Today in this blog I want to address the topic and notion that most of us have believed all of our lives, that we are the mind which includes thoughts and emotions. This is one of the most prevalent seemingly built-in beliefs because of societal upbringing and conditioning. Our language plays a huge part in fortifying this “I am the mind” belief. For instance, I am angry. I believe this or that. Just saying I believe is one of the ways we mistakenly identify with the mind believing it is us. When we say we are an emotion, we are declaring we are the mind because the mind is both thought and emotion.

So, once we see this insane loophole what can we do? One small trick that is helping create some space from this identification of the mind as what I am is by saying phrases like “I am using the mind to believe such and such.”

See the mind is a tool. It is not who or what we are but as long as we think, believe, and feel as if we are the mind then we will automatically succomb to the believing of the thoughts that the mind generates. This is why it seems like we are caught in a trap and can’t walk out. The other factor is the fact that believing itself is an act of the mind. The mind generates the thoughts out of nowhere and then believes them. We get entranced and hypnotized into this whole mind matrix when identification occurs.

By remembering as much as possible or continuously I am not the mind and that the mind is a tool yet a tool that can be used by Spirit is how we break free! It is possible and yet it may take time and practice with this technique of taking a step back from the mind by saying I am using the mind to believe____________. But it is a helpful distancing. Just enough of a space to see that you are the one noticing and aware of the mind. When you see that you are the Awareness and not the mind and the thoughts and emotions that it generates there is freedom in that gap. In that freedom, a new choice can be made. The choice is whether to keep “using the mind to believe” a thought or not. This is real power. The power to choose again.

I could have easily titled this blog “Who is the Believer?” Believing we are the believer is also insidious and yet another way the mind keeps us stuck believing all of its beliefs aka lies that it generates. There’s another secret to disidentifying from the mind and its automatically generated thoughts, see through the power of inquiry that the thoughts are lies. Once you see what the mind is doing enough times and this could take hundreds of times seeing how the mind lies, then what you can uncover is the ability to say whoa wait a minute, I don’t have to use the mind to believe that thought. Just because a thought comes into your mind doesn’t mean you need to believe it. Byron Katie says that you are either questioning your thoughts or believing them. So, here’s where choice comes in, the choice to inquire and set ourselves free from the tyrant that is the mind in its current state of affairs, typically wrong-minded or just to keep letting the mind use us and stay stuck in the loop of insanity and suffering.

I invite you to see all of this for yourself. One way to see what the mind is up to and how we so easily fall prey to whatever the mind is saying is by noticing the thoughts that are there in the mind in the first place. Just for one day on a piece of paper jot down everything the mind says. Then you will get to see for yourself what’s been flying underneath the radar.

After that just keep noticing what’s arising in real time. Then practice inquiry if you feel guided to do so. A free helpful resource is http://www.thework.com. There are plenty of free resources to help you in this process. Again, the secret is to have an awareness that what the mind is telling you is false. See this again and again and eventually the jig is up and the mind can’t trick anymore. Once the mind is truly seen for what it has been doing for decades and to just about everyone on the planet, then you can from that point choose to allow your mind to be a tool to be used by Spirit for Truth. This can potentially lead to Spiritual realization, Liberation, and the felt sense of Bliss, which by the way is your True Nature.