I’ve been trying to wrap my head around it for a while now, and yeah, you are the conscious being that hears your thoughts, but how “deep” does that conscience go?
In: Other
In a nutshell, it means you can think about something without acting on it. Thoughts pop into your head all day long that you have *zero* control over. There’s always “voice” in your head telling you that it’s too damn nice outside to be stuck at work and you should take the rest of the day off, for example, or one that tells you to have another beer, you’ll be okay to drive. People who were raised in one society but switched to another still have thoughts that align with their old society all the time, as well.
When people say “you are not your thoughts,” they mean that what matters isn’t what pops into your head but what you do about it. Just because you have the thought in your head doesn’t mean you have to act on it, *especially* if it’s something that you recognize as being wrong. We *all* have thoughts that don’t align with who we are or what our society tolerates.
We, as thinking creatures, get to chose what we do about the thoughts that pop into our heads. We get to decide that we aren’t someone who takes a day off every time it’s nice outside, we aren’t someone who drives home drunk, no matter what that part of our brain says. Your actions are what makes you who you are.
You are not your thoughts.
From a meditative perspective there is the thought and where that thought appears. Every sensation from a loud noise, sight and smell appears in the same place. Some people mean that you are the awareness which is separate from thought.
A more conventional meaning is that you can think things that don’t represent who you are deep down. Sure I’ve thought about slapping the screaming kid but I know that’s not how you raise a healthy person or support them to grow. I am not that errant thought.
You aren’t your thoughts, you just experience your thoughts.
Just like your memories, you aren’t your memories, you just experience your memories.
Just like reality (physical world) , you aren’t reality, you just experience reality.
You are just the observer, experiencing or acting on or acting out your thoughts and memories in reality (physical world).
You are just an observer capable of moving, feeling emotions, sensing and experiencing.
Well we all understand eating healthy, sleeping 8 hours and working out are all great things.
But then we also stop at McDonald’s on the way home and then smoke a cigarette or something.
Your thoughts rarely match up with your actions. Well, way less than it seems untill you start tracking it.
This gets deep though, this is why companies like coke spend millions to make commercials linking coke to a cute moment or a wholesome moment. They don’t even care about advertising it as a drink anymore. Becuase they know linking their drink to a good feeling will cause people to drink it. Even though we know it’s loaded with sugar and is horrible for you lol.
I had a professor who said to imagine your thoughts as a person always standing behind you. You would notice very quickly that this person does not shut up and talks at a very very fast pace. Some of the things they say is absolutely crazy.
Most of your thoughts are like an advisor or manic friend.
“you are not your thoughts” is more intended for a therapy audience, not for a “science” audience. In other words, just because you think something, that doesn’t mean you should believe that is your identity. Just because you have a negative thought, that doesn’t necessarily mean you are that thought (e.g. “I suck at math” doesn’t mean you suck at math). Part of understanding how that works is to understand what your internal monologue is trying to say “I suck at math” = “I’m really frustrated right now that I don’t understand how to do this homework problem.” There’s an issue when you start to “believe” that you suck at math, because you were frustrated by one problem. You can imagine that this can translate into all sorts of negative self-talk.
You may be struggling to understand “you are not your thoughts” from a science perspective – where you might imagine a case where your only identity is in your head, so how could it not be the case… for example, your thoughts include your wants, needs and desires, so of course your thoughts are “you.” What your identity actually is should be considered the sum total of you, the things you like and identify with, and the kind of person you are, and how you relate to people in the world.
> you are the conscious being that hears your thoughts, but how “deep” does that conscience go?
This statement also evokes the idea of the [humunculous](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homunculus#Terminological_use_in_modern_science), that there is a little man in inside our mind that is observing the mind. In other words, there must a “place” that consciousness “lives” in the mind that integrates all the other information and makes all the decisions and thoughts. Such a little man does not actually exist in reality, but the idea of oberseving yourself is a very powerful idea in a lot of psychology, philosophy and [religious thinking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manas-vijnana). There is no actual understanding about how scientifically “real” these metaphors are for understanding how the brain works – but it is a subject of a lot of research on the fringe of neuroscience.
What would you describe as your ‘self’?
Does it include your body? Does it include your mind? Does it include your self from the past? Does it include your children – do you consider then a part of you? Is your self a combination of some, or all, of these things? What is the self?
The concept that you are not your thoughts is based on theories which hold a very minimalistic perception of the self. According to these models, your thoughts are not your self. The narrative that you tell yourself about yourself is not your self either. According to these theories, think of the self as being more of an observer. This observer is your “true” self. This self can observe the thoughts passing through your mind. Therefore, your thoughts and your self are two separate things, and you are not your thoughts.
Mindfulness is based on a minimal perception of the self. One observes the thoughts passing by in their mind and trains their observer self to not react to those thoughts, thus detaching from them.
For more (fascinating) reading about theories of the self, just search for theories of self, cognition, and behaviour. I believe that this minimal view of self is based on Skinner’s Radical Behaviourism – search that for a good starting place.
Also, Get out of Your Mind and into your Body by Stephen Hayes is a brilliant book that describes this concept much better and more eloquently that I can. Highly recommend that.
Your thoughts and emotions are reactions to outside stimulus, whether that stimulus is happening right now or happened in the past. These will happen naturally, they’re like breathing or blinking. You don’t choose them. They just happen as part of how the brain works.
You are the thing that makes decisions.
Another way to say it is that you are not your body or your brain. You are the electrical signals running through your brain. You are following the pathways. What lies on those pathways is not up to you, but which direction you go when the pathway splits is absolutely up to you.
Usually, we say “you are not your thoughts” to help people cope with intrusive thoughts. You will have ugly thoughts but they don’t define who you are, how you act does. You will have unwelcome emotions but you choose how to react to them.
An angle to look at this is through the lens of Depression.
You have a friend, Mike. You see him as the lovable guy, always cracking jokes and willing to help, aspiring to be successful, and fluent in talents you couldn’t imagine attempting.
What you don’t see is Mike at every hour of every day thinking he’s a worthless piece of shit, not understanding why people want him around, living in darkness because he can’t find the will to get out of it, and thinking anything he does is absolute trash because it isn’t godly and perfect.
So who is Mike, really? The little voice telling him to jump, or the culmination of (positive) opinions formed of the world around him? I believe it’s the latter.
It’s along the same line of do you judge a person on their words or actions?
(Note: being hyperbolic for the sake of example)
I think it just means that, to people overall, you are more your actions and words than your thoughts. You can think horrible things all day, and while it might make you feel bad about yourself, it won’t actually harm anything.
Latest Answers