A difficult event is rarely experienced alone.
It arrives with commentary.
How could this happen?
I should have known.
This is unfair.
Now everything will get worse.
The event and the commentary can become so tightly joined that they feel like one experience.
They are not always the same burden.
The original event may require action, treatment, repair, grief, protection, or time.
The commentary may require something different: examination.
Is this description helping me understand what happened?
Is it identifying a real risk?
Or is it adding blame, certainty, prediction, and repetition without improving the response?
This is not an argument for positive thinking.
Painful events do not become harmless because we change the words around them.
The distinction is that our internal conversation is also part of what we are carrying.
Sometimes it helps.
Sometimes it becomes a second burden laid on top of the first.
Seeing the difference does not remove the event.
It may keep us from multiplying it.

A reflection on the difference between a difficult event and the criticism, blame, prediction, and self-talk that can accumulate around it.

A difficult event is rarely experienced alone.

The event and the commentary can become so tightly joined that they feel like one experience.

The original event may require action, treatment, repair, grief, protection, or time.

The commentary may require something different: examination.

Is this description helping me understand what happened?

Or is it adding blame, certainty, prediction, and repetition without improving the response?

This is not an argument for positive thinking.

Painful events do not become harmless because we change the words around them.

The distinction is that our internal conversation is also part of what we are carrying.

Sometimes it becomes a second burden laid on top of the first.

Seeing the difference does not remove the event.

The Commentary Can Become a Second Burden