Why You Suffer Twice for Things That Only Happen Once

... if they happen at all.

There you are, standing under the warm water of your shower.
Without the seducing call of your devices, your mind can peacefully wander, like a dog that’s been finally unleashed in a prairie after an entire day stuck in between walls.

Peacefully? Yeah, right.
Instead, it takes a familiar turn down Rehearsal Street. Right at the corner of Anxiety Square and Life-or-Death Road.

Because you’re now replaying a fight that hasn’t happened. Probably never will.
Yet here your are, crafting the perfect sentences and the punchiest comebacks.

And so you start feeling the tightening in your chest and the heaviness in your stomach.

You’re simply taking a shower. Nothing else is happening.
But your body is fully involved.

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This is what I call disaster rehearsal.

The mind believes something very compelling: If I feel the pain ahead of time, I’ll be more prepared. If I suffer now, it won’t shock me that much later.

It feels responsible. Strategic, even.

But it comes with a hidden cost.

I once rehearsed a difficult conversation with a colleague for two days. I prepared what I’d say if he got defensive. What I’d say if he yelled. What I’d say if he shut down. By the time we actually talked, I was emotionally drained from a fight that hadn’t even happened yet.

He, by the way, took it beautifully. The conversation lasted ten minutes.

I had spent two days suffering for a ten-minute moment that didn’t even hurt.

The body doesn’t distinguish between imagination and reality very well.
When we rehearse grief, rejection, humiliation or loss, our nervous system responds as if it’s real.

Which means we don’t suffer once.
We suffer twice.

Once in our imagination. And once again if the thing actually happens… which often never does.

I understand this impulse deeply. Rehearsing pain feels like control. It feels like bracing.

And yet, safety doesn’t come from pre-feeling every possible outcome.
It mostly comes from trusting that when something real happens, you will respond.

Why wouldn’t you? You always have.

There’s nothing weak about this pattern. It’s your mind trying to protect you in the only way it knows how.

The work is simply to notice it.

“Ok, I’m rehearsing again.”

And come back to the sensations of the present: the foamy soap caressing your skin, the delicious warm water dripping on your shoulders, the scrub of your fingertips on your scalp. Much nicer, isn’t it?

There are no confrontations happening.

Just a mind that cares a little too much. And a body that deserves a break.

Will you drop a little 💜 for me?

It’ll feel like catching your smile across a crowded room ✨

💬 And please tell me, before you go…

What does your shower brain rehearse most often? I want to know I'm not the only one fighting imaginary battles in between shampoo and conditioner. 🤭👇🏼

Also, if you keep getting pulled into disaster rehearsals…

And if you’re new here, I send reframes like this one, every Sunday ✨

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Here’s one more for the road..