Yesterday I took my husband to my favorite little teashop in a quaint part of town. It’s one of those teashops located in an old rundown building that at first appears to be a bit scary. But upon entering, you feel the ambiance of a totally hip renovated shop complete with a water feature and a large golden Buddha. While ordering our spiced chai with blended ice (pretty much the most delectable tasting smoothie-like drink in all the world), a stocky man enters with a stack of books in his hands. With the look of a graduate student pulling an all-nighter, he takes a seat at a nearby table, placing his books carefully down.  My husband, instantly intrigued, notes the titles of the books, one being: “Teaching Peace.” Pretty cool, we both think.

We sit down waiting for our chais to blend up, when we notice the man beginning to talk to himself. Hot tea is brought to him in an old-fashioned teapot. He pours the hot water into his cup. Looking straight ahead, he continues his conversation. After a minute, he gets up and grabs several packets of white sugar, sits down and in deep thought again continues talking with someone he is most likely seeing, but we are not.

This man is probably suffering from schizophrenia, I casually mention to my husband, a disorder making it difficult to differentiate between real and unreal experiences. It was intriguing, however, to watch this man associate and connect with something not real. He exuded sincerity and I speculated he must have been discussing peace with his phantom friend and how to spread this message to the world.  More importantly, it was interesting to see how he was completely unaware of his delusion. In his world, everything he was thinking and seeing was real.

My husband commented to me how difficult it must be to live this way. I paused, reflected and explained that to some degree we all do.  We tend to believe our thoughts and often act accordingly. How about the thought: “I’m a worthless person”? When one believes this thought, one might feel depressed and fail in their health, at work or in their families. How about: “I’m nothing without the person I love”? When one believes this thought, one cannot find their inner strength and power. “I’m a terrible mother.” This thinking leads to giving up when life gets a little tough. “I’m too old to start over.” This drains you from the passion that still resides in you. What thoughts are you believing?

Truth is, when we believe our thoughts, most of which are simply broken records there to debilitate us, we are no different than the man we would deem crazy. At least he is reading books about peace. Are we even searching for that or are we completely identified with the voice in our heads that create confusion, chaos and stress?

Thinking is there to help us create, not to cause mental illness that comes from repetitive dialogue in the mind.  If you’re not using your thinking to create something, you’re in the realm of schizophrenia. Thinking about the past, worried about the future, over-analyzing an issue, reliving an experience over and over again — all qualify. If it’s not happening now, you are making up stories. And likely those stories are not between you and an imaginary friend. Those stories are between you and your life. Your schizophrenic thoughts are stopping you from living your life fully and seizing the opportunities that are awaiting a fresh mind.

Fortunately, you hold one vital element that a mentally ill person does not have: awareness. Although the man at the teashop may never become aware of his disorder, you can. Simply by recognizing the thought, you can overcome it. By bringing awareness to it, a little space is created between you and the thought and that gap is all it takes to let the delusion pass. What is left is unyielding pure power to create your life as you desire. And that is as real as it gets.

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