> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.gilespcroft.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# The freedom of ‘real and not true’
- URL: https://www.gilespcroft.com/the-freedom-of-real-and-not-true/
- Published: 2025-02-22T07:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-03-23T08:57:50.000Z
- Description: If somebody else has a different experience of something… whose experience is ‘true’? 🤔
- Author: Giles P Croft
- Tags: Thought realisation, Sunday Spiritual, Real stories, Psychology, Neuroscience, Metaphor, MECHANICS, Life change, Consciousness

I was working with a client and from having observed their own behaviour for a while, they arrived at the following, powerful realisation:

> *“You can’t change your experience. I just have to see that it’s my thinking about it that’s causing how I feel.”*

Wonderful. This helped them so much and took such a weight off.

Because they’d seen that while the experience is *real* (the situation is happening; the sensations of it all are being felt – we’re not denying anything here), it’s not *true.*

Because it’s made of Thought.

A quick note on terminology 

![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9b/f3/9bf3d316-7d32-494b-814f-a7d94d6358c3/content/images/2026/03/IMG_0763.jpeg) 

Oh how I wish we hadn’t landed on the word ‘thought’ to describe the felt human experience. It’s quite possibly the biggest source of confusion around the [3 Principles](https://3pgc.org/faq/?ref=gilespcroft.com), and it has a tendency to become a big stick with which to beat ourselves.

So, for the record:  
→ **Thought is NOT ‘thinking’**  
→ **Although ‘thinking’ is made of Thought.**

But only because **everything* is experienced via the Principle of Thought.

What is Thought, then?

Why not consider it as being perception.

It’s everything we perceive; everything that consciousness brings to life in our awareness. It’s the *entire* experience we’re having (of which ‘thinking’ is only a tiny little bit, almost layered on top of it – the DVD [commentary track](https://www.gilespcroft.com/my-mind-has-been-quite-helpful-recently/), if you like)!

So for example, as I type this, I’m having an experience of this thing my keyboard and my wrists are resting on, that we collectively know to refer to as ‘desk’.

I have an experience of that. It’s solid; material and it’s perceived. It’s real and I feel it. It’s made of Thought-perception.

But if my Dad—a carpenter—were here, he’d take one look at it and say,

> *“Where did you get this piece of crap?! What a waste of money! Let me make you something better.”*

They’re two totally different experiences.

(Not ‘points of view’ but literally **different realities being created** – made entirely out of this thing we’re labelling as ‘Thought’.)

Both of them are *real.*

But neither of them are *true.* (How could they be? Whose version is ‘right’??)

---

And as my client saw, it’s the same with all your reactions to everything. All these perceptions of life’s happenstance. They’re all real. Own them. Don't push them away. That’s your stuff, right there.

Just know that it’s **not true**.

There’s real freedom in that.

It changes the way we view situations. There’s more curiosity—*“Oh, look how the mind is responding to that!”*—rather than being *in* it, pulled this way and that way by it; a victim of circumstance; taking on these reactions as ‘how I am’ when they’re simply not true.

Because, as I heard Dicken Bettinger once say, 

> *“\[It’s\] a thought-created feeling experience, that’s only held in place by the thinking we’re doing in that moment.”*

😮

Giles

p.s. In tomorrow’s Daily Reminder I’ll share a personal example of how this played out, to my advantage, in a real life scenario. *(You can jump in the Time Machine and* [*read it now*](https://www.gilespcroft.com/no-use-crying-over-spilled-milk/)*!)*

### Related

[Mountain - No Mountain - Mountaina.k.a. The Enlightenment Path explained 🧘🏻‍♀️![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9b/f3/9bf3d316-7d32-494b-814f-a7d94d6358c3/content/images/icon/DR_Lockup-Black-3-479.png)The Daily RemindersGiles P Croft![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9b/f3/9bf3d316-7d32-494b-814f-a7d94d6358c3/content/images/thumbnail/GC-YTthumbnail-WW15_1-MountainNoMountain-1-3.jpg)](https://gilespcroft.com/mountain-no-mountain/?ref=gilespcroft.com)

A 19 minute-long video in which I comprehensively unpick ‘Real and not true’ 💝