The Surprising Benifit of Emotional Self Distancing

Описание: Can talking about yourself in the third person re-wire your brain to be more stoic, and more self-aware?

In this episode we explore a psychological tool that sounds strange, even arrogant at first: talking about yourself in the third person. We start by unpacking how this practice works, and why referring to ourselves by name, (What is Todd feeling right now? What does Joe actually need?) can help us create enough psychological distance to lower anxiety, reduce impulsive reactions, and think more clearly. Especially when the stakes are high, like career decisions, relationship troubles, and addiction recovery.

Then we outline several practical exercises for emotional self-distancing, including speaking to a younger version of yourself, using third-person questions to identify emotions with greater precision, and breaking feelings down beyond “angry” or “sad” into their true sources: fear, betrayal, exhaustion, or loneliness. We connect this all to Stoic problem-solving, and the idea that reacting less often means cleaning up fewer emotional messes later.

Finally, we close with one of history’s most extreme examples of emotional self-distancing: Viktor Frankl, psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, who used future-self visualization to endure concentration camps. Frankl’s ability to step outside his immediate suffering becomes the ultimate case-study in how distance can preserve humanity under unbearable conditions.

Links:
https://psychology.msu.edu/_assets/pd...
https://positivepsychology.com/psycho...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man%27s...