Have you ever asked yourself what would I say if this were a Fluther question?

Pretty soon before I ditched my ex I found myself having the thought, “if this was a friend’s relationship I’d be telling her to leave him.”

Absolutely. I wouldn’t give people advice that would lead to the results I’ve had in my personal life. (does that make sense? it makes sense when I say it in my head)

@BellaB Yeah – it does. We follow worse advice to ourselves than we give others.

So to your actual question :) When I try to take myself out of it, I give myself better answers. Í have done it with some success a few times – most notably around fitness things.

I started dance classes at 49 – by telling myself that if anyone else asked me if that was too old, I’d cheer them into doing it. I did it and have done very well with it. Performed publicly, have been in a competitive group that came in 2nd in Canada in our category, have created and performed my own choreography.

I then did it with swimming which I’d stayed away from because I thought I was too old AND too fat. Told myself I’d encourage anyone else to do it – and did it. In the process of making myself happy and fit, I lost a lot of weight and have gone down almost 4 full sizes (which was not the intent). I had really missed being in my serene swimming head.

@BellaB Yes, I am trying to do that with this issue.

This is a good question, and I think I can add to the discussion.

I have been in psycho-therapy for 30 years. I will probably always be in therapy, and I have found that most people do not have a clue as to what really happens in therapy. Most people seem to think that a therapist is the same thing as a medical doctor. They think the therapist listens to your situations and prescribes a “cure.” That is completely false.

A therapist listens to me talk about situations, and then he guides a continued discussion until I come up with my own “cures.” In essence, I am my own therapist.

This is very similar to what you are describing in your OP. When we can step back and get a bit of detachment, we often talk to ourselves very differently.

It’s possible to do this without 30 years of therapy. Hooray!

I also want to add a word of caution. Fluther is part of the Internet, and as such, it is very impersonal. I see a lot of what is known as tough love here on Fluther, and it’s hogwash. Tough love is a way of building a wall between myself as an observer and the other who may be a victim. Tough love is a form of self-defense. There is no love in tough love.

I see this in many different kinds of threads. It’s on threads about relationships and employment issues often. What we often don’t talk about in these kinds of threads is that we have very limited information to judge the situation on. Furthermore, the information may be false, but we will never know. We often give very stern answers to situations where being stern may be the absolute worst possible way to react, but we cannot know this.

We must always remember that we’re not simply typing words into a screen. We are reaching through the screen and talking to a living, breathing human being with hopes and dreams and fears. Our words are like fists in many respects. They reach through the screen and hit the recipient. There are many times we need to recognize this and reform our answers.

When I’m on a forum like this one, I try to pretend that I’m at a café talking face to face with the other person. It helps a great deal.

@Hawaii_Jake Great input, yes! I often cringe at the people who just post “Dump him and move on already” like that’s the easiest thing (or even the best thing) to do in every case. And yet, some detachment as in a therapeutic situation can be helpful. It’s helped me to examine many of my patterns and distortions and enabled me to come to a place where I like myself and feel able to cope with most things. But there are still some fine tuning issues I am looking at.

@janbb Come into my office and lie down on my fainting couch. Let’s talk about this fine tuning.

I often ask myself “Would I say this exactly this way if I were face to face with the person?”

@Hawaii_Jake Can we talk about Mrs. Proudie too?

Let’s do.

No, I haven’t. However, I do apply this in real life in terms of what, if any, advice I give others, only if they ask, 90% of the time. It is always easier to see others situations with clarity and minus the emotional charge that you, as the non-problem person, don’t have going on.
I think it’s also important to remember that sometimes, what one might consider harsh is really how the observer would do it, see it, react to it. I am very non-neurotic and do have a hard time sometimes when people are emotionally stuck in a situation/relationship/ whatever situation and the clear answer IS to leave, move on, dump them.

This is the difference between predominantly feeling vs. thinking personality styles. I try to be aware and take this into consideration but it is not always easy for me, being the type that makes decisions based on logic and rationality not emotion. Sometimes it just seems so crystal clear, if something is making you miserable just be done with it, them. The way I see it is we don’t have a lot of control over many things in life, so when we do have control, in terms of choosing the people in our lives, or our own suffering brought on by people and situations that are in our control and we don’t act on that ability to control/choose, it becomes masochistic and this is where I struggle with supplying endless empathy.

I am aware though and try to remember that personality style and levels of neuroticism make all the difference. Some people are just naturally more fragile, anxiety ridden and fearful while others are more resilient, tough minded and formidable types.

Interesting take @Hawaii_Jake . I can be brutal in real life about personal stuff. If people want my opinion, I will give it – unvarnished. I warn them if it’s a first time. I’m not going to say your husband isn’t so bad if I think he is an asshole. There’s a decent chance I will say he’s an asshole/nasty/whatever.

Don’t ask me if you don’t want my opinion. It’s that simple.

Part of it probably comes from being raised by a mother whose standard reaction to a lot of complaints was…. “move on”. She had no patience with anyone other than my father.

@BellaB I was born and raised in the South. We talk around things and sort of maneuver our way to the subject over a bit of time. We very rarely respond straight to the point. :)

I try to “third person” it, in writing. For some reason, hand writing the problem out, almost in story form, and having it be a third person narrative, one person advising another, really helps me out. I try to imbue the advisor person with a wiser persona.
Here, I always know that I’m me, addressing someone in the second person. Better than just roiling it around in my brain, I guess.

@janbb, I don’t recall you ever black-and-whiting a response to a personal query.

@BellaB Yep, I’m the same way and sometimes telling it like it is is misconstrued as being unkind. I too don’t have the time, inclination or patience to mollycoddle peoples wittle feewings. You ask, I’m going to tell you exactly what I think.

@canidmajor Thanks. I don’t think I do and am not worried about my posts here; I just want to give my own self a slap upside the head about my stuff sometimes.

@janbb Don’t be too hard on yourself we all see others stuff more clearly most of the time because we aren’t, as I mentioned, caught up in the emotional aspects. Sometimes it’s best to just take some space, from yourself and your thoughts too.
Sometimes we feel like we have to have answers NOW when, most of the time, we have time to take our time. :-)

@Coloma Thanks. I just keep stubbing my toe on this one but it hurts a little less each time so I must be doing something better.

<<Kisses cute little bruised penguin tootsies>>

GQ! I’m following.

Well, the update is that I have been talking to myself all week dispassionately and I do see it more clearly. Until the next time…...

^^ May be you can ask a question and answer yourself..What’s weighing on your mind so much?

@imrainmaker Thanks. As I said, I think I have a handle on it now.

Good to hear that ..)

I keep a diary and I think one of the reasons for doing this is to put my life into perspective and see it as objectively as I can, emotions and all. My thoughts clear when I write things down at the end of the day.