There is something deeply human about trying to make sense of our experience. We reflect on what has happened, think about what it means and try to understand ourselves, other people and the situations we find ourselves in. Most of the time this process serves us well. It helps us learn from experience, solve problems and create meaning from our lives.
Sometimes, however, the process seems to take on a life of its own. The mind returns to the same thought, concern or uncertainty again and again. We revisit old conversations, replay events and search for answers that never seem quite to arrive. Despite all the effort invested, we often find ourselves back where we started.
Psychologists refer to this as rumination. It is usually described as repetitive thinking, but I wonder if there is something else worth noticing. When we ruminate, it is not simply that we are thinking. We become increasingly caught up in the thinking itself. Our awareness narrows around a particular issue and, for a time, everything else becomes less prominent.
When I use the word absorption, I am not using it in a clinical sense. I am referring to those moments when our awareness becomes increasingly occupied by one particular thought, feeling, activity or concern. As this happens, other possibilities can begin to fade into the background. We may lose sight of the task we intended to complete, become less aware of the conversation taking place around us or fail to notice that we have been thinking about the same issue for the last hour. In many ways, rumination, procrastination, avoidance and hyperfocus can look very different from the outside, yet they may share this common quality of becoming absorbed in one experience whilst losing awareness of others.
Seen in this way, rumination may be understood as one expression of a broader process rather than a problem in its own right. The common thread is not necessarily what has captured our attention, but the fact that we have become so absorbed in it that other possibilities begin to fade from awareness.
ADHD, Executive Function & Self-Regulation
This is where some of Russell Barkley’s work on ADHD becomes particularly helpful.
For many years ADHD was understood mainly as a problem with attention. Barkley has argued that self-regulation may be a more useful way of understanding it. This includes our ability to manage attention, impulses, emotions and behaviour over time. Central to this is self-awareness. Before we can regulate something, we first need to become aware of it.
From this perspective, difficulties associated with ADHD are not always about an inability to focus. In many cases, the opposite may be true. People with ADHD can become intensely focused on something that has captured their interest or attention. The challenge often lies in recognising where awareness has settled and redirecting it when necessary.
This may help explain why ADHD can sometimes feel contradictory. A person may genuinely want to begin an important task, yet find themselves doing something entirely different. They may intend to make a phone call, write an email or complete a piece of work, only to realise later that their attention has drifted elsewhere. Similarly, someone may become caught up in a worry, a question or an uncertainty and find themselves returning to it repeatedly without moving any closer to resolution.
One way of understanding Barkley’s work is that difficulties with self-regulation may also involve difficulties noticing when we have become absorbed in a particular process and difficulties redirecting ourselves once that absorption has occurred. The issue is not necessarily a lack of intention. More often, the original intention has gradually slipped from awareness whilst something else has taken its place.
There is also something important to acknowledge here. Many people spend years interpreting these experiences as evidence of a personal failing. They tell themselves they are lazy, weak-willed, undisciplined or simply not trying hard enough. Yet Barkley’s work points us towards a different understanding. If difficulties with self-regulation and executive functioning are part of the picture, then what we may be witnessing is not a defect of character, but a process that often unfolds before we become fully aware of it.
This distinction matters. It is difficult to work with a process when we are busy condemning ourselves for it. Self-criticism may explain our frustration, but it rarely helps us understand what is actually happening. Awareness, curiosity and compassion provide a different starting point. They allow us to move away from the question of what is wrong with us and towards the more useful question of what we are noticing.
The Objective Observer
Most of us are familiar with the experience of suddenly realising we have become caught up in something. We notice that we have spent the last hour worrying about a problem, avoiding a task or drifting into something entirely unrelated to what we had intended to do. What is interesting about these moments is not the thought, feeling or behaviour itself, but the fact that we have become aware of it. It is almost as though part of us has stepped back and noticed what has been happening all along.
This capacity to observe our own experience is what I am referring to as the objective observer. It is not a technique and it is not something that needs to be created. Rather, it is a natural human capacity that becomes stronger the more we learn to use it.
From the perspective of executive functioning, this ability may be more important than it first appears. Before we can redirect our attention, interrupt a familiar pattern or respond differently to an impulse, we first need to notice that it is happening. Awareness may not solve the problem, but it creates the possibility of responding to it differently.
This is why I see the objective observer as more than simply an interesting psychological idea. It can become a practical support for self-regulation. The moment we notice ourselves becoming absorbed in a familiar process, whether that is rumination, avoidance, distraction or impulsive action, something changes. We are no longer completely inside the experience. Part of us has stepped back and begun to observe it.
That shift may appear small, yet it can have profound implications. The process has become visible. Once visible, it becomes easier to understand. Over time, it may also become easier to work with.
Curiosity, Compassion & Choice
Many people respond to these experiences with frustration. They become angry with themselves for overthinking, avoiding things, getting distracted or repeating familiar patterns. Unfortunately, self-criticism rarely creates greater awareness. More often, it narrows it.
Curiosity tends to be far more useful.
When we become curious, we stop focusing solely on the outcome and begin paying attention to the process. We start noticing the situations in which we are most likely to become absorbed. We begin recognising the patterns that repeatedly pull us away from our intentions. Rather than seeing ourselves as the problem, we begin learning something about how our minds work.
Compassion is equally important. Not because it excuses unhelpful behaviour, but because it allows us to observe ourselves honestly without immediately moving into shame, blame or judgement. Most of us find it difficult to see clearly when we are busy criticising ourselves.
As awareness develops, it becomes possible to recognise these moments of absorption earlier. We begin noticing them whilst they are happening rather than only after they have happened. We may still find ourselves worrying, avoiding, procrastinating or becoming distracted, but our relationship with those experiences begins to change. Instead of being carried along by them completely, we are able to observe them as they unfold.
This is where choice begins to emerge. Not perfect control, and certainly not the absence of difficulty, but the possibility of responding with greater awareness. The objective observer does not eliminate the process. What it offers is the opportunity to recognise the process and, in recognising it, begin relating to it differently.
A Final Reflection
Perhaps the goal is not to stop thinking, eliminate uncertainty or achieve perfect self-control. Perhaps the goal is simply to become more aware of the processes that shape our experience.
The more clearly we can recognise when we have become absorbed in a thought, feeling, activity or concern, the easier it becomes to step back and consider how we wish to respond. We may still find ourselves revisiting old worries, drifting away from important tasks or becoming caught up in familiar patterns. We are human, after all.
What changes is not necessarily the experience itself, but our relationship with it.
Awareness allows us to see what is happening. The objective observer helps us remain present with it. From there, self-regulation becomes a little more available, and with it the possibility of making choices that are more closely aligned with the life we wish to live.
If anything here resonates with you, perhaps it is something worth staying curious about. Therapy can offer a space to explore what it might mean for you.
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