Inquiry · “You Are Not Your Thoughts”
Non-Identification & Non-Considering
To catch oneself ‘identified’ — swallowed up in a thought, emotion, argument, or person — and step back into oneself; and to release ‘inner considering,’ the anxious preoccupation with what others think of us.
Non-identification in 4 lines: When you notice you’ve vanished into a thought, mood, argument, or person — “of myself nothing remains” — that noticing is the step out; return to the sense of I am here. Watch especially for inner considering: anxious concern over what others think of you, the feeling of being owed regard. See the hidden demand, and let it drop.
What it is
For Gurdjieff, the great thief of presence is identification — the moment attention is swallowed by something so completely that “of themselves nothing remains.” You become the argument, the worry, the irritation, the pipe you’re smoking; there is no longer anyone home who is having the experience.
He called identification “the chief obstacle to self-remembering. A man who identifies with anything is unable to remember himself.” The practice is to catch the moment of being lost and step back into oneself.
A special, social form he named “considering.” Internal (or inner) considering is the anxious, energy-draining preoccupation with what others think of you — feeling slighted, unappreciated, owed regard — which he distinguished from external considering (genuine, deliberate empathy and tact toward others).
The work is to notice inner considering and release it. It operationalises attention (The Inner Creates the Outer), the witnessing return to oneself (Life Is a Dream), and a non-clinging, non-resisting relation to inner states (The Inner Creates the Outer).
The Method
From Ouspensky’s record:
- Learn what identification feels like from inside. Gurdjieff: “It is necessary to see and to study identifying to its very roots in oneself.” Watch how, in interest, argument, worry, or grievance, “of themselves nothing remains” — the self disappears into the object.
- Be on guard, gently merciless. “In order to free himself from identifying a man must be constantly on guard” — not harsh, but unwilling to be fooled, “not afraid of seeing all the subtle and hidden forms which identifying takes” (it disguises itself as “enthusiasm,” “zeal,” “passion”).
- In the caught moment, step back into “I.” The instant you notice you’ve been swallowed, return to the sense of yourself perceiving — re-establish the one who is having the experience (this is where it joins self-remembering). You need not win the inner argument; just stop being it.
- Spot inner considering by its flavour. It sounds like: they don’t value me enough; that was a slight; what did she think of me; I’m owed more courtesy. Gurdjieff: a man “is identified with what others think about him, how they treat him, what attitude they show towards him.” Name it as considering.
- Release the “requirement.” Inner considering rests on a demand that others should recognise and esteem you. Seeing the demand for what it is — and letting it drop — frees the energy it was burning.
- Replace it, where fitting, with external considering — actually putting yourself in the other’s position out of conscious choice, not anxious self-concern. (Sourcing note: “the chief obstacle to self-remembering,” “unable to remember himself,” “see and study identifying to its very roots,” “constantly on guard,” “of themselves nothing remains,” and the account of internal vs external considering are Ouspensky’s wording of Gurdjieff’s teaching, attributed.)
Source & Lineage
The teaching is Gurdjieff’s, via P.D. Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous (1949). It sits inside Gurdjieff’s larger picture of human multiplicity — that we have not one “I” but a crowd of shifting “many I’s,” each seizing the wheel in turn, with no permanent self to govern them.
Identification is how each passing “I” captures us whole. (The “many I’s” picture is offered here as Gurdjieff’s framework, not as settled psychology.) Non-identification is therefore not mere calm — it is the precondition for the stable “I” the whole Work aims at. → (Gurdjieff; cf. Ouspensky).
Common refinements
Confusing non-identification with detachment or suppression. The aim is to stand with a feeling, not to deny or numb it (see safety). You step out of being run by anger; you don’t pretend you’re not angry.
- Weaponising “considering” to dismiss real concerns. Not every grievance is mere inner considering; genuine injustice exists. The test is the energy signature — anxious self-referential demand for regard — not the content.
- Trying to suppress the “I’s” by force. You can’t out-muscle identification; you can only notice it and step back. Force is itself usually a fresh identification.
- Refinement: Use friction as the lab — the moment you feel slighted or swept into an argument is the richest training ground. Tag it silently: “identifying,” “considering,” and return to yourself.