It happens to me again and again that, in the middle of an entirely ordinary situation, I suddenly notice how far ahead my thinking has already run. A look, a remark, a short message is enough, and within seconds an entire story begins to form in my mind. I interpret, assume, remember, draw conclusions and start reacting inwardly to something that may not even have happened in that way. In the past, I hardly paid attention to these inner processes. Thoughts were simply thoughts. They appeared, disappeared again and, at first, seemed to have little to do with the direction of my life. Only over time did I begin to see more clearly how often I am not reacting to what is actually in front of me, but to what my thinking has made of it.
What is strange about this is that thoughts rarely feel like a foreign voice. They speak in my own tone. Precisely because of that, it is so easy to believe them. When the thought arises within me that something will probably go wrong, it does not necessarily feel like an assumption. It can feel like a sober assessment. When I think that another person is rejecting me, it may not appear to me as an interpretation, but as perception. And if, over the years, I have told myself again and again that something does not suit me, that I am not made for something or that certain things simply are the way they are, an inner reality can emerge that I eventually stop questioning altogether. I then move within boundaries whose origin I barely remember.
Many of these thoughts do not arise consciously. They are older than the particular situation in which they appear. Some seem to come from experience, others from sentences I once heard, from expectations, social ideas or from an attempt to protect myself from disappointment. Our brains naturally work with habits, experiences and predictions. They try to classify situations and draw on what is familiar. That is deeply human and helpful in many moments. But I have noticed in myself how easily a familiar pattern of thought can become an invisible guide. Something happens today and is judged through something that may have originated many years ago.
That is precisely why I find the idea so interesting that we often think of ourselves as very conscious decision-makers. I decide for or against a person, a path, a task or a change, and afterwards I explain to myself why that decision was reasonable. Yet when I look more closely, I sometimes discover a longer story that came before it. A thought created a mood. That mood altered my perception. From that altered perception came a reaction, and from that reaction eventually came a decision that, in hindsight, feels completely logical. The real beginning of this process can lie so far back that I no longer see it at all. I only see the result and take it to be my free, clear choice.
I notice this especially clearly where thoughts repeat themselves constantly. A single doubt is unlikely to change my life. But a thought that appears again and again over many years can gradually become an attitude. “This could be difficult” can eventually become “I can’t do this.” One bad experience can turn into “People are just like that.” From the feeling of not being enough in one particular situation can slowly grow the belief that I am fundamentally not enough. Such sentences do not have to be consciously thought all the time. The deepest beliefs often run so naturally in the background that they no longer appear to be thoughts at all. They feel more like facts about ourselves and about the world.
I have experienced how strongly such inner ideas can even influence what I notice in the first place. When I enter a situation with a particular expectation, I often notice exactly the things that fit that expectation. That does not mean that I create the world however I like, or that everything is simply a matter of thought. That would be far too simple for me. External circumstances are real, other people have their own will, and life cannot be shaped according to our wishes merely through positive thinking. What I do influence, however, is the meaning I give to an experience. Two people can go through something very similar and respond to it inwardly in completely different ways. Even within myself, the same situation can affect me differently on different days, depending on which thoughts are already active within me.
Over time, it therefore became important for me not to equate thoughts with truth. That sounds simple at first, but in real life I find it far more demanding. A thought can be extremely convincing. It can be linked to a powerful feeling and therefore seem even more real. And yet, at first, it is still an inner statement about something. This small distinction has changed a great deal for me. I do not have to fight a thought, nor do I have to replace it immediately with a more pleasant one. Often, it is enough simply to recognise it as a thought. In those moments, a small distance appears between what arises in my mind and what I choose to do with it. For me, that distance is not an empty space. It is a piece of freedom.
This is exactly where I see a close connection with my book I – Your Best Liar. In it, I explore the many ways in which we influence ourselves without consciously noticing it. This does not happen only through obvious self-deception. Far subtler are those thoughts that have become such a familiar part of our inner everyday life that we no longer examine them at all. We act according to them, avoid certain experiences, look for confirmation of our own view and then call it personality, reason or reality. What interests me less is whether a thought is right or wrong. I find it far more revealing to see how much power it gains the moment I forget that I can think it without having to follow it.
The more attention I pay to these inner movements, the less clear-cut the idea becomes that I shape my life solely through conscious decisions. Much of it happens more quietly. A thought changes the way I look at something, the way I look changes the feeling, the feeling changes my next reaction, and eventually I find myself in a place I am convinced I chose entirely consciously. I do not find this realisation unsettling. Quite the opposite. It makes me more curious about what happens within me before a decision becomes visible. Because somewhere between the first barely noticed thought and the step I eventually take lies a part of my life that I overlooked for a long time.