You Are Not Your Thoughts

What am I, if not the voice inside my head?

The mind loves to chatter. That’s what minds do. Our minds produce a steady stream of words that narrate and punctuate our lives. You are probably listening to those words right now, consciously or not.

But those words are not you.

Part of you—certainly. But the most important, essential, unique part? I think not.

That may seem nonsensical. It may be the literal opposite of your most fundamental assumptions about yourself. But I suggest that you—what you think of and experience as the essential “you”—and the words that continuously stream inside your head are not the same thing.

This is a paradigm shift you may not quite be ready to make. But please bear with me. There are powerful reasons to approach the words tumbling about inside you with at least some degree of skepticism.

You might think of this as learning a different way to relate to your own mind—a different way of being, even. One that might prove more useful to you than the one you’re currently using.

It’s important to note we’re not going to try to stop your mind from talking.

We’re not going to try to stop the stream of words in your head. We’re not going to judge the words, either. Attempting to control your thoughts is, in this interpretation, one of the surest and most direct paths to suffering.

Rather, we’re going to try to learn how to best work with thoughts. How to listen to them, when it’s useful to do so, and how to tune them out, when it’s not.

To do that, I’m going to introduce you to a series of exercises I’ve pilfered from something called ACT—Acceptance and Commitment Therapy—which was developed by a psychologist named Steven Hayes.

If you’ve never heard of it, ACT is kind of a strange therapy. But it’s also really interesting. In my opinion, it’s not always well-explained (even by Hayes himself), and it’s not always well-practiced (even by therapists who claim to understand it).

Part of what I’m doing, then, is attempting to explain ACT, as I understand it, and perhaps even modify it a bit. Where you find these exercises interesting or helpful, I encourage you to experiment with them.

They’re not hard to do, and they’re not likely to cause any trouble. And if you’ve been struggling with the thought that there’s literally nothing you can do, you might find it comforting to have a set of easy exercises to play with.

To begin our journey, we will start with one of ACT’s core principles: learning to separate your sense of self from your thoughts.

But first, we’re going to listen to a little music…