First, we can distance through space. The classic move is known, unsurprisingly, as the “fly-on-the-wall technique.” Rather than examine your regret from your own perspective—“I really screwed up by letting my close friendship with Jen come apart and then doing nothing to fix it”—view the scene from the perspective of a neutral observer. “I watched a person let an important friendship drift. But all of us make mistakes, and she can redeem this one by reaching out to meaningful connections, including Jen, more regularly and more often.”
