What are you imagining?

I read recently in a NLP book that we actually experience everything twice - once in the imagining / thinking of it and then in the actual doing of it. Although it initially sounds a bit exhausting (!) I can see what they are saying. 

We automatically think that something happens out there to us and then we respond to the happening. Buddhist practitioners will say that whatever happens is just what happens - it's our stories about what's happening that makes it good or bad....and  that's how  we construct the world around us.

I got curious about just how true this is in couple work, that in essence so much of what the couple has experienced comes from their stories that exist inside them and often the imagined becomes the real. 
The irony is that in the early days the imaginings are so positive and full of hope but by the time a few conflicts have happened then a different reality is beginning to grow between them. 
Focusing on the positive that is there alongside the negative can have a powerful re-balancing effect in the couples bodies and in their minds.

I have a choice in what I imagine and what I create...it sounds so simple! Why would I create a double negative of imagining then doing.....it's quite a thought!