Picture an apple in your mind.

A beautiful shiny apple that looks delicious and is ready to eat.

Did you do it?

I’ll trust that you did.

Now tell me, are you that apple?

The obvious answer is that you’re not the apple. You’re only thinking about the apple.

So why the apple exercise?

Well, this is a great example of a conscious thought. However, it’s also an example that illustrates that you are not your thoughts.

Why is this important?

It’s important because your mind is not always your friend. Your mind has a mind of its own. If you’ve ever caught yourself asking yourself, ‘why am I thinking of that?’ Well, that’s your mind churning away in the background just doing its own thinking.

This is neither good nor bad, it just is.

Your mind is an amazing storyteller and concocts images and stories in a blink of an eye, many of which are highly steeped in fiction. Yes, most of the time your mind just makes stuff up. Now how much of the stuff you want to believe is up to you.

Oh, and by the way, it’ll also make up a lot of stuff about you that isn’t true. And the worst part is that it’s not always good stuff.

So how do you know what to believe?

Well you don’t.

But you do have a choice.

You can choose to believe all, none or some of the thoughts your mind generates.

So how do you filter which ones?

Well, what if you categorized them in disempowering and empowering thoughts?

What if you ignored the self-critical thoughts and started to lean heavily into the thoughts that give you self-confidence?

Some might argue that this is not realistic approach to life and that too much self-confidence is not a good a thing. And I would agree with them. But, I’d rather you go out in to world and fail after attempting to do something rather than tell yourself you can’t do it before you even try.

So the next time you find your mind telling you all the things you can’t do or being self-critical, remember the apple. Just because you’re thinking it doesn’t mean that you’re it.

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