What if you’re creating much of your own suffering?

Before anything else, this isn’t a question to answer with judgement. It can only be useful if it’s held with curiosity, because the moment judgement comes in we tend to close things down, defend, justify, and stay exactly where we are. So as you read that, just notice what happens, and see if it’s possible to stay open to it.

Because none of us are intentionally creating suffering. You’re doing your best, navigating a world that can feel full, fast, and at times overwhelming. There are parts of you working hard to keep you safe, to help you feel accepted and to avoid pain where possible. That’s important to remember, because this isn’t about blame, it’s about understanding.

As humans, we are constantly making meaning. We don’t just experience what happens, we interpret it, we add a layer to it, we tell ourselves what it means, what it says about us, what might happen next. And that meaning shapes our entire experience.

Two people can go through the exact same situation and have completely different experiences of it, depending on the meaning they give it. And most of the time, that meaning isn’t something we’ve consciously chosen. It happens quickly, automatically, through parts of us that have learnt over time how to interpret the world in a way that feels protective.

Those parts are not a problem, they are doing what they believe is helpful, trying to keep you safe, loved, or in control. And yet the stories they create can often lead to more worry, more tension, more self-doubt, even when nothing has actually happened to warrant that level of response.

I was reminded of this recently in a session. A client was talking about her relationship with her son, she told me they had been in the car together and he hadn’t spoken to her at all, he was completely silent. She was really concerned about what that meant.

So I asked her, gently, what are you making that mean?

She said she must have done something wrong, that he didn’t want to talk to her, that maybe she hadn’t been a good enough mum. And as she spoke, you could feel how heavy that meaning was, how much it was affecting her.

So we slowed it down and came back to something simple. What are the facts, without the meaning? She was in the car with her son, and he didn’t speak. That’s it. Everything else had been added on top.

From there, we got curious about other possibilities, to consider what else could be true. What if he just didn’t feel like talking, what if he was in his own world, what if he was being a teenager and it had nothing to do with her?

As she sat with that, her experience of the situation began to change, even though nothing externally had changed at all. She realised it wasn’t his silence that had been creating the distress, it was the meaning she had given to it.

And in that moment, there was more space. The situation felt lighter, more manageable, and she could see that if she stopped placing meaning on everything and getting caught up in the stories she was telling herself, there was a different way of experiencing things available to her.

This is often where our suffering is created, in the meaning we layer on top of what actually happened. The conclusions, the assumptions, the stories about what it means about us, about others, about the future. And again, this isn’t something to judge yourself for, it’s something to become aware of.

Because when you can see it, even just a little, there is more space between what happens and how you experience it. You’re no longer completely inside the story, you can begin to notice that a part of you is making something mean something, rather than that meaning being the truth.

From that place, there is more possibility.

And when you begin to see that clearly, there’s a shift in responsibility, because if the meaning is something you’re adding, you can also choose to stop adding it.

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A gentle invitation to explore

Over the next few days, notice where you may be adding meaning to a situation.

Ask yourself, what actually happened here, without the meaning? And then, what am I making this mean?

See what you notice…

What changes if you let go of the meaning?

How does that affect your experience?