You Are Not Your Thoughts

What if you are not your thoughts?
We can spend so much time and effort trying to control, change, or silence our thinking, especially when our thoughts are worrying, frightening, or self-critical.
But what if we don't have to believe every thought that appears in our minds?
In this talk, Chana Studley explores the nature of Thought and why our thoughts can feel so real. Through an Inside-Out understanding of the Three Principles, you'll discover a different way of relating to your thinking and a glimpse of the wellbeing that is available beneath the noise of the mind.
You don't have to control your thoughts to experience peace.

Transcript

Have you ever had a thought that you didn't want to have? Maybe a worried thought, A critical thought, A thought about something that happened in the past? Or perhaps a thought that simply appeared out of nowhere and made you feel uncomfortable? And then, Almost immediately, You started wondering, Why am I thinking this? Or even, What does this say about me? Here's something I'd love you to consider. What if a thought is simply a thought? We have thousands of thoughts every day. Some people say we have 80 or 90, 000, I don't know, Right? But some are useful, Some are interesting, Some are completely random, And some are wonderful. And some thoughts we'd really rather not have. But we don't usually choose them, They simply appear. And yet, When a difficult thought appears, We can immediately assume it means something important. I thought, So it must be true. I thought it, So I must believe it. I thought it, So there must be something wrong with me. But is that actually true? Think about the last time you changed your mind about something. At one point, You were absolutely convinced of one thing, And then later you saw it differently. The thought changed. You didn't disappear. The thought did. Or think about how different life can look depending on your mood. When you're exhausted, A problem can seem enormous. The next morning, After a good night's sleep, Exactly the same problem might seem much more manageable. The circumstances haven't recently changed. Your thinking has changed. And this is incredibly freeing to notice because it means that we don't have to treat every thought as an instruction. We don't have to argue with every thought. We don't have to believe every thought. And we certainly don't have to build our identity around every thought that passes through our minds. So the next time you notice a difficult thought, Try something very simple. Instead of, This is true, What if you had nothing on it at all? You don't have to make the thought disappear. You don't have to replace it with a positive thought because, Well, That's just more thinking. You might just notice it. And recognize you're having a thought. And perhaps you'll notice something interesting. Thoughts come and go. Sometimes they stay for a while. Some thoughts feel like they're stuck and I'm going to talk about that in another audio. But I promise you they're always moving like the clouds in the blue sky. And underneath all that changing thought there is something that is simply aware of the experience. You are the thinker of the thoughts. You don't have to manufacture that awareness. It's already there. And perhaps this is another reason why you don't need to be afraid of your own mind. You are not your thoughts. You are the thinker of the thoughts. So today, If you notice what feels like a difficult thought, You can just watch it go by. You don't even have to comment or analyze it or encourage it to leave because the nature of thought is to always keep moving. And then life continues. You don't have to fix your mind and you don't have to fix yourself. Just notice. I'm Hannah Studley from the MindBody Institute, And it's been great hanging out with you today.