Don’t Believe Everything You Think

How the stories in your mind quietly construct your sense of self

Eileen Gu is not who you’d expect to be teaching Buddhist psychology.

If you watched the winter Olympics this year, you know who I’m talking about. She’s a 22-year-old Olympic gold medalist and one of the most decorated freeskiers alive. She’s also extremely smart and talks a mile a minute. When you listen to her talk, you’ll need to check the video settings because you’ll think you mistakenly hit 2x…but that’s just how she speaks.

Beyond the supernatural athletic ability, she’s also remarkably thoughtful and reflective. A friend of mine shared a clip where she was asked to share a bit about her inner life, and it was not what you’d expect. She didn’t talk about the usual stuff you hear Olympians talk about, like using visualization to imagine the perfect performance. She talked about the self, and how it’s much more malleable than we usually think. More specifically, she explained how our thought patterns create our identity, and how we can therefore change our identity by changing the stories we tell ourselves. It could have come straight out of a Buddhist meditation manual.

“You can control what you think. You can control how you think.” She said, “And therefore you can control who you are.”

Watch Eileen’s full reflection here: (click on image)

She clearly didn’t stumble upon this insight by accident. She journals. She breaks down her own thought processes. She approaches her inner life, as she puts it, the way she approaches her craft – with curiosity, intention, and a willingness to tinker. And through that process, she landed on something that Buddhist psychology has been pointing to for about 2,500 years.

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The Illusory Self

One of the most central ideas in Buddhist psychology is the principle of anatman – usually translated as “no self.” I know, it sounds either mystical or slightly alarming. But what it’s actually saying is pretty practical.

It doesn’t mean you don’t exist. It means the version of you that feels solid and fixed – the one that says I’m just not a confident person or I’ve never been good at that – is largely a construction. These are the stories the mind tells so consistently, and for so long, that we stop noticing that they are just stories in our minds.

Here’s how it plays out. You say something in a meeting that doesn’t land well and feel a flash of embarrassment. Within seconds the mind is already narrating: that’s so me, I always do this, I’m someone who freezes under pressure. The moment becomes a data point. The data point becomes a story. The story gets filed as a fact about who you are. And the next time something similar happens, the story is already running before the situation has even unfolded.

We spend so much energy trying to change our circumstances, our habits, our results. But most of us are walking around inside a narrative about ourselves that we never chose, never examined, and mostly don’t even know is there.

This is exactly what Eileen Gu figured out: She realized that although we all feel stuck in our habits, roles, and personalities, none of this is fixed. It’s only the ongoing narrative in our minds that makes it seem that way.

In other words, our sense of self is not set in stone. Identity is a creative process.

In realizing this, Eileen hopped into the driver’s seat and became the architect of her own identity.

Linking this back to the Buddhist principle of no-self, the reason why this is so important is that much of the suffering we experience in life is rooted in this fundamental misperception. We simply do not see ourselves clearly. We view our lives through the distorting lens of the incessant chatter of our minds, and mistakenly think that all the stories it tells are true. But they rarely are. So the key to inner freedom isn’t to avoid pain, heartache, and loss (that’s impossible), but rather to work with the layers of thought and emotion that we carry around like old baggage. And all of that is rooted in this misperception about the self.

Most of us spend our lives trying to avoid pain and discomfort. It never works, but we don’t know what else to do, so we keep trying. If we stumble upon a self-help book or go see a therapist, we might take a more sophisticated approach and turn our attention to the inner landscape of thoughts and emotions. This is a huge step forward, but we’re still not at the root of the problem (according to the Buddhist approach). The final step is to dig deeper and inquire into the usually unconscious beliefs that underlie our thoughts and emotions. And if we keep this up, sooner or later we arrive at the self, and we see that everything we assumed to be true about who and what we are is largely an illusion. Not nearly as solid, fixed, and “real” as we often assume. It’s one of the most liberating insights you could possibly have.

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Deconstructing the Self

So, how do you actually do this? Well, it takes time, but here are some simple steps to get started:

Step 1: Notice

The first step isn’t to change anything. It’s just to see what’s already happening.

Most of us are so immersed in our inner monologue that we don’t even notice it’s there -- we’re just living inside it. The shift is simple but not easy: instead of being swept along in the current of your thoughts, you step back just far enough to notice the current exists.

No judgment, no analysis. You’re not trying to figure out if your thoughts are right or wrong. You’re just noticing: “Oh, there’s a stream of commentary running right now, and I can see it!” This is an incredibly important insight. You’re out of the current. But at the beginning, this doesn’t last long. Your thoughts will pull you back in immediately -- that’s what the mind does. But every time you catch yourself and return to that watching stance, you’ve done a rep. Over time, you’ll stay out of the current longer, and it will get easier and more frequent. Small steps, many times. Just be patient.

Step 2: Get curious

Once you can see the stream, you can start to look at it honestly.

Ask yourself one question: how is this inner narrative shaping what I’m experiencing right now? Is it giving me an accurate read on the situation, or is it skewed? Closing doors that aren’t actually closed? Missing something important?

The key here is curiosity, not judgment. You’re not trying to fix anything yet or talk yourself into feeling better. You’re just looking. A good scientist doesn’t berate the data -- they get interested in what it’s actually showing. Same thing here. Curiosity is the key. It’s a skill. Practice it.

Step 3: Get creative

Now you can play with it.

Try on a different thought. Shift the tone -- from harsh to curious, from closed to open, from “I’m not someone who does that” to “I haven’t done that yet.” Notice what changes when you experiment with the wording, the framing, the story itself.

This isn’t about forcing positivity or talking yourself out of real feelings. It’s about recognizing that you have more say in this than you thought. Gu has been doing this deliberately for years -- approaching her own mind like a craft she’s still learning. The same option is available to you.

The key insight with this step isn’t to form a new and better identity, but rather to realize that any identity is a construction. An illusion. This may sound weird or esoteric, but it’s incredibly liberating when you begin to taste it for yourself. A whole new world of possibility will open up.

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Give It Time

Most of us carry a private archive of stories about ourselves.

Stories about our personality. Our habits. Our flaws. The parts of ourselves we assume will never change.

We repeat these stories so often that they start to feel like facts.

When the insight of “no self” begins to sink in, it starts to dissolve that archive. One assumption after another comes into view, then loosen, then dissolve. Not all at once. Slowly.

The strange thing is that this process releases energy. When the mind stops defending an old identity, space opens up. You’ll feel it as a visceral sense of release when it actually happens.

This isn’t always comfortable. Those stories have been with us for a long time. Letting them loosen requires patience and care.

But over time something beautiful happens.

You begin to see that who you are isn’t fixed. It’s something unfolding. Something you are participating in, moment by moment.

Warmly,
Cort and Richie

P.S. If you’ve been experimenting with these practices, we’d love to hear what you’ve learned from your own experience.

And if this is new territory for you, we’re curious to hear what you think.

Stay in touch. We always appreciate hearing from you.

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