Last updated: September 30th, 2024
Our minds constantly generate a stream of thoughts that powerfully influence our emotions and decisions. From mundane daydreams to critical self-talk, they shape how we perceive the world and ourselves – in helpful and unhelpful ways. How can you take a step back to examine the thoughts you’re having?
Why Should You Care About Your Thoughts?
Our thoughts are powerful. They shape our emotions, influence our behavior, and play an important role in our mental health. For example, if we think catastrophe is right around the corner, then as a result we feel anxious and may avoid the situations we’re nervous about. That’s why understanding and managing our thoughts is crucial for mental well-being and emotional health.
Identifying with your thoughts
All of us have minds that are full of thoughts – beliefs, ideas, memories, judgments, predictions, plans, fantasies, labels, and so on. The tricky part about having some of these thoughts is that sometimes we end up mistaking our thoughts for who we are.
For example, you might think, “I’m a New Yorker.” Now whether there is one true, objective definition of being a New Yorker is one thing. Regardless, your holding tightly to this thought as part of your identity is another. It may be important to you, and it may even influence your actions in what appear to be harmless ways (e.g., if you think New Yorkers jaywalk, you might be more likely to jaywalk). But what if the thought you identify with is “I’m a loser”? Or “I’m a failure”? Or “I don’t deserve this success”? Holding on to these thoughts as part of your identity can also end up influencing your emotions and actions. For example, if you think of yourself as a loser or undeserving, you might not even try to pursue the things you want in life.
Still wondering what it means to identify with your thoughts? Well – take a moment to pause and pick up any object around you. (Seriously, try it for a few seconds!) In this exercise, your hand symbolizes you and your awareness. Notice that the object is not glued to your hand. It’s not who you are – it’s just temporarily attached to you. You can grab onto it tightly, but you can also choose to drop it. In the same way, we often unintentionally grab onto our thoughts tightly and get stuck believing that they are truths about ourselves or the world. Yet because these thoughts are not who we are, we can actually learn how to let them go.
Questioning the authenticity of thoughts
One way to start letting go of our thoughts is to begin questioning whether they’re true. Sometimes we don’t see our thoughts as thoughts. We instead see them as facts. For example, if you usually think positive thoughts about yourself and believe them, that probably means you have relatively high self-esteem. On the other hand, if you tend to think negative thoughts about yourself and believe them, you’ll be more likely to have lower self-esteem. We all tend to believe the thoughts that come up in our heads, whether they’re true or not. So if you flip-flop between thinking you’re on top of the world or you’re the worst person ever, you might feel lost and feel like you’re on an emotional rollercoaster.
The danger of reflexively believing your thoughts is that not all of your thoughts are truthful or helpful. For instance, you might think, “I spilled my drink during my job interview. There’s no way they’ll hire me!” and feel despair for the rest of the day, even if you’ve got a good shot at getting the job. Sometimes we get caught in ‘thinking traps’ that can cause us to spiral in anxiety or keep us stuck in depression. It can often be helpful to question how likely or how accurate our thoughts are, by asking questions like:
- Is this thought based on actual evidence?
- Is there another way to look at the situation?
- Would I say this to a friend?
However, challenging our thoughts is just one way to begin seeing thoughts as just mental events, rather than facts. Read on for other strategies.
Separating yourself from your thoughts
Imagine if you could learn to see your thoughts as simply words and images passing through your mind, rather than definitive truths about who you are or things that you need to challenge and change. Separating yourself from your thoughts can reduce their impact on your emotions and behaviors. It can also allow you to control how you respond to your thoughts, instead of having your thoughts control you.
One way to think about it is to think of your mind as the sky, and your thoughts and feelings are the clouds in that sky. Depending on the weather conditions, clouds may form, stay for a while, sometimes bringing with them a storm. Eventually those clouds will dissipate, but the sky remains constant. In the same way, your thoughts and feelings may come and go, but who you are as a person is separate from their comings and goings.
The Power of Observation
Becoming an observer of your thoughts
Instead of challenging your thoughts, you can learn to observe your thoughts. This allows you to create a mental distance from them. Through observation, you can notice that you, as the observer, are separate from what you are observing. This perspective helps you recognize thoughts without getting swept up in them.
Cultivating mindfulness and awareness
Mindfulness practices encourage you to observe your thoughts with curiosity, not judgment. Mindfulness can help you become more aware of your thought patterns and less reactive to them. Instead of struggling to figure out if your thoughts are true or false, or right or wrong, you can just notice them:
- Are your thoughts coming up fast or slow?
- Are they stuck in a loop, repeating the same theme, or are they all different from one another? Or are any of them conflicting?
- What body sensations and emotions come up when you have this thought? How about when you have another one?
By observing our thoughts, we can choose how we actually want to respond to them. We can choose not to listen to them. Or we can choose to act counter to what they suggest we do. Or we can choose to just recognize that a given thought is a mental event without acting at all. Regardless, mindfulness gives us the freedom to choose how to respond to our thoughts.
That said, honing this skill requires regular and long-term practice in order to become more in control of how we respond to thoughts. It will probably be tough at first, since mindfulness isn’t often something we do naturally. Don’t be discouraged if your first few tries feel fruitless – if you keep practicing, it will get easier over time.
Try it out: Detach yourself from your thoughts
You might be wondering how you can shift from being at the mercy of your thoughts to gaining some distance from them. One way to do so is by changing how you talk to yourself.
At one point or another, you’ve probably thought, “I’m worried.” Tweak that a little and you can get more distance from your thoughts: instead, tell yourself “I notice that I’m having worry thoughts,” or “Worry thoughts keep coming up right now.” Instead of saying, “I’m anxious,” you can say, “I notice that my heart is pounding and my hands are sweaty, and these sensations are adding to my anxiety.”
There’s a big difference between telling yourself, “I am a failure” and “I am having the thought that I am a failure.” In the first case, you’re stating it as fact and thus making it harder to detach yourself from the thought. In the second, you’re noticing a thought arise which makes it easier to see it as just a temporary thing that popped up in your mind.
Putting detachment to the test
Let’s try a quick exercise. Tell yourself, “I absolutely cannot touch my ear. There’s no way I can do it. I’m not motivated to do it, my arms are heavy, there’s no way I can physically do it.” While you keep telling yourself that, lift your hand, and touch your ear (if you are physically able to).
Chances are, you were able to touch your ear – even if you were thinking that you couldn’t! In other words, you could think one thing, but do the total opposite. And this holds true for other activities. The next time you think you can’t get off your couch to go hang out with a friend, recognize it as a thought, and choose to go hang out with your friend anyway.
Embracing the Present Moment
Focusing on the present moment helps keep us from ruminating over the past and worrying about the future. It can help us stay grounded so that we can make choices that are more in line with our goals and values, instead of choices dictated by our automatic thoughts. Even when the present moment is tough or full of intense feelings, sometimes just acknowledging the thoughts and feelings we’re currently experiencing can help take away some of our suffering, more than ignoring or challenging them does.
Letting go of attachment to thoughts about the past and future
We usually don’t realize how much of our thoughts are preoccupied with what happened in the past or what will happen in the future. We don’t have much control over either of these, yet we often keep holding on to these thoughts anyway! Staying mindful lets us notice when we’re doing this, so we can choose to let go of these thoughts and live life more fully in the moment.
Of course, this is easier said than done – but practicing mindfulness definitely helps. Observing and separating yourself from your thoughts makes it easier to actually live in the present moment. There are many ways to practice either mindfulness meditation or other mindfulness exercises. If you would like help in finding ways to detach from your thoughts and incorporate mindfulness into your life, consulting with a mental health professional with mindfulness expertise can be helpful.
