Sometimes the conversation wasn’t even all that dramatic—at least not outwardly. Maybe it wasn’t a screaming match, or a betrayal. Maybe it was just one comment. One look. One failed attempt to speak your mind, where the words didn’t land the way you hoped, or they were brushed off, or turned against you.

And yet, years later, your mind keeps hitting rewind.

You’re not broken. You’re not petty. You’re human. And what you’re doing—looping that moment in your mind—is called rumination.

Rumination is the repetitive replaying of a past event, particularly moments we regret, misunderstand, or feel shame about. According to psychologist Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, who pioneered research in this field, rumination often masquerades as problem-solving. Your brain spins the event over and over in an attempt to “fix” it—to make sense of what happened, to reclaim dignity, or to anticipate how to avoid the pain next time. But instead of arriving at peace, you end up trapped in a loop. A psychological cul-de-sac.

Sometimes, these loops are about identity. You’re not just remembering the event—you’re questioning your worth, your intelligence, your likability. “Why did I say that?” becomes “What’s wrong with me?” And what seemed like a misstep morphs into a character flaw.

You may have been taught that if something still bothers you after all this time, it means you’re “too sensitive” or “dwelling on the past.” But unresolved emotions don’t keep time the way we expect. The emotional brain doesn’t understand calendars. If a moment made you feel misunderstood, belittled, humiliated, or unsafe—and if you never got the chance to fully express or process that—your nervous system will keep flagging it like an open browser tab that never got closed.

It’s Not the Logic of it, It’s About the Emotional Wound 

You may also notice that this mental looping happens in moments of stillness. In the shower. On your commute. Lying in bed. That’s because your brain tends to revisit unfinished emotional business when you’re not actively focused on something else. The mind abhors a vacuum—and into that empty space rushes the noise of unresolved stuff.

And sometimes, we don’t just ruminate because we’re hurt—we ruminate because we didn’t say what we needed to say.

You may have stayed quiet to avoid conflict. You may have laughed something off that actually stung. You may have let someone else have the last word, not because they were right, but because you didn’t feel safe enough to correct them. That silence lingers. Not because you’re bitter, but because your voice got left behind in that moment.

This is especially true for people who’ve grown up in environments where confrontation was dangerous, emotions were invalidated, or boundaries weren’t respected. Your brain learned that it was safer to keep feelings in and play the conversation on loop afterward—alone, in private, where no one could reject or dismiss you again.

But there’s a cost. Because every time you replay that scene, you don’t just relive what happened. You reinforce the pain. You deepen the neural pathway. Your body tenses as if it’s happening again. You can’t change the past—but your nervous system doesn’t know that.

How Do You Interrupt the Loop?

The first step is to name what the loop is really about.

It’s not just that conversation, but what it represents. Maybe it was the moment you realized someone didn’t see you the way you hoped they did. Maybe it was the moment you betrayed yourself to keep the peace. Maybe it was the moment your boundaries collapsed and you didn’t even know how to say “Hey, that hurt.”

What were you trying to get in that moment—validation? Respect? Control? Closure?

Now ask: Can you give any of that to yourself today, in a way that doesn’t involve rewriting history or arguing with a memory?

Journaling can help here, not because it’s trendy, but because it gives the looping thoughts somewhere to land. Write down what you wish you’d said. Write the version of the event where you stood up for yourself. Let your brain offload the alternative endings it keeps spinning in your head.

But don’t stop there. Bring your body into the process. Emotions don’t just live in the brain—they live in the body. Try physical grounding exercises. Go for a walk. Try breathwork. Try literally saying out loud, “That moment hurt me. But it’s not happening anymore.”

This is also where therapy can be useful—not just to “fix” the looping, but to help you understand what your mind is still trying to resolve. Because often, what we think we want is closure—but what we need is permission. Permission to grieve, to feel, to let go of the fantasy where the conversation went “right,” and to reclaim ourselves from a moment that doesn’t define us anymore.

That person from three years ago? They’re probably not thinking about that conversation at all, or if at all remember having that conversation. But your brain is. Not because you’re stuck, but because there’s a part of you that never felt seen or heard in that moment.

So maybe the goal isn’t to “get over it,” but to get under it. To understand what it meant. To tend to the part of you that froze. To give yourself the compassion and voice you were missing at the time.

Because peace doesn’t come from pretending the past didn’t hurt. It comes from learning that you can survive it without living there.