In her occasional column for Canberra Daily, ‘Why your mind matters’, founder of Anytime Counselling, Tina Kendall-Davis BA, BEd, DipCouns, GradDipPsyc, offers general advice to help us cope in everyday situations. This week’s topic: To say or not to say.

So often we are hurt by the words and actions of others.

But we don’t say anything about it.

Not to them anyway.

Sometimes, what we DO do, is say A LOT – only we say it to ourselves.

Over and over and over …

And we get stuck in the perpetual cycle of rumination, belting ourselves up with ‘I should have said this’; or ‘I should have done that’.

And at no time in the history of ever, did ‘I should have’ serve us well when ruminating over the past.

So, how can we overcome this? How can we make the mental pain and anguish of past words or actions stop annihilating us from within?

Try this: If you’re still thinking in 24, start talking in 48.

It’s a brilliant rule of thumb. One I live by – and share with others often.

So, what does it mean?

If you are still thinking about ‘it’ (whatever ‘it’ might be) after 24 hours, then you need to talk about it with someone within 48 hours. Otherwise, you are subjecting yourself to undue stress. And that’s stress that nobody needs.

Think about it. If you’re holding onto ‘it’, it has affected you for some reason. Now this reason might be clear to you – it might not. Either way, it has affected you and it needs to be reined back into something that you can control. Otherwise, it’ll begin to control you.

If, after 24 hours, this thing is still dominating your thoughts and you haven’t been able to process it into a comfortable space (or forget about it entirely) – it’s unlikely you’ll find comfort with it in the near future. You might be holding onto it for days. Weeks even. Sometimes months. Sometimes years.

Don’t let this be you. Don’t hold onto something that doesn’t benefit you in any way. Rid it of its power over you. And we do this by sharing it. Check it in with another person for some perspective – perspective from outside of the emotion that’s been raised within you.

And how long should you wait to do this? Well, that’s where the 48 comes in. Two days. Talk about it within two days if you haven’t been able to make peace with it on your own. Two days is plenty for one incident to dominate your head space. And two days is your limit to remind yourself to seek out someone to talk to, to offload it with, and importantly, remind you NOT to bottle it up and let it fester.

Don’t let ‘it’ steal any more of your mental time. Don’t give ‘it’ any more mental space than you already have. Two days is more than sufficient to allow it to run its course. Call it a day and hand it over.

And then breathe. Breathe in the sigh of relief that follows. Dumping it is the first step. The rest becomes a whole lot easier.