We spend our lives taking pictures. Not with a camera, but with our minds. Every experience leaves an impression: something someone said to us, a moment when we felt rejected, a success we were proud of, a mistake we wish we could undo, a belief we learned from our family, an expectation we absorbed from our culture, a story we began telling ourselves about who we are.

I've been noticing that there is a point where problem-solving quietly turns into trying to control something that isn't actually mine to control.

'The bridge and the bubble' is a metaphor for what happens when attention moves from direct experience into imagination—and how we can learn to notice that transition earlier.

The past several months have been challenging for me. Amongst the difficulties I faced were two significant health scares and having to...