09/08/2026
In a clip posted online, Harvard-trained psychiatrist Dr. Kavetha Sundaramoorthy shares the first thing she teaches “every patient” she treats. She pulls out a whiteboard and places three Post-it notes on it. The first reads “Experience.” The second says, “Story.” The third reads, “Reaction.”
She shares, “Your mind operates at three levels. The first one is a direct experience. So for example, ‘My wife rolled her eyes at me this morning.’ For most of us, our mind immediately makes up a story about that experience, using the word ‘because.’ ‘My wife rolled her eyes at me because she thinks I’m stupid.’ This story agitates our nervous system and causes us to react, either by yelling, shutting down, or walking on eggshells. THIS is the cause of human suffering.”
She asks, “How do we break this cycle?” and then places a smaller Post-it note on the board between “Story” and “Reaction.”
“We break it by a tiny step called ‘awareness,’” she says. “It sounds like this: ‘I notice a part of me feels angry.’ This language, ‘I notice that a part of me,’ allows you to have a little bit of distance between you and your thoughts and emotions. And that’s all you need to remember that thoughts and emotions are like clouds in the sky. They come and go. You are the sky, itself. And when you do that, instead of reacting, you’ll be able to respond in a calm and wise way.”
