You Are Not What You Think

March 1, 2025 Life Lessons No Comments

You wake up in the middle of the night.
A thought is already waiting for you. It might be about something you forgot to do, something that might happen, or something that already happened long ago.
You try to ignore it, but it grows. More thoughts arrive, pulling you into a story. Before long, you’re not just lying in bed — you’re living inside your mind.
Who is doing this?
And… who is noticing?

The voice in your head

There’s a constant stream of thoughts running through your day. Plans, memories, little judgments about yourself and others, passing worries, flashes of creativity.

This stream feels like you. It speaks in your voice, after all. It knows your history. It can be clever. It can be cruel.

But here’s the thing: you can hear it.

And anything you can hear… is not the one who is listening.

You may find this strange at first — even disorienting. It’s like realizing that the mirror isn’t your face. Or that the story you’re telling yourself about who you are is only one story, among many possible ones.

The mind is not the enemy here. It’s doing what it does best: thinking. It wants to help. But it doesn’t always know when to stop.

A step back — or inward

You don’t have to fight your thoughts. You don’t need to silence them. That would be like trying to calm a lake by beating it into stillness.

Instead, what happens if you just sit beside the lake?

Let the thoughts ripple across the surface, while you remain in the space that holds them.

You are not the ripples.
You are the presence that notices the movement.

This noticing is not passive. It’s not indifference. It’s alive — aware, curious, unhurried.

Freedom in a different direction

Many approaches try to change thoughts. Make them more rational, more positive, more helpful.

That can work, sometimes.

But another path opens when you begin to realize that you are not what you think. You are not the sum of your mental habits. You are not your self-criticism, your overthinking, your endless rehearsals of future conversations.

Those are weather patterns.
You are the sky.

And skies don’t resist. They hold space.

From this perspective, even difficult thoughts soften. Not because they’re gone, but because they’re no longer mistaken for you.

The deeper self

So who are you, then, if not your thoughts?

That’s a beautiful question.

Not one to be answered quickly. Not something to explain.

But something to feel, perhaps — in the pauses between thoughts, in the moments where no narrative is running, and yet you are still here.

Maybe there, you will meet a presence that has always been waiting. Quiet, patient, and endlessly kind.

It doesn’t mind what you think.
It just is.

A last thought

So — you are not what you think.