"Self-distancing is a tool. Tools are meant to be picked up and put down. The thing I didn't notice happening to me - and I think it happens to a lot of people in their thirties who learned early that composure was a survival skill - was that I stopped putting the tool down."
"The problem wasn't that the feelings were too loud. It was that I'd gotten so good at putting a pane of glass between me and my own life that I'd forgotten the glass was there."
"When you're upset, referring to yourself in the third person - using your own name instead of 'I' - genuinely helps you regulate. Work on third-person self-talk shows that this kind of talk reduces emotional reactivity without even engaging the brain's cognitive control networks."
"Distance is a tool. The question nobody asks is what happens when the trick becomes the default setting."
Self-distancing is a psychological tool that helps individuals manage their emotions by creating a sense of distance from their experiences. While it can be beneficial, over-reliance on this technique can lead to a disconnection from one's own life. Many people, especially those who learned to maintain composure as a survival skill, may find themselves narrating their experiences in a detached manner. This can result in forgetting the emotional weight of their own stories, leading to a lack of genuine engagement with their feelings.
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