Cognitive Distancing Quotes

I discovered that when I believed my thoughts, I suffered, but that when I didn’t believe them, I didn’t suffer, and that this is true for every human being. Freedom is as simple as that. I found that suffering is optional. I found a joy within me that has never disappeared, not for a single moment.

Learn to let your thoughts exist on their own without getting too involved in them.

I don't really have an aversion to watching myself. I think I've been doing it for long enough that I have a system of separating it in my brain from my egotistical neuroses for the most part.

Thoughts aren't fact, so don't take them seriously

To contemplate a thing implies maintaining oneself OUTSIDE it, resolved to keep a distance between it and ourselves.

Sleep marks passing time, giving us distance from the things that have hurt us. When a person is wounded they will often fall unconscious. Similarly, someone who hears traumatic news will often swoon or faint. This is the mind's way of protecting itself from pain.

It's important to cultivate detachment. One way to do this is to practice imagining yourself dead, or in the process of dying. If there's a window, you must imagine your body falling out the window. If there's a knife, you must imagine the knife piercing your skin. If there's a train coming, you must imagine your torso flattened under its wheels. These exercises are necessary to achieving the proper distance.

That I learned even as a three year-old that I see this world that is really a mess and I learned to say, this is not me. I am not the one that is messed up. It is out there.