Distancing Articles

'Distancing' can be practiced in three stages. Let's look at each one. The first is 'recognizing thoughts'. This is nearly identical to the Awareness mentioned in Mindfulness meditation. Simply put, it means being able to recognize the thoughts that arise in your mind. "I know what I'm thinking and how I live." Did this thought just come up in your mind? Unfortunately, most people don't even know what 'thoughts' they have, or more precisely, what thoughts 'arise' in their minds.

Once you've recognized your thoughts, it's time to create distance from them. To create this distance, you must be able to look at your thoughts squarely. Merely recognizing and acknowledging them is not enough due to the overwhelming negative thoughts that rise in our minds. If it were that simple, there wouldn't be anyone struggling with depression and anxiety in this world. This task must be carried out in a more refined manner. Fortunately, numerous cognitive therapy theories have patterned a series of thoughts that torment people. We broadly categorize these into two types. Let's examine each one.

So far, we've identified our thoughts and evaluated whether they are accurate or unhelpful. As expected, let's assume that thought was neither accurate nor helpful, as is often the case with negative thoughts. Now, what should we do? Should we find an accurate thought? That could be helpful. But what is an accurate thought? How can we determine it? Should we wait until an accurate thought comes to mind? Or should we think of a helpful thought? But again, what can help me? While unhelpful thoughts can be relatively clearly judged as unhelpful, how can we know whether a helpful thought really aids us? It doesn't seem like an easy task.

Wittgenstein, known as the Einstein of philosophy, also experienced struggles throughout his life, despite being born into wealth in Vienna, Austria, in 1889. Tragically, he lost three of his four brothers to depression. Throughout his life, Wittgenstein confronted impulses of death and fear. So how did he spend the last days of his life?