What is Self Distance and How Do We Find It?
“Sometimes you need to distance yourself to see things clearly”
What is Self Distance?
In therapy, there is a lot of talk about self-love, self-compassion, self-awareness, and self-care. There is one more to add to the list, “Self distancing”.
At first, this seems confusing, therapy is supposed to be about taking a deep look at thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. It is supposed to provide more insight not less? The thing about insight is that sometimes when we are overwhelmed by life’s stressors, we can lose perspective.
Ethan Kross is a professor and researcher who specializes in emotional regulation. He developed a way to find some distance from painful thoughts and feelings, in order to get a more complete view of life’s stressful experiences. He calls it “self-distancing”. In his book, Chatter, he describes self-distancing as the ability to focus on yourself from a more objective, psychologically removed perspective. Find more about Ethan Kross’s work, look here.
This is not necessarily a new topic for psychology. Aaron Beck, the inventor of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, asserts “Distancing refers to the ability to view one’s own thoughts as constructions of ‘reality’ rather than reality itself”.
What Ethan Kross highlights in his work, is the difference between the ability to process painful experiences we have personally compared with advising others, having similar experiences.
“You drown not by falling into a river, but by staying submerged in it”
Ways to Self Distance
After researching this concept in his emotion and self-control lab, Dr. Kross compiled a toolbox to help shift the way we view life’s stressors. You can find them all listed in the aforementioned book, Chatter. These tools are helpful in different ways to change thinking patterns about the problems we all face.
“The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another”
A few of Dr. Kross’s Tools
Use distanced self-talk - When overwhelmed with a problem, try the simple switch of using your name or the second person when speaking to yourself. His research indicates that this is linked with less negative emotions and improved thought control.
Imagine advising a friend - We can gain some distance from our problems by imagining what we would say to a friend having the same problem we are struggling with.
Reframe your experience as a challenge - We often become overwhelmed when we view a situation as a threat that feels unmanageable. By reassuring yourself that the problem is something manageable can help with perspective. Finding a similar experience you overcame in the past can be helpful to accomplish this.
Engage in mental time travel - Will this problem matter in a month, year, or longer from now? Asking this question can help get unstuck, by reminding us that some concerns are more fleeting than the intensity of the problem implies.
Write expressively - Journal about your thoughts and feelings for 15 to 20 minutes three days in a row. Write as if you are narrating a story to help gain some healthy distance from the concern.
Perform a ritual - Doing something repetitive that has a deep meaning such as prayer or meditation can help provide a calming sense of control.
Self-awareness, self-compassion, self-care, and self-distancing. That’s a lot of self-work, but it doesn’t mean you have to do it alone. Psychotherapy can be useful to help guide you on this journey. Therapy provides a non-judgmental space for you to take an honest look at your relationship with yourself. If you are looking for this type of support, or have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out, by using the form below.
