The Emotional Draft: Why You Rehearse Conversations in Your Head
Wouldn’t you just love to be one of those people who can walk straight into a conversation with absolutely no plan?
Here are a couple of other posts you can explore at your own pace (no pre meetings required☺️)
They just show up, and trust the words they speak to simply fall into place. And somehow, miraculously, they do.
But then… there are people like us. (Hey, if you are reading this blog then you will know this feeling all too well).
We rehearse. We pre-plan. We run through every possible version of what might happen next. We do it in the shower, on the school run, while making tea, or (my favourite 😳) at 2:00 AM when the world is completely quiet but our minds are absolutely not.
If you've ever wondered why you do this, it’s not because you’re being dramatic or difficult. It’s just what happens when you hate the feeling of being caught off guard. Rehearsing is just a way of trying to lessen the impact before you walk into the room.
So allow me to introduce the phenomenon I've called “the conversation before the conversation.”
For those who don't do it, it's hard to explain what this rehearsal actually feels like. It’s an entire mental production that any theatre would be proud of. And it looks a bit like this (see how many you tick):
Imagining what you’ll actually say.
Imagining what they’ll say back.
Imagining your brilliant and witty counter-response 🤨
Running the version where it goes perfectly.
Running the version where it goes horribly wrong.
Running the version where it goes unexpectedly sideways and you somehow end up talking about your childhood pet.
It’s rarely even about the other person or how they might react. It’s just about our own internal thermostat I suppose—our own discomfort, our own quiet anxieties, and that familiar fear of feeling utterly unprepared in our own skin.
Your mind is basically just running through the options in the background, quietly whispering: What if I totally freeze up? Am I saying too much? Am I saying too little?
It’s not drama; it’s just looking for a bit of breathing room. You aren't trying to force anything to happen—you're just trying to quiet the noise enough so you can open your mouth and speak.
Well, for me, it’s about navigating how deeply I feel things. I naturally want to avoid hurting anyone else's feelings just as much as I want to avoid getting hurt myself, so I end up scripting things in advance just to make sure I land gently.
I rehearse because I want to ensure I sound kind, clear, and understood—and honestly, because I’m terrified of accidentally sounding harsh or abrupt when I don't mean to be.
It’s not that I’m aiming for a gold star (though I am sure I would rock it 🤭). It’s just that for sensitive people, words carry a lot of weight, and we don't want to throw them around carelessly.
I have nothing but admiration for those people who can simply just “wing it”. But for an anxious mind, "winging it" feels like walking into a crowded room blindfolded and just hoping you don't trip over the furniture. That rehearsal, well, that gives us a sense of much-needed breathing room. It’s our brain saying, “I don’t know what’s coming, but I want to be ready.”
And honestly? When you look at it like that, it starts to make perfect sense.
But then there is the other side of the coin… the downside to this superpower is that it is absolutely exhausting.
By the time we actually sit down to talk, we’ve already run that marathon three or four times in our heads. We carry the heavy weight of a moment that hasn’t even arrived yet—feeling the knot in the stomach, the restless energy, and all that nervous tension long before we've even opened our mouths.
Hey, this isn't something that gets solved overnight. If you live with an anxious mind, the urge to pre-plan is probably always going to be there in some form or another. But maybe we don't have to banish the habit entirely; maybe we can just start by showing ourselves the compassion we deserve when we catch ourselves doing it. If you can manage to just skip the full dress rehearsal (in full costume!) every now and then, and only run through the lines once instead of ten times, that is a massive win.
It is a lot to carry. But if you find yourself doing this too, I hope you can be a bit kinder to yourself about it. You aren't doing this because you are flawed, or broken, or doing life wrong. It is just a very human instinct to want to feel safe in your own skin when the time comes. At the end of the day, you're just a thoughtful person with a big heart, trying your best to navigate a noisy world. And honestly, the world could use a few more people who care that much. We'll get there, one less-rehearsed chat at a time.
P.S. As a little parting comfort…
Years ago, I worked for a housing association, and we had a massive meeting coming up to completely overhaul how we handled customer complaints. It was a huge deal. Naturally, the upper management decided we needed a pre-meeting before the main meeting to discuss the rollout and training. But because the core project group included staff from various departments, and we knew there might be some resistance to the changes, we wanted to ensure we built a strong, united case. So, I kid you not, we had a pre-meeting to the pre-meeting just to prepare for the meeting about the meeting.
If massive, professional organisations need a triple-layer safety net just to handle potential pushback, you can absolutely forgive your own brain for wanting a quick run-through before a tough chat!
Mind you, we do need to save some of that mental energy for later... you know, for when the conversation is actually over and our brains decide it's time to replay the whole thing on a loop for the next three days. But, we'll talk about that next time😉.
The “I’m Fine” Script: Tiny Giveaways That Reveal How We’re Really Doing
The Fretter’s Feedback Loop: Why Your Brain Can’t Just “Move On” From a Scare
Thanks for reading and virtual hugs to you all.
