Don’t take your thoughts too seriously.

In 2022, videos of author Joseph Nguyen reading passages from his short, self-published book went viral on TikTok. He never expected that his self-help guide would become a global bestseller. The book has now been translated into more than 40 languages.

Nguyen’s message can be reduced to one sentence: Taking your thoughts too seriously leads to suffering. In 17 brief chapters, he expands on this idea, explaining how to change your relationship with your own thinking mind, become more present, connect to a state of flow, trust your intuition, and move beyond the fear of relying on non-thinking.

Thinking Makes It So

Reality in itself is meaningless, Nguyen avers: You give situations meaning only when you think about them and create a frame to interpret them. Thus, the emotional reactions you have to your experiences are not externally derived but are internal responses to your own thinking.

Thoughts are the energetic mental raw materials we use to create everything in the world.Joseph Nguyen

While negative emotions are useful for helping humans navigate threatening situations, they serve little purpose otherwise, Nguyen says. But you can learn to identify your negative thinking patterns, detach from perceptions that you find triggering, and connect to authentic feelings of joy, levity, and peace.

You can’t always control the thoughts that pop into your mind, Nguyen says, and that’s OK. Your thoughts aren’t the problem. It’s the act of engaging with your thoughts that spawns negative feelings. For example, if someone asks you to name your dream annual salary, a number will pop into your mind. There’s nothing right or wrong about that thought — it’s just a number. Now take a moment to imagine earning that salary: You might conjure guilty thoughts, such as “Nobody in my family has ever earned that much money” or “I’d be greedy to want that much.” This spiral of thinking breeds negative feelings and suffering.

Take It Easy

Don’t force yourself to think optimistic thoughts, Nguyen says. Positive thoughts don’t arise from thinking but from residing in a natural state of serenity and joy. Nguyen suggests taking a moment to recall your happiest memory: Your mind won’t be flooded with thoughts, because feelings like joy, love, and gratitude are the natural state of being.

Newborn babies born into safe environments are never stressed out, on edge, afraid, or anxious. Their default setting is love, peace, and joy. Alas, thinking removes humans from that natural state of being.

Thought is not reality; yet it is through thought that our realities are created.Joseph Nguyen

Nguyen advises trying to calm yourself and slow down your mental activity instead of ideating positive thoughts. Imagine you have a “thought-o-meter,” he says, much like a car’s speedometer, that races when you’re caught in a stressful cycle of thinking. When you consciously slow the pace of your thought-o-meter, you begin to reconnect with your natural state of being.

Go with the Flow

Nguyen assures readers that restraining your thinking doesn’t mean abandoning your hopes and dreams. In a flow state of non-thinking, he suggests, your goals will be different — the products of “inspiration” rather than “desperation.”

Goals that spring from inspiration feel like a “calling” driven by a potent internal motivation, asserts Nguyen. They energize you, and endeavoring to fulfill them brings you joy. When you slow down your racing mind and stop thinking, you reconnect to the Universal Mind — the “life force and energy” that animates and connects all living things, and the source of all intelligence — creating space for divine inspiration to bubble up. It’s this Universal Mind that inspires goals when you’re in a connected state. Perhaps a voice in your head urges you to quit your job and pursue your dreams, Nguyen suggests. Or maybe you’ll simply have a gut feeling, and suddenly the path you need to take to achieve something becomes clear.

This is when faith becomes of the utmost importance — having faith that things will be OK. Know that the Universe is working for you, not against you.Joseph Nguyen

By contrast, goals that arise out of desperation trigger negative thinking, avers Nguyen. You feel a duty to fulfill them, and when you finally achieve them, you still feel empty and yearn for more. If you feel like you’re constantly “chasing, grinding, hustling” and feeling generally anxious and overwhelmed, getting to the bottom of your to-do list doesn’t trigger positive emotions or relief, as you haven’t yet done the internal work needed to connect with your authentic self.

Nguyen claims that solutions and creative ideas will come to you when you make space for them by following three steps. First, he suggests, acknowledge that thinking is the source of negative emotions; second, have faith that the answers will come to you when you surrender control of your thinking mind while creating time and space for the solution to emerge spontaneously; and third, note any positive feelings you begin to experience as you let go, amplifying emotions such as love and peace, which will make you more receptive to the answers you seek.

Teaching the Ultimate Lesson

Heady stuff. Much of it derives from Zen Buddhism, and — as Nguyen notes — from the ideas of Sydney Banks, whose writing and teaching in the 1970s did much to popularize the idea that human experience takes place from the inside out. This is genuine ancient wisdom, and no wonder many reviewers — and TikTokers — have called Nguyen’s book life-changing.

It’s worth pointing out that Nguyen — a former photographer, filmmaker, and healthcare worker who left the field after the COVID-19 pandemic — lacks formal credentials in psychology or philosophy. That doesn’t disqualify him from passing on or even originating spiritual ideas. Banks had been a welder when he experienced a spiritual transformation that led to his formulation of the concepts Nguyen echoes.

For many readers, Nguyen’s book will seem blithe or naive. Who can take seriously the notion of leaving daily decision-making to the Universal Mind? Does he have a mortgage? Does he know the price of groceries? But for others, Nguyen will provide a first taste of Eastern philosophy, self-awareness, mindfulness, and paths toward genuine enlightenment. Not bad for the price of a dozen eggs.