Eckhart TolleNYT Bestselling author of the Power of Now

The Stories You Tell Yourself Are Not Real | Eckhart Tolle

7 Jan 2026 · 1 min

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Eckhart Tolle explains that much of the suffering people carry is self-created through repetitive mental narratives and the accompanying emotions. He distinguishes between conditioned mind activity (stories in the mind) and the actual reality of one's life, noting many people mistake these narratives for justified responses to external events. This chunk is an introductory monologue highlighting the concept of mental-emotional burdens as illusory selves.

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The more you think about your life, the more problematic it gets. Obviously, many people carry a huge burden daily and this burden is my life, which is the self that's created by the mental narratives, the emotions that accompany the narrative. Often it's horrible. Some people carry an almost permanent burden in their mental emotional field which they don't recognize as self created. They believe it is a genuine, justifiable responsibility response to their external situation and what has happened to them in the past. They do not recognize that their response is a conditioned mind activity that is not the reality of their lives at all. It's a story in the mind.