What if…?

There is a famous quote from Seneca that says, 'we suffer more from imagination than from reality.' Today, we are going to talk about these ideas we create in our minds that cause us suffering, leading to a state of anguish where we feel restless, agitated, fearful, etc., about something that hasn’t even happened yet. If you want to learn to suffer less from your imagination, this is your post.

Life has many unknowns and, obviously, we cannot predict the future or control everything, although many of us would like to be able to do so. That’s why life is about living experiences and growing, even though some experiences are more positive and others not so much. What differentiates experiences are the emotions they make us feel: if they make me feel good, they are good, if they make me feel bad, they are bad, but we learn from all of them.

We are talking about lived experiences that make us feel bad, but why does an experience that I haven’t even lived yet, which is only an image in my head, generate so much anguish just by thinking about it? For example, I feel anxious about a presentation I have next week, my medical checkup, if my children will get bad grades again, if I can’t find tickets for a concert, etc. These are things I haven’t lived, I haven’t experienced them, they probably won’t even happen, and yet they are already generating anxiety just by thinking about them.

Did you know that our brain doesn’t distinguish between what is real and what is imaginary? If you are with friends having some wine, enjoying, telling stories and laughing your head off, it’s a real experience that makes you feel really good. But if, a week later, after meeting your friends, you close your eyes and recall the wine, the laughter, the conversation, the atmosphere, etc., it will also make you feel very good because the image in your brain connects you with the experience and generates an emotion very similar to what you felt when you were with your friends.

We can provoke positive emotions just by closing our eyes. Want to try? Close your eyes and think about a moment you recently lived in which you felt really good. Recreate the moment, with the people you were with if you were with someone, the smell, the taste, how you felt at that moment...

Now, let’s do another exercise. You can try visualizing something you are really excited to achieve or experience: imagine where you are, imagine with whom, what that experience makes you feel, what you are doing, include all the details you can...

After doing these two exercises, you will surely better understand why you feel anxious when you think something negative might happen and you imagine it in your head. Just as if you connect your mind with positive experiences you feel good, when you are thinking that something negative might happen, you feel it in the same way. It works the same as in the previous exercises.

How can I stop having those thoughts that cause me suffering?

The first step is to be aware that you are feeling bad: restless, anxious, insecure, etc. Try to describe how that feeling is. What is in your head at that moment when you are feeling bad? Sometimes we don’t realize that our mind is running on its own, on autopilot, filling with negative thoughts, pure imagination of unconscious thoughts that, for some reason, suddenly appear. Once you detect the thought or thoughts, it is time to decide what to do with them. You have only two options: keep thinking them, giving them importance, indulging them with details that make you feel bad, or you can rationalize the probability that those thoughts will become reality. Usually, when we are aware of the hype we are giving to a negative thought for no reason, it stops gaining strength. If you still find it hard to reduce the anguish, I suggest you try to keep your mind focused on something concrete, something that requires a lot of attention on your part: reading, meditating, listening to music while paying attention to the lyrics...

If you often find yourself caught up in these types of thoughts, I recommend that you start practicing mindfulness exercises like meditation. Understanding how our mind works is a big step towards starting to be the one who controls our thoughts, not letting our thoughts control us. Imagination is fantastic, develop it, visualize, create sensations, experiment with them in your mind... and remember, what hasn’t happened yet is not real, but it is for your mind. Be aware of what you think to avoid suffering for no reason.

Image by Freepik

Melinda Sánchez Coach

www.melindasanchezcoach.com