You are NOT your thoughts
two Stories & an investiation into this..
Here are the first two stories of a 14 story series - all around the same theme.
Are you your thoughts?
No — you are not your thoughts.
But let's not settle for a philosophical answer. Let's look directly.
🧠 What is a thought?
A thought is:
A soundless sentence in the mind
A fleeting image
A memory, judgment, label, or plan
It comes.
It stays for a moment.
It goes.
You don’t choose them — they appear.
You don’t build them — they arrive fully formed.
You often don’t even know what the next one will be until it lands.
If you were your thoughts, you'd be able to stop them at will.
Or at the very least, you'd know what you're going to think next.
But you don't.
Thoughts arise in you —
but they are not you.
👁 So what are you, then?
Notice this now:
A thought appears.
We cant see it’s origin
A reaction happens.
But the whole process is mysterious.
Thoughts come and go like clouds in the sky.
You are not the clouds.
You are not the sky.
💭 But why do we feel like we are our thoughts?
Because thoughts often say things like:
“I am not good enough.”
“I need to do better.”
“I don’t understand this.”
And we don’t question the voice.
We believe it.
But try this:
Let a thought appear.
Watch it like a passing cloud.
Don't stop it. Don't resist it. Just observe.
Ask yourself:
Who is watching this?
Does the only appear in thought?
🔍 Inquiry
If I don’t follow this thought, what remains?
If the thought disappears, do I disappear with it?
If a new thought arrives with a completely different opinion — am I now a new person?
No.
You’re still here.
Not the voice.
Not the story.
Just this.
🌿 So… are you your thoughts?
No.
You are unknown and unknowable.
And the beautiful thing is:
When you stop believing every thought…
A different kind of freedom begins to open.
Thoughts arise.
You don’t summon them. They just appear.
And yet… somehow, they’re noticed.
Before the thought “I am not good enough” finishes itself, being aware of it happens.
Not analyzing.
Not judging.
Not trying to hold or reject it.
Just… aware-ing.
No spotlight. No watcher. No "thing" being aware.
Just the simple, wordless happening of this noticing.
Then the thought passes.
And again — before the next one arrives — there’s still this aware-ing.
Not waiting. Not doing anything.
Just here. Just happening.
Nothing needs to be added.
Aware-ing is already occurring.
Not something you do.
Not something that happens to you.
Just the quiet, ungraspable verb that is always underway.
And when thought says, “This is me,”
even that is seen — not by someone,
but in the movement of aware-ing itself.
No object.
No subject.
Just this ever-present revealing —
before the story.
Before the label.
Before the name.
You don’t need to define this.
You can’t.
You can only… rest as it.
Which is no resting at all.
Just… not interfering.
Aware-ing continues — even now.
Here is a short story — told simply and intimately — about someone beginning to notice what remains when thoughts no longer define who they are. No conclusions. No concepts. Just the unfolding of direct experience and the quiet discovery of aware-ing.
The Unnamed Light
They had been sitting for a while.
Not in any special posture.
Not trying to meditate.
Just tired of their own noise.
Thoughts had been loud all morning —
a relentless loop of subtle panic:
“Why can’t I focus?”
“What’s the point of all this?”
“You’re still not there yet.”
They didn’t argue with the thoughts.
They also didn’t follow them.
They just let them pass, like kids yelling outside a window.
And something surprising happened:
The mind slowed down… on its own.
Not into stillness — not exactly —
but into something wider. Softer. Uncomplicated.
A thought rose again:
“Maybe I’m starting to figure this out.”
And before that thought could take root —
before it could wrap itself in meaning —
they noticed it.
Just that.
No analysis.
Just… the appearing of it.
And then the fading.
And in between?
Not a void.
Not a someone noticing.
Just this subtle, wordless happening.
Aware-ing.
No beginning.
No end.
No center.
Like the room was seeing itself.
Like life was lighting itself up from the inside.
No need to grasp it.
No urge to define it.
And even when a thought came back —
“Is this what they mean by awareness?”
— there was no one to answer.
Just the noticing of that thought too.
And it passed.
And the body sat.
And sounds filtered in.
And the light shifted on the floor.
And all of it was known —
not by a knower,
but simply by… being known.
That was enough.
Later, a friend asked how their morning had been.
They opened their mouth, then paused.
How do you speak of something that didn’t happen to you?
How do you describe the taste of something that didn’t arrive —
because it was always already there?
They just smiled, shrugged, and said,
“Quiet.”
And the conversation moved on.
But inside, the silence hadn’t left.
Because it hadn’t arrived.
It had only stopped being overlooked.
Here's a deeper and more emotionally resonant version of the story — focusing on the impact of believing thoughts, the unfolding transition into aware-ing, and the quiet rediscovery of body-wisdom beyond the mind’s constant narrative.
The Quiet Turning
They used to believe every thought.
Not because they wanted to.
Not because they trusted them.
But because it never even occurred to them not to.
The voice in the head was just… there.
Running commentary.
Harsh whispers.
Endless planning.
Tight loops of “what if” and “you should have.”
And it felt like truth.
“You’re falling behind.”
“They don’t really like you.”
“You need to get it right this time.”
It wasn’t just exhausting — it was life.
A life lived inside invisible walls made of sentences.
A prison built from unquestioned thoughts.
And worst of all —
they believed this meant something was wrong with them.
The overthinking.
The looping.
The mental noise.
They thought it meant they were broken.
But one day, something cracked.
Not dramatically. Not spiritually.
Just a simple, quiet moment when they realized:
They were suffering from the way they were thinking about suffering.
The loop was feeding itself.
The thought “This shouldn’t be happening” was more painful than what was actually happening.
And in that pause — that crack — a tiny thread of curiosity appeared.
“Wait… what is this voice?”
“Is it even true?”
“Who says so?”
That’s when things began to shift.
Very slowly.
First, they noticed the thoughts.
Caught in mid-sentence, like someone turning on the light in a room they’d always walked through in the dark.
Then they started to question them.
“Is that thought helping right now?”
“Or is it just a reflex?”
“If I didn’t believe this thought, what would be different?”
The thoughts didn’t stop.
But something changed.
They stopped being the air they breathed.
They became objects — seen, rather than lived from.
Eventually, the thoughts moved to the background.
Not silenced.
Just… de-prioritized.
Like radio static behind the sound of actual life.
And in that space, something unexpected opened:
The body.
Not the body as a problem to fix,
but as a quiet, ancient compass.
They noticed how the stomach tensed at some thoughts —
and relaxed with others.
How truth felt like breath dropping deeper.
How lies made the chest tighten.
They learned to ask, not the mind,
but the body:
“Is this thought aligned?”
“Is this action clean?”
“Is this the way forward… or the old loop again?”
And the body spoke — not in words,
but in sensation.
In warmth. In softening.
In yes and no without argument.
Now, they still had thoughts.
They didn’t need them to stop.
Sometimes the mind still threw up fear.
Still told stories of not-enough or almost-there.
But now, those stories were… stories.
Sometimes useful.
Often not.
And never them.
Because now, something else was moving.
Not a new belief.
Not a higher self.
Just aware-ing.
Just presence.
Just the breath, the step, the sound of the world unfiltered.
They had returned to the simplicity of this moment.
Not by force.
Not by escaping thought.
But by letting thought fall —
naturally —
into its right-sized place.
A tool.
Not a ruler.
And when they forgot again — because they did —
they just came back.
Back to the body.
Back to the breath.
Back to the groundless ground of now.
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