Why live in our heads?
Reality is often better than what we imagine.
In the newsletter two weeks ago, I shared that I was in the process of making a hard decision. After thinking about the decision thoroughly, talking with my therapist about it, and getting advice from one of my mentors, I finalised my decision.
The next step was sharing my decision with the person, let’s call him X, who would be affected by my decision. As I like and respect X, I got anxious the day before we decided to meet. Usually, I don’t have any sleeping problems, but I couldn’t sleep well and woke up very tired and nervous.
Although I knew I did my best to make the right decision for myself, I didn’t want to upset X because I respect X. The meeting time came, we started talking, and I began to explain my decision, carefully choosing my words. X stopped me and said, “I know, I agree with you; this was what I would suggest.”
I was shocked. I knew that X would support my decision in any way, but maybe advise me about potential negative consequences and make me think twice.
This experience showed me that
I got anxious the day before the meeting for nothing.
I couldn’t sleep well the night before for nothing.
I was tired and nervous when I woke up for nothing.
At the end of the day, I was very happy and relaxed but, at the same time, emotionally exhausted and sensitive because of all the unnecessary worries that I had before the meeting.
This experience made me realise one more time that worrying about things that have yet to happen doesn't make sense. If they occur in the future, then I can worry and be sad.
I need to remember,
“The power of any thought is in how much we buy into it. How much we believe it to be true and meaningful. When we observe our own thought processes in this way, we start to see thoughts for what they are, and what they are not. Thoughts are not facts. They are a mix of opinions, judgements, stories, memories, theories, interpretations, and predictions about the future.”1
Cheers,
Sidika
Smith, Julie. Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? (p. 38). Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition. (You can listen to “Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before?” for free with a 30-day free trial of the Audiobook, following this link: https://amzn.to/4bF1AQ3. Highly recommended! )