Temporal Distancing

Temporal distancing is a tool in which you mentally time travel by visualizing the future. In the coming weeks, I will be posting some things on the law of attraction and how our thoughts create reality. The law of attraction plays along with the idea that Ethan Kross is discussing in his book Chatter on temporal distancing.

Kross discusses a technique called temporal distancing as a way to decrease the negative chatter in our minds.

Consider how you felt in the first days of quarantine during the pandemic. Your mind is filled with racing thoughts, news reels of tragedy and fear, hosts of unknown answers to a million questions. Your mind was caught in the citta vrtta (monkey mind) of what if’s. The technique of temporal distancing has been studied to show that when going through a challenging time period you can visualize your feelings about this same situation five or even ten years from now to help change your perspective.

Think about that for a second. If you had used temporal distancing in the throes of your fear to curb your negative thoughts by thinking about how you’ll feel about COVID 19 five years from now, you’d likely imagine yourself healthy, in a stable economy, with only bland memories of this difficult time in our history. You would visualize laughing and joking about the rampage of hunting down the last roll of toilet paper and ridiculously Cloroxing all of your grocery items.

Temporal distancing is a way of calming the mind of major stressors such as deadlines, relationship problems, fears of public speaking, performance reviews, or tests at work or school. All things that seem critical in the moment, but years later likely won’t seem like anything you should have worried about in the first place.

The only thing constant is change. And though it may not seem like it when you are in the midst of a challenging life experience, your life in this moment will change rapidly and will soon become a distant memory.

The next time you are feeling distressed I challenge you to settle into a brief meditation or to journal and write out your future. Imagine your life five years from this challenge and picture your life turning out positively. Paint the picture of how you want your current scenario to turn out and feel it in your bones. Allow the law of attraction to bring more positive outcomes into your life. Let me know if you try it or have tried temporal distancing as a technique.

And if you still need guidance, someone to really hear you, and some assisted self-care, contact me.