You’ve Been Tricked Into Believing You’re Something You’re Not

A neuroscience-backed breakdown of the false self—and the 7 identity traps that keep you stuck.

Your brain is lying to you right now.

And the most terrifying part?

You believe it.

Everything you think you are—your name, your job, your memories, your body—is a carefully constructed illusion.

A mask.

A magic trick your mind has been performing since birth.

This isn’t mysticism. This is neuroscience.
And it’s backing up a 3,000-year-old spiritual truth that dismantles your identity piece by piece.

In the next few minutes, I’ll walk you through the seven biggest lies you’ve ever believed about who you are.
By the end, something will still be here.
But it won’t be who you think.

1. Your Name

Your name feels like you.
It’s what people call you, what’s on your ID, what you answer to without thinking.

But it’s just a sound someone else chose.
A label.

You were alive before you ever heard it.
You could change it tomorrow and still feel like yourself.

One woman I spoke to had used three different names as an adult—after marriage, divorce, and the latest linked to a business rebranding.
“Each one felt like a new outfit,” she told me.
“But the person wearing them never changed.”

Your name is useful.

But it isn’t you.
It’s just what people shout when they want your attention.

2. Your Age

“Act your age.”
But what does that even mean?

Age is just a number.
You didn’t choose it.

You don’t control it.
It updates automatically once a year.

I met a 72-year-old woman who longboarded down coastal roads and did handstands on the beach.
She didn’t “act her age.”
She acted like herself.

If you can feel 17 at 70 and 100 at 30, then your age can’t be your identity.
It’s a number. Not a truth.

3. Your Job

At parties, it’s one of the first things people ask:
“So, what do you do?”

But they don’t want your actions.
They want your identity.

“I’m a doctor.” “I’m a marketer.” “I’m a musician.”
We say it like it defines us.

But if your identity disappears the moment you get laid off or switch careers, it was never you.

It was a hat you wore. A script you followed.

You are not your LinkedIn bio.

4. Your Memories

Memories feel sacred.
They shape your story, your personality, your sense of continuity.

But science says they’re unstable.
Every time you recall one, you physically rewrite it in your brain.

(Want to blow your mind? Investigate where memories are stored according to neuroscience. Then investigate cases where people have in various ways lost those parts of their brain and survived…)

Neuroscientist Dr. Elizabeth Loftus showed we can even be tricked into remembering entire events that never happened.

And yet, even when memories fade or warp, something remains.

5. Your Thoughts

Descartes said, “I think, therefore I am.”
But he might’ve had it backwards.

Thoughts come and go without your permission.
One moment you're making a grocery list. The next you're arguing with someone in your head.
You don’t control them—you know them.

In deep meditation, flow states, even deep sleep, thoughts stop.
But you don’t vanish.

So who’s doing the noticing?

6. Your Ego

You say “I” dozens of times a day.
But who is that?

The “you” at 15 is barely recognizable now.
The beliefs you’d die on a hill for back then? Gone. Replaced. Rewritten.

Psychologists call this identity the Default Mode Network. Your brain’s storyteller.
It stitches your life together into a coherent narrative.

But when it quiets down, be it in meditation, trauma or awe, something else is unveiled.

Awareness. Silence. Presence.

That stillness underneath your story?
It doesn’t change.

7. Your Body

Of all the illusions, this one’s the hardest to let go.

Your body feels like you.
But science shows nearly every cell in your body is replaced multiple times throughout your life.

The body you had at five is long gone.
And yet? You feel the same.

Lose a limb, get a transplant, go blind? The sense of what you are doesn’t disappear.

Scientists have even tricked people into feeling like a rubber hand was their own, just by stroking it right.

Your body is a home. A tool. A beautiful costume.

But it’s not you.

So… What Are You?

You’re not your name.

Not your job.

Not your memories.

Not your thoughts.

Not your ego.

Not even your body.

So what’s left?

The only consistent.

Watching. Noticing. Dreaming.

Some suggest noticing the watcher; this is a stepping stone.

A place for the ego to hide in understanding.

Watching the watcher when neither is real.

Want to know the truth?

There isn’t even a watcher.

There is never really a subject, only the knowing.

There is no watcher.

There is no chooser.

Anything you think you are, by definition you cannot be.

The ancient Sanskrit practice neti-neti (“not this, not that”) has guided people to this realization for thousands of years.

Now, neuroscience is catching up.

Strip away what you’re not, and what remains must be what you are.

You can’t see it.

You can’t understand it.

You are it.

Want to Know the Secret?

Look within yourself.

Answer this question:

Are you aware?

Are you aware?

Where you went inside yourself to check?

That is what you are.

It’s what everyone is.

It’s the real you:

Infinite.

Indescribable.

Perfect.

📌 Restack if you still think you are the body but are nevertheless intrigued

📌 Forgive and love yourself unconditionally you legend

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