The answer is cruft. The question is: What is the root of all problems in life?

Daniel Raphael explains that cruft is a computer programming term to describe badly or outdated code, which usually happens as software coders build upon old operating systems. This creates breakdowns, glitches, lags and system failures.

He says that we all have cruft from our upbringing in this crazy world. This cruft conglomerates into the false identities in your psyche which try to repress, control or protect parts of who you truly are. Cruft happens when you process life with your mind instead of through awareness.

According to Michael Singer there is nothing more important than realising that you are not the voice of the mind – you are the one who hears it. “If you don’t understand this, you will try to figure out which of the many things the voice says is really you. People go through so many changes in the name of ‘trying to find myself’. They want to discover which of these voices, which of these aspects of their personality, is who they really are. The answer is simple: none of them.”

So, if you want to find out who you really are, you have to ask: To whom do these thoughts come? The trick is not to fight your thoughts or try to suppress them or deliberately change them. You just have to witness them, allowing them to be exactly as they are. “Suffering happens only when there is movement to manipulate, escape, overcome, or neutralize thoughts,” explains Scott Kiloby.

Byron Katie says a similar thing: “It’s important to realize that inquiry is about noticing, not about dropping the thought . . . Inquiry is not about getting rid of thoughts; it’s about realizing what’s true for you, through awareness and unconditional self-love. Once you see the truth, the thought lets go of you, not the other way around.”

She says that a thought is harmless unless we believe it. “It’s not our thoughts, but our attachment to our thoughts, that causes suffering. Attaching to a thought means believing that it’s true, without inquiring. A belief is a thought that we’ve been attaching to, often for years.”

According to Byron Katie you need to become familiar with the particular stressful thoughts you use to deprive yourself of happiness. After all, as Alain de Botton says, the largest part of what we call ‘personality’ is determined by how we’ve opted to defend ourselves against anxiety and sadness.

For one thing is sure, fear and sorrow will rear their ugly heads every now and again. You lose your home or your job or both. You get a dreaded diagnosis. Someone you love passes away. Reid Tracy, CEO of Hay House, says that it’s easy to start feeling sorry for yourself when something like this happens. It’s also easy to become obsessed with the question of why.

Why now? Why me? Why did this happen? The problem with why-questions is that they focus you on the past, looking at what you may have done wrong or who you should blame. And when this search comes up empty, you get more anxious and more stuck.

In a conversation Reid had with Kriss Carr about her new book, ‘I’m not a mourning person’, Kriss gave some great insight about a shift in thinking that can help you when something throws you off balance. She said that ‘what’ is a better question to ask than ‘why’. What is going on in my body when I have these anxious thoughts? What part of my body feels the most scared or anxious? What can I do to support myself now?

Kriss says that focusing on ‘what’ instead of ‘why’ not only lowers your anxiety, but also brings you into the present moment instead of getting stuck looking back or spinning your wheels with worry about the future.

In this way you can shift your thinking so that you can get your racing thoughts back into the present moment, where true awareness lies. Just don’t think that this is a magic trick to control thoughts that you shouldn’t even try to manipulate. You just have to witness them.

Girlfriend, it’s as Byron Katie says: “If you want real control, drop the illusion of control; let life have you. It does anyway. You’re just telling the story about how it doesn’t.”