It’s Not Your Responsibility to Rehearse Disaster
Photo by Quinn Corte, 2023.
Do you have that really fun superpower where you can play out horrible scenarios in your head with precise, excruciating detail?
Yeah, me too. My talent shows off best when I get up in the night to go to the bathroom.
These action-packed thrillers start in our minds, but then they make our bodies tense up and get ready to fight or run. Our emotional bodies get filled up with all the feelings we would feel if that scenario was actually happening. And sooner or later, everything around us starts to feel scary.
We rehearse for disaster.
Like, a full-on dress rehearsal. Complete with lighting, costumes, and dramatic dialogue.
And it feels useful. It feels responsible to dwell on tragedy, because so many others are living in a nightmare. It feels like we’re doing a disaster preparedness drill to imagine what we would do if..if..if. And it feels self-protective to imagine the worst-case scenario before we embark on something new—just so we know “what to expect.”
In therapy a few weeks ago, I described one incident in the shower where my mind was playing out a terrible outcome. I suddenly realized I was rehearsing a conversation I would need to have ten years from now. (I wish I was kidding.) My wise therapist said, “It’s not your responsibility to fully rehearse every possible outcome.”
Here’s what I’ve realized. Catastrophizing is a signal that I deeply care about something. If I imagine horrible things happening to my loved ones, it’s because I desperately want to protect them from harm. If I’m caught up worrying about wars and fascism, it’s because I long for a peaceful and free world. All my worrying stems from love. If I didn’t care, I wouldn’t be obsessing about it.
The problem isn’t that I care deeply. The problem is that rehearsing disaster isn’t an effective way to help the problem or show that I care. It only makes me suffer.
Of course, it can be useful to prepare for disasters with concrete action steps (like buying a fire extinguisher). And it can be helpful to address what might go wrong before diving in, so you aren’t a Pollyanna who’s bypassing reality. But most of us are sinking so deep into the quicksand of worry that we need to be pulled back onto solid ground.
I’ve been practicing something new lately. Whenever my mind drifts into an unpleasant future, I reign my thoughts back in. I remind myself that it’s not my responsibility to rehearse every outcome. I truly let myself off the hook, like “Actually, I don’t have to think about that. It’s okay to feel good right now.” And then I notice instant relief that I don’t have to do any more unnecessary emotional labor. I can just hang out right here in this lovely moment of safety.
Interestingly, I’ve noticed that most of the time I drift into the future, I’m actually not even scared. Daydreaming about catastrophe has just become a habit. I do it whenever my brain has an idle moment. Like it’s my dutiful default mode. Ugh, no thank you.
What if my thoughts defaulted to all the wonderful things that could happen? What if I spent my idle moments fantasizing about everyone I love having long, healthy, fulfilling, magical lives? What if I threw my vivid imagination into dreaming up a delightfully thriving life—and world?
I’m tired of wasting my big heart and my creative superpowers anticipating disaster.
From now on, I’m going to rehearse miracles.