Skip to main content

Chewing Your Cud

 white and brown cow

Ruminants are mammals that have an interesting strategy of regurgitating contents from their stomachs and re-chewing their food to extract additional nutrients. That’s exactly how it sounds, they puke up in their mouths to munch on dinner for another go-around. The name “ruminate” even comes from a Latin root that means, “to chew over again.” Ruminants include cattle, sheep, goats, deer and several other species. It’s a process designed to maximize the absorption of nutrient content in food.

Humans ruminate as well, although it’s our thoughts and experiences rather than our food we tend to chew on again. Unfortunately, it’s often the negative aspects of our past that we bring back up. As we regurgitate previous thoughts and experiences, we tend not to extract the beneficial aspects, but rather we end up squeezing extra negativity out of our past that should have long been eliminated and expelled.

This rumination of negativity is believed to be a powerful destructive force to a positive mindset and a healthy attitude. Rather than increase digestion efficiency like it does for a cow, rumination can cause psychological indigestion leading to pessimism, bitterness and even indigestion.

Be careful what you ruminate on. And let’s leave cud-chewing to the cows.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Toxic Humility

We have all seen false humility: the guy who tries to hide his arrogance with feigned modesty. It’s usually pretty obvious and always obnoxious. But there is also another variation of false humility out there: toxic humility. This is often displayed in self-deprecating talk and a lack of self-confidence, belittling or undermining one’s own talents and abilities. The danger in this kind of behavior is twofold: it is too often accepted as true humility and like a virus, it spreads doubt and disbelief. To clarify, it is not that the bearer of this toxic humility isn’t honest about his view of himself. That is the very issue: he absolutely believes he has little value or utility. He thinks downplaying his own worth is humility but I disagree. CS Lewis said it best when he wrote, “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking about yourself less.” His point being, true humility is not an ever-present raincloud of self-doubt that follows you around. It’s a focus on
Post a Comment
Read more

Primed for Progress

Just as some pumps need to be primed to work effectively, our lives need to be “primed” to flow efficiently. Good mornings and productive days don’t happen by accident, and by “priming” your day, you can set yourself up for better results. Does it mean you won’t have bad days? Of course not, but it’s making your day happen instead of just waiting for what happens. Once again, it’s a choice of being proactive rather than reactive. You will still have challenges and difficulties, but how you face those hurdles and respond to the struggles will be different with a primed mindset. I am sure there are many ways to prime your day and set the tone for the hours ahead, and what works for one won’t necessarily work for all. However, the process of creating a plan or a model of how things should unfold is a great place for anyone to start. Also, as I have mentioned before, how you actually start the morning is critical - the battle with the alarm clock is your first chance at victory for
Post a Comment
Read more

Flower Among Thorns

About six or seven years ago, my wife was around three months pregnant as we eagerly anticipated the birth of another child. One night, as I lay sleeping, I had a dream that our baby was born. It was a beautiful little girl with thin, wispy hair and large, bright eyes punctuating her beautiful face. I held her proudly in my arms and stared down at this precious little creation. I carefully handed her off to her older brother, who was just a toddler himself, as he sat on the coach, arms outstretched, anxiously awaiting the chance to hold his baby sister. I helped him prop up a pillow underneath his little arms to help support my daughter and then stepped back to take in the amazing sight as he gazed down at her with both pride and amazement in his eyes. As I stood there watching them, the dream quickly faded. When I woke up, my eyes met the tearful glance of my wife. “I’m bleeding,” she said as she fought back the emotions, “I think I am miscarrying.” Those words sunk deeply i
1 comment
Read more