Okay, let me tell you about something I started doing a while back, sort of without realizing what it was called.
My First Tries
It began when I was waiting for some big news. You know the feeling, right? Your stomach’s in knots, you can’t really focus. I was super hopeful, maybe too hopeful, about getting this thing I really wanted. But the waiting was killing me. So, I started thinking, “Alright, what if this doesn’t happen? What’s the absolute worst outcome here?”
I actively started picturing the disappointment. I told myself, “It’s probably not gonna work out anyway.” Sounds depressing, I know. But my thinking was, if I already feel a bit crummy imagining the bad news, maybe it won’t hit so hard if it actually happens. Like putting padding around myself before a fall.
Getting Into It
So, I really leaned into this. If I was waiting for feedback on a project, I’d start mentally listing all the potential criticisms before I even got them. If I was excited about a weekend plan, I’d tell myself it would probably rain or something would come up to cancel it. I literally started lowering my expectations for almost everything uncertain that I cared about.
- I’d map out Plan B, C, and D in my head.
- I’d purposefully focus on potential negatives.
- Sometimes I’d even say pessimistic stuff out loud, maybe to a friend or my partner, like “Yeah, this promotion thing? Not holding my breath.”
It felt kinda weird, like being my own wet blanket. But part of me thought this was smart, like I was protecting myself from future pain. If the bad thing happened, I could say, “See? Knew it.” And if the good thing happened? Well, that would be a pleasant surprise, right?
How It Actually Felt
Here’s the thing, though. While it maybe softened the blow once or twice when things didn’t pan out, it had some downsides I didn’t expect. Living in that ‘prepared for the worst’ mindset was exhausting. It was like carrying an umbrella around on a sunny day, just in case.
I noticed I wasn’t enjoying the anticipation of things anymore. The excitement? Gone. Replaced by this sort of pre-emptive gloom. And when good things did happen, the relief was kinda muted. It wasn’t that burst of joy I used to get, because I’d spent so much energy convincing myself it wouldn’t happen.
It also felt like I wasn’t really dealing with the anxiety or the potential disappointment in a healthy way. It was more like trying to suppress the potential feeling rather than processing the situation. Like putting a bandage on a wound without cleaning it first. It covered the problem temporarily but didn’t help it heal.
I remember one time, waiting on results for a medical test. I spent the whole week convinced it was bad news. I researched worst-case scenarios online, planned how I’d handle it. It was awful. When the results came back totally fine, I was relieved, sure, but mostly just drained. I’d put myself through the emotional wringer for nothing. I didn’t feel happy, just… empty.
Figuring Things Out
Looking back, I realized that trying to ‘hedge’ my emotions like this wasn’t really helping. It was just making the present moment miserable in an attempt to control future feelings, which you can’t really do anyway. It felt like an unhealthy pattern, avoiding the potential high to avoid the potential low, ending up somewhere bland and anxious in the middle.
Now, I try to catch myself when I start doing that. It’s okay to be realistic, maybe have a backup thought. But actively dwelling on the negative, trying to force myself to feel bad beforehand? Nah. I found just talking about my worries with someone, actually saying “I’m anxious about this because…” helps way more. It gets the feeling out without me having to live in some made-up bad future. It’s more about facing the feeling than trying to preemptively numb it.
So yeah, that was my little experiment with that whole idea. Didn’t quite work out the way I thought it would. Still figuring out the balance, I guess.
