I am upset because I see
something that is not there.

This one takes a minute.

Because when I’m upset, whatever I’m looking at feels very much like it’s there. The tension in the relationship. The possibility that something is going wrong. The thing somebody said. The future I’m worried about. I’m not sitting there thinking, Ah yes, apparently I’ve invented something.

I’m usually thinking, Can we please deal with the obvious problem?

But I don’t think this is asking me to deny what’s happening in front of me. It’s asking me to look at what I’ve added—the part I’m seeing that may not actually be there at all.

Someone doesn’t answer my text, and what’s there is an unanswered text.

What may not be there is rejection.

My husband is quiet, and what’s there is a quiet husband.

What may not be there is the whole story I’ve already written about what his silence means.

My child is struggling with something, and what’s there is a situation that may need attention, patience, maybe some help.

What may not be there is the future I’ve already imagined in which this one difficulty turns into ten more and somehow proves I’ve failed as a mother.

That’s where I catch myself.

I don’t just react to what is happening. I react to what I think is behind it, what I think it means, and what I’m afraid is coming next. And once fear gets involved, it can create an astonishing amount of material from very little information.

One odd tone of voice can become She doesn’t respect me.

One mistake can become I’m never going to get this right.

One uncertain season can become My life is going in the wrong direction.

One person’s success can become There’s less left for me.

Those things feel true when I’m thinking them. That’s the problem. Fear rarely introduces itself by saying, Just so you know, I’m about to give you a wildly incomplete interpretation.

It sounds convincing.

And sometimes it sounds like me.

I think this is why the lesson feels more useful if I bring it into an actual moment instead of trying to understand it intellectually.

Say I send a message and don’t hear back. I feel that little shift in my stomach. Before long, I’m rereading what I wrote, wondering whether I sounded strange, remembering something she said three weeks ago, and quietly collecting evidence for a problem I don’t actually know exists.

By then, I’m genuinely upset.

But what am I upset about?

The unanswered text?

Or the rejection I’m seeing inside it?

Those are not quite the same thing.

And this doesn’t mean the answer is always, Nothing is wrong. Sometimes something is wrong. Sometimes the conversation does need to happen. Sometimes the person really is pulling away. Sometimes there is practical information in front of me that I need to pay attention to.

The point, at least for me, is that I usually suffer ahead of the facts.

I take what I know and combine it with memory, fear, expectation, and imagination, then experience the whole mixture as though it arrived together.

That’s a hard habit to notice because it feels protective. If I can predict rejection before it happens, maybe I can brace myself. If I can imagine every bad outcome, maybe I won’t be caught off guard. If I can decide what someone is thinking, maybe I won’t have to tolerate not knowing.

Except now I’m living through painful things that haven’t happened.

Some of them never will.

I’ve had entire arguments with people who were not in the room. I’ve worried about outcomes that disappeared without ever becoming real-life problems. I’ve interpreted someone’s mood as being about me and later discovered they were worried about their own life and had barely thought about me at all.

Which is humbling. Also slightly insulting to the part of me that assumes I’m the central character in everyone else’s emotional weather.

So maybe the practice today is not to tell myself that nothing is happening.

It’s to become curious about what else I’m seeing.

If I’m upset, what am I picturing that has not actually occurred?

What motive have I assigned to someone without knowing it?

What future have I already entered in my mind?

What have I decided this situation proves about me?

That last one gets me especially.

Because sometimes the thing that “isn’t there” isn’t a future disaster. It’s an identity.

I’m unwanted.

I’m failing.

I’m not enough.

I’m the one who always gets left.

A moment happens, and suddenly I’m looking at an old version of myself again.

Maybe that is something worth questioning.

Not fighting. Not replacing with a prettier thought because I’m supposed to be spiritual. Just noticing that the frightened picture in my mind may not be the same thing as what is actually in front of me.

So when I feel myself getting pulled into a story today, I want to ask:

Maybe I still need to do something. Maybe I need to ask the question, have the conversation, make the appointment, look at the numbers, or set the boundary.

But I’d rather respond to what is here than react to something my mind has already imagined into existence.

That feels like enough of a practice for one day.