How to Stop Believing Your Thoughts (Even When They Feel True)

Not everything you tell yourself is true. Did you know that?

You might be reading this thinking, “Well, that’s obvious,” or maybe, “Huh, I’ve never thought about it like that.” You could even be somewhere in the middle, mentally sorting through examples to either validate or challenge the statement.

We have millions of thoughts every second, some thoughts that contradict each other while others feel incredibly convincing. But what if I told you this: you are not your thoughts. We’ve become so used to running on autopilot that we believe every single voice in our head. Then, we go digging through past experiences to justify those thoughts, as if they must be true simply because we’ve felt them before. For example, You do something you think is ‘wrong’ and suddenly, that translates into, “I’m a failure.” But you’re not a failure. Just because something didn’t go as planned doesn’t mean that statement deserves to be tied to your identity.

Learning to separate who you are from what you’re experiencing is the sweet spot of the concept of meta-awareness.

What is Meta Awareness?

Meta-awareness is the ability to notice your thoughts, emotions, and attention patterns as they’re happening, without automatically attaching your identity to them.

It’s like observing a thought and choosing not to let it define you. But here’s the tricky part. The hardest step in rewiring your mind is actually catching the thought in the first place. We’re often so deep in autopilot that we miss the internal conversations altogether.

So what do we do instead?

1) Remember your thoughts are not permanent

Emotions are energy in motion. They come and go, if you let them. Ride the wave of the emotion and before you know it, you won’t even remember why you felt the way you did.
Let yourself feel it, but then release it.

Visualise this: Picture water droplets sliding off a leaf. See how effortlessly they glide away? That’s how your thoughts and feelings can move, if you don’t cling to them.

2) Call your autopilot voice out

When you catch yourself lost in thought, gently name it. Say, “I’m having one of those moments” out loud. This simple phrase will bring you back into the present moment and shift your perspective on what you’re telling yourself.

3) Shift your perspective

Ask yourself, ”Is this thought true” or ”What would I say to a friend thinking this”. These questions can shift your minds perspective and loosen the grip of a negative thoughts and puts separation between what is fact and what is fiction.

Meta-awareness doesn’t mean you will suddenly stop having challenging thoughts. But with meta-awareness, you stop letting them define you. They become what they really are, passing visitors, not permanent truths. And with each moment of noticing, you’ll reclaim a little more space in your mind to breathe and not be held by the shackles of negative thoughts.