Gotta give it some thought.

Cupbearer, pour the wine! Let it flow and keep flowing!
I am sick of swinging between hope and fear.
Shatter thought, I want nothing to do with it!
Tear from my heart all unstable imaginings!
Hack from their chains the shameless joys of passion!
Dance into our assembly, Beloved, unveil Your Face
Scatter graces with each swirl of Your robe of Flame.
Look at these madmen dancing out of themselves for You:
See how they致e stripped themselves of the rages of time!
Jalal-ud-Din Rumi
(Translated by Andrew Harvey from A Year of Rumi)

Shatter thought, I want nothing to do with it!

What a thought!

Imagine, nothing to do with thought? Imagine, not thinking about thinking about what I'm thinking about!

Shatter thought.

I think a lot. It's a habit. And.... truth be told, I kinda like it.

I'm like my girlfriend's daughter who at five said, "Mommy, there must be something wrong with me. My mind won't stop."

For a long time, "There must be something wrong with me" was my motto. Perhaps when I was a child that was the refrain, "There's something wrong with you. You think too much." I know I was always being told to quit thinking so much. To be quiet and not speak my mind. I once dated a man who used to say, "Louise, the most dangerous neighbourhood for you to be left alone is your head."

Harumph.

I quit dating him.

There was a time when I tried to quell my thinking.

Tried to freeze it up in a vat of happiness.

Stop it up in a vial of joy.

Even tried baths of sadness and sorrow.

But nothing worked.

My thinking just wouldn't give itself up.

So I've given into it.

I'm a thinker and there's nothing wrong with my thinking as long as my thinking doesn't stop me from living this one, wild and precious life in the rapture of now.

And that means, ensuring my thinking isn't all wound up in beliefs that would have me living less than, other than, different than my dreams.

I am my thoughts. My thoughts are not me. Thoughts pop into my head -- sometimes I'm even surprised at what thoughts appear! The challenge and my responsibility is to ensure my thoughts do not control my actions. My thoughts do not dictate my life.

sometimes, it's important not to believe everything I think! Because sometimes, my thinking can be messed up like the recycle bin or stirred up like a fruitshake without any protein in it! sometimes, my thinking will make me believe I need to throw out the good with the bad and drink the elixir of self-limiting beliefs without nourishing myself with truth, integrity and love.

And when my thinking gets that messed up -- I'm in trouble. I'm not thinking straight. I'm thinking from my emotions -- and I know what that gets me!

Thinking straight is not for the faint of heart. It's for the full of spirit few who have the courage to step back from ego and sink into soul to trust in the Divine grace of the One who is the One within me and you and you and you.

Sometimes, thinking straight means getting straight on my stuff versus your stuff. My ego versus my pain. My fear versus my reaction to what's happening to the world around me.

One thing I've discovered in all my thinking years is that as long as I let my thoughts out on paper, on the screen before me, my thinking doesn't stop me from feeling and dreaming and being all I'm meant to be. When I clean out the cobwebs of my mind by setting them straight on the page, I open myself up to living fearlessly, leaping for joy, doing what is right -- for me and the world around me, creating ripples that reflect my higher good, travelling spaces that expand the possibilities for better in the world around me, no matter what anyone else thinks.

That's what I think. And that's what I know to be true for me.

My friend Joyce has an invitation on her blog today to 'go wild'. She's asked a really good question -- What would you do for 2 hours today if you knew you had permission to be wild?

I gotta give that some thought!