Plan

Go-to technique #1

Go-to technique #2

My activity switch (what I'll physically do instead)

My scheduled 'worry appointment' time

Behind the Behavior

What did they actually do or say? (Just the observable behavior — no interpretation)

What was your nervous system's first interpretation? (The story it wrote)

What does depression do to motivation, energy, and the capacity to ask for help? How might that explain this?

Alternative explanation 1: Maybe they were feeling...

Alternative explanation 2: Maybe they needed...

Alternative explanation 3: Maybe the depression was making them...

What is it like to hold multiple explanations without picking one? What do you notice?

Compassionate Inquiry: Tracing the Shame

A recent moment when I felt shame in this relationship:

The story I told myself about what it meant:

When I first learned this story / whose voice it is:

Where I feel shame in my body:

If that shame belongs to the past, what is actually true right now?