That sounds simple and obvious, but it can be life-changing if you embrace it. Don't believe everything you think. Your thoughts are just that–your thoughts. They're not particularly connected with reality. You can acknowledge the thoughts, let them pass and move on. The thoughts themselves have no true existence or substance.

Trouble is, we treat our thoughts like they're reality.

Thoughts (ideas, theories) are just things my mind makes up. That's part of it's job. It's a storyteller, under no obligation to research facts or recreate truth in my head. Much of the time, it's job is to do the opposite, to create an unreal picture of my world to keep me feeling safe, keep me from taking risks, keep me from re-experiencing some pain I may have had at some earlier point in life. To avoid. And my mind doesn't care about what else I may suffer as a result of the actions it leads me to take now because it's only focused on this one small moment (which hurts), not the big picture.

Most often, my mind isn't stepping back to assess, "What's most important to me? What is it I truly want out of life, relationships, work and play? What are my chosen values and goals?" No, the mind's pretty much stuck on short-term gratification: "Gimme it now–and no discomfort, thanks."

So it creates thoughts to bolster this approach. And we accept these thoughts, treat them as reality, and act on them. We embrace and incorporate them. We dwell on them. We rehearse and obsess about them.

"She has it in for me." "I'm fat." "I must be right." "I'm not competent." "Those people are ignorant (lazy, immoral, evil, etc.)." "No one understands me." "I won't survive if I'm not rich (cute, smart, in control, loved, safe, etc.)." "The world is against me/us."

We believe these thoughts, and we suffer because of it.

Time for some healthy skepticism. What are you thinking right now? It simply might not be so…and you'll be far freer if you don't fall for it.

 Don't believe everything you think.

Text and image © 2010 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.