Let me paint you a picture. You send a text to your partner to ask whether they want to meet up for coffee later. You excitedly wait for their response. The minutes tick by, and as your impatience grows your anticipation turns to frustration. You begin to feel annoyed with your partner, perhaps even angry with them. You start to think “They must not really care about me if they can’t even read and reply to my message”, and your emotions start to spiral into despair and insecurity.

Then, when you’re buzzing with pent-up anxiety and frustration, your phone lights up with a notification:

“Sorry, I got caught up in a meeting. Coffee sounds great, I’ll meet you at the usual spot? I can’t wait to see you. xo”

You might feel a bit sheepish, or perhaps the anger and fear lingers for a while. You might even notice that when you meet up with your partner later, there’s a bit of resentment or you might be a little cold with them.

If this cycle continues, and you feel anxious or upset any time a partner doesn’t get back to you quickly, adjusts your plans or seems quieter than usual, it can be damaging to yourself and your relationships. You might find yourself feeling burned out from constantly analyzing other’s behaviour. You could fall into a pattern of passive aggressive behaviour, pushing your partner away in order to get them to pursue you and “prove” that they care. You might become jealous and suspicious of your partner with no real reason.

The good news is, you can learn to diffuse this cycle before it’s even begun, using one simple question:

“What is the story I’m telling myself?”

Often, when you feel upset or angry or hurt about something someone has or hasn’t done, you’re not actually upset about their behaviour. Rather, you’re feeling upset about the meaning that you’re attaching to that behaviour. For example, in the scenario above, you’ve decided that your partner not immediately texting back is because they don’t care about you, or because they don’t want to spend time with you. The story you’re telling yourself is “If they cared about me, they’d be eager to go out for coffee and I would have gotten a reply right away”. When you believe that this story is true, the hurt feelings follow. But if you considered the situation, you’d note that there are lots of other possible explanations for why they haven’t texted you back. For example, they’re busy at work, they’re driving or they’re rearranging their schedule to make time for a coffee date.

This type of storytelling is a shortcut our brain takes to make sense of a situation where there’s uncertainty. It’s pretty common in important relationships and friendships because the motivations and feelings of others differ from our own. This is especially true for folks who have a tendency to feel anxious or insecure in their connections. We tend to assume the worst case scenario, or expect people to behave in the same way that we would. This can cause a lot of unnecessary conflict and strain.

The next time you feel like you might be having a big emotional reaction to something small that someone else has done, begin by asking yourself the question:

“What is the story I’m telling myself? What am I making this mean?”

Then, speak the story out aloud or write it down. Often, just hearing it will be enough to help you to see that it doesn’t make a lot of sense, or is out of proportion to the action that triggered it.

Next, you can challenge the story. Look for other possible explanations for the behaviour. Or, look for evidence to challenge the meaning you’ve given to the behaviour. In the above example, where you’ve decided that your partner not texting back immediately means that they don’t care about you, you could take a moment to think of the ways that your partner has shown you that they do care about you.

It can also be helpful to do some deeper work to identify the emotional patterns that drive these stories if the same stories keep coming up over and over.

Spending a little time identifying and then exploring the story you’re telling yourself can have a powerful impact on your relationships and personal emotions. You might be able to let things go a little easier, and not fixate on small things that might be making socialising or relationships feel hard. You might find more ease and contentment in your relationships as well. If you’d like some help working through the stories you’re telling yourself, please reach out and get in touch. I’d love to give you a hand with that.