I often hear meditation teachers say to observe your thoughts as if clouds in the sky. Just let them float by.
I’m not able to do this. All I can do is observe a thought retrospectively with another thought. More like a stream of thoughts with no separate observer.
I often hear that by observing your thoughts your realise they are not you. But to me my thoughts do feel like the deepest part of me. A constantly changing field of words, images and awareness. I can observe emotions and sensations etc but not thoughts
Does my mind work differently to other people or do some have a similar experience to me?
It sounds to me like you’re on the right track. Often the first step is exactly what you’re describing: realizing a moment later, “Oh, I was thinking.” That retrospective recognition is still awareness of thought. Over time, you may begin to catch thoughts earlier, sometimes while they’re unfolding.
Something that helped me grasp this was thinking of it as taking a small mental step back from the thought. One of my favorite teachers, Eckhart Tolle, often points toward asking: who is aware of this thought? You might answer, “I am.” Then ask, who is the “I” that notices it? That can reveal a tiny bit of space between the thought itself and the awareness noticing it.
The fact that you can already observe emotions and sensations is a great foundation. Thoughts can be especially slippery because the thing doing the noticing can itself feel very thought-like.