#cognitive distancing

I. Dusk, and the Old Woman Who Throws Grain Into Air In the village where I was a boy, there was a woman named Mbah Sri who threshed her rice at the hour when the sky turns the color of a bruise healing. She did not use a machine. She filled a winnowing tray, lifted it above her head, and let the evening wind decide what stayed and what left. I asked her once why she did not simply pick out the…

Stress Hack: Quieting the Mind

Use cognitive distancing.

Our mind usually worries about things it is convinced are true but, most of the time, are actually not true. You can balance your mind’s tendency to predict the worst outcome by coming up with positive alternative scenarios. For instance, your spouse seems distant and is sending out a lot of emails. You decide he must be having an affair. An alternative scenario: He…