Imaginary Conversations

Do you ever find yourself having imaginary conversations?  You know the kind that you have in your head to prepare yourself for a real conversation that you are dreading.  The ones where you are so articulate in what you have to say, where you have a counter for everything that they say, and you can really stick it to them on every point.  The kind that get you so riled up inside because you can’t believe that they actually said what they did, and good for you for backing them down.

The kind that do not actually happen.

I was talking to a few students this week about the difference between perceptions and what really happened.  We talked about framing our days in a positive way to ensure that we have a good day, and then turned our attention towards those days where we were feeling down and out.  We agreed that if we started out our day really feeling bad, that the chances of us having a good day were very low.  Even worse, our chances of having something go wrong in our day go up.  Way up.

In one conversation, we talked about these imaginary conversations—the ones that haven’t happened yet—and what they do to our psyche.  The student listened, and then sat back, pensive as can be.  After a while, he looked up and said “wow”.  He really felt that the conflict that he was having had a lot to do with him coming into interactions ready to have a conflict.  We talked about how this type of thing rarely happens with those that we feel close to; we are always willing to let things—misquotes, silly behaviour, etc—slide with the people that we feel closest to.

I think that sometimes we spend so much energy feeling bad about something that happens, that we set ourselves up for failure by perseverating on the negative.  We spend too much energy on the “how” something was said instead of the “what” was actually said.  I always talk about predicting the day ahead of us by taking stock of our own mental state.  For example, if I come to school grumpy, tired and in conflict with someone in my life, I set myself up to misinterpret someone else’s actions and words.  If I am feeling sensitive, I need to prepare myself to step back when I feel picked on instead of rising up to confront it.  I find that by taking a closer look at myself and how I am reacting to any given day, gives me pause and more compassion towards someone else and what they might be going through in their day.  And, it’s that pause and compassion that have helped me to avoid those nasty imaginary conversations in the first place.