why is it easier to give other people advice?

[sassparella]

Why is it easier to give other people advice than to take it ourselves?

I was considering this earlier when replying to a post, and thinking how strange it is the way our brains work, that we can be so logical one minute telling someone else they are suffering from Health anxiety and that their fears are groundless and then be so irrational the next when we consider our own symptoms. Why can't we access that logical part of the brain when considering our own situations? Why does our brain always leap to the worst possible outcome and latch onto it? CBT addresses this and tries to teach us to see our thoughts for what they are, but it is something we have to work at, whereas we can just 'see it' when advising others. Why does our thinking get distorted about our own health in the first place? Our brain has the capacity to see things as they are, to not catastrophise, to cooly and calmly assess the threat and see that the most likely outcome is benign, you see it every day on this board where people give good advice others in one post and then in the next post express their own worries and fears.

The brain truly is a bizarre organ.

[oregoncoastlady]

SO TRUE!

[gcalex]

Because when advising others there is no influence of fear.  It's easy to be logical when emotionally detached.  It's a challenge to be logical in the face of fear.  But that's exactly what must be done -- challenge fear with logic until you can see the fear for what it is and take away its power.