Rumination takes place within the body and is therefore constrained by the body’s material reality, particularly the material reality of memory. We do not know exactly how memory is contained in the body but there are indications that memories are constantly remodelled on the molecular level. That is, they do not stay static. Kierkegaard’s ideas on despair are in line with this idea of constant change. Kierkegaard’s self strives for a consistency which it cannot achieve and therefore it must despair, but it is also transformed through this process, suggesting that unwelcome mental loops are tentative and changeable.