{"id":5402,"date":"2026-09-29T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-29T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thorstenenderlin.com\/?p=5402"},"modified":"2026-10-20T14:24:30","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T12:24:30","slug":"nicht-die-situation-sondern-der-gedanke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thorstenenderlin.com\/en\/nicht-die-situation-sondern-der-gedanke\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s not the situation that wears you down, it\u2019s the thought about it"},"content":{"rendered":"

Do you know this? You\u2019re lying in bed at night, the light is off, and still one single sentence keeps running through your head. The same moment, the same scene, over and over again. A colleague who answered curtly. A partner who forgot something. A child who slammed the door. The situation itself is long over. But you\u2019re still right in the middle of it.<\/p>\n

For a long time, I thought the problem was the situation itself. So I tried to change the situation: communicate differently, more control, better planning. Until I understood that the situation is almost never the problem, but the thought I formed about it without being asked.<\/p>\n

The author Byron Katie developed a simple exercise for this that has stayed with me ever since: not to believe a stressful thought, but to question it. Not to push it away, but to look at it.<\/p>\n

\"Sonnenuntergang<\/figure>\n

1. The thought is not the truth, it is an interpretation<\/h3>\n

When your colleague answers curtly, that is a fact. \u201cHe thinks I\u2019m incompetent\u201d is not a fact, it\u2019s a story you have put into that fact. The story feels true. That doesn\u2019t make it true.<\/p>\n

2. Ask yourself whether you really know<\/h3>\n

Before you believe the thought, pause for a moment and ask yourself: do I really know this, or am I just assuming? In most cases, you don\u2019t know the actual reasons for another person\u2019s behaviour at all. You fill the gap with your own fear.<\/p>\n

3. Look at what the thought does to you<\/h3>\n

A thought like \u201cHe thinks I\u2019m incompetent\u201d does something to your body before it has even been checked. Your shoulders go up, your breathing gets shallower, the next email suddenly reads completely differently. You\u2019re not reacting to the situation. You\u2019re reacting to the thought about the situation.<\/p>\n

4. Ask yourself who you would be without this thought<\/h3>\n

This is the part that has changed me the most. Imagine the same moment, without the story. The colleague answers briefly. You read it, think \u201cmaybe he\u2019s just very busy right now\u201d and carry on. No knot in your stomach. No thoughts spinning at midnight. The same moment, but you\u2019re no longer in the middle of it.<\/p>\n

Ich sage nicht, dass jeder belastende Gedanke falsch ist. Manche Sorgen sind berechtigt, manche Kritik ist zutreffend. Es geht nicht darum, alles sch\u00f6nzureden.<\/a> Es geht darum, den Gedanken erst zu pr\u00fcfen, bevor du ihm dein ganzes System \u00fcberl\u00e4sst.<\/p>\n

This week, pick one single thought that hasn\u2019t let go of you lately. Write it on a piece of paper. And ask it: are you really true? You\u2019ll be surprised how much calm this one question alone brings back.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nicht die Situation h\u00e4lt dich nachts wach, sondern der Gedanke, den du dir dar\u00fcber gebildet hast. Vier Fragen, angelehnt an Byron Katie, mit denen du einen belastenden Gedanken pr\u00fcfst, statt ihm zu glauben.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5131,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"no-sidebar","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"slim_seo":{"title":"Nicht die Situation macht dich fertig, sondern der Gedanke dar\u00fcber - Thorsten Enderlin","description":"Nicht die Situation h\u00e4lt dich nachts wach, sondern der Gedanke, den du dir dar\u00fcber gebildet hast. Vier Fragen, angelehnt an Byron Katie, mit denen du einen bela"},"_slim_seo_primary_term_category":0,"_slim_seo_primary_term_post_tag":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thorstenenderlin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thorstenenderlin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thorstenenderlin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thorstenenderlin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thorstenenderlin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5402"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thorstenenderlin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5881,"href":"https:\/\/thorstenenderlin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5402\/revisions\/5881"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thorstenenderlin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thorstenenderlin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thorstenenderlin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thorstenenderlin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}