Book: Don’t Believe Everything You Think, Why Your Thinking Is The Beginning & End of Suffering

Author: Joseph Nguyen

Key message of the book: The story of our human suffering is directly tied to our thinking. This is because our thinking ultimately determines our feelings. The same experience or event can be perceived in significantly different ways by two individuals, based on the meaning each individual has assigned to it. We have the power to move from a state of suffering to a state of being happy, peaceful and free by paying attention to our thinking and reducing it. The more we are in a state of non-thinking – which is akin to being in a state of flow – the longer we experience our natural state of being which is joy, love and peace: “The reason thinking destroys is because as soon as we begin to think about the thoughts, we cast our own limiting beliefs, judgements, criticisms, programming, and conditioning onto the thought, thinking of infinite reasons as to why we can’t do it and why we can’t have it.” The framework to reduce our human suffering is to catch ourselves in our thinking/suffering, and let ourselves guided by our intuition or inner wisdom to “expand our consciousness and experience a deeper feeling of love at all times, which comes from a state of non-thinking.”

One specific learning from the book:  Based on the same principle of non-thinking, there are two types of goals: goals created out of inspiration, which feel expansive, uplifting, light and energizing; and goals created out of desperation, which feel heavy, draining, confining and empty.

One favorite quote from the book: “We can only feel what we are thinking“; ” We’re only ever one thought, one insight, and one idea away from living a completely different experience of life.”

One favorite passage from the book: 

“Buddhists say that anytime we experience a negative event in our lives, two arrows fly our way. Being physically struck by an arrow is painful. Being struck by a second emotional arrow is even more painful (suffering). The Buddha explained, “In life, we can’t always control the first arrow. However, the second arrow is our reaction to the first. The second arrow is optional.”

Growth Is A Journey book review is intended to represent 1-2 key nuggets of insights from the book, with an invitation for readers to discover the book in its entirety.