Thoughts can be likened to the wind, insubstantial, colorless, invisible, yet having an obvious effect.
When people are asking a spiritual teacher about how to remedy their problems, they are simply asking how to deal with certain thoughts and beliefs. They ask all the garden varieties of this but they are still the same category of question, "how do I deal with this thought? " Sometimes the a counsellor can confuse them further by narrowing in on one particular thought or belief. For example, "I believe I am not good enough and it's painful." then the counsellor will tell them to think differently about the situation. This is why psychiatry and philosophy will only take you half there. They both aim at directing your thought and not realizing that excessive thought is the actual culprit for your dissatisfaction.
Caught in a hurricane
When you are immersed in thought it can seem like an ever constant moving force, pulling you this way and that way. "I have some much to do!" "I'm not doing enough!" just like you cannot put out fire with fire, but with water, remedies usually require an opposite. Inner stillness is this opposite. We say "inner" because you can be still in the physical body but overrun with thought. Inner stillness puts thought on the main stage to see. It is also a more practical teaching because you will have to apply it while moving in your physical environment, we can't all sit on a log in the woods and meditate. The Winds Of thought have a very hard time staying gusting when you are still inside. Furthermore, you can identify who it is that requires this movement. That little voice in the head is just a practiced habit that we learned from society. Example, if you think faster you are smarter, and therefore more revered by the public.
Who are you
Keeping in the analogy of thoughts being like wind the following quote shows the relationship between you and thought.
"you are not the wind, but the space the wind blows in" anonymous. Feel the truth of the statement but don't over analyze it or you will be lost in thought again.