Is What I’m Telling Myself True?

We think a lot.

Thoughts move through the mind constantly, most of them unnoticed. Some are practical and helpful — get up, make coffee, answer that email. Others are less so. And it’s usually the unhelpful ones that get loudest when we’re trying to change something.

That’s because thinking tends to ramp up around change.

When people feel stuck, it rarely has much to do with what’s happening on the outside. It has everything to do with the way their thinking has narrowed around the situation. Certain thoughts begin to feel absolute. Convincing. Final.

And when a thought feels true, we act as if it is.

It’s easy to forget that thoughts aren’t facts. They’re momentary descriptions of reality, shaped by mood, habit and state of mind. When the mind is unsettled, thinking sounds more urgent and more believable than it really is.

That’s why a simple question can be surprisingly helpful:

Is this actually true?

You’re not analysing. You’re not challenging it. Just as a quiet pause.

Often, the moment you ask the question, something shifts. The thought loosens. Another perspective becomes available. Or the certainty drops away enough for common sense to re-emerge.

The mind doesn’t always like this. It prefers familiarity. Even unhelpful conclusions can feel safer than uncertainty. But you don’t need to fight that either.

Awareness does the work.

When you begin to notice your thinking — not to change or fix it, but to see it — it naturally loses its grip. You start to recognise patterns. The same explanations. The same reasons. The same stories that appear whenever you’re about to move in a new direction.

I don’t have time.
Now isn’t the right moment.
I can’t do this while everything else is going on.

Sometimes those thoughts dissolve the moment they’re seen. Other times they hang around, but with less weight. Either way, they’re no longer running the show.

You don’t need to write them down or argue with them. You don’t need to replace them with better ones. Just noticing that they’re thoughts — not instructions, commands or the truth — is often enough.

From there, possibility opens up — because you’re no longer being held in place by something that was never solid to begin with.

And often, without any effort at all, the next step makes itself clear.

 Photo by  Max from Unsplash