Thoughts gone wild

Listen to this as a podcast or read below.

Ever have those days when your thoughts don’t even bother to complete themselves, when your brain feels like it’s spinning wildly out of control, when you’re not even sure whose thoughts are roaring inside your head? Or when you can feel you’re in a strong downward spiral thought loop that is no good for you at all, when every attempt to focus fails, when you ping from one possibility to another, when stream of consciousness is beyond flash flood stage?

Well, if you don’t ever have these raucous, out of control brain days, then yay you! 

For those of us who do, at least occasionally, have thoughts gone wild days, you have my compassion and respect. 

Now don’t get me wrong. I treasure the holy wild inside of us, that part of us that refuses to be fully domesticated, that has no need to beat ourselves into submission to the bell curve of what passes for normal, that part of us that trusts our intuition and our creative fire. 

And I have deep respect for those of us who are neuro-diverse, with brilliant brains that, to the outside world could look completely out of whack, but those of us with them know as home. I’m pretty sure I’m in this tribe. 

What I’ve learned, usually the hard way, is that when I’m spinning, when I can’t seem to focus or make a clear decision, when I don’t even feel at home in my own being, in the spiraling down into the unhelpful depths of confusion, I can feel a wee bit of fear. Ok, maybe some panic because no one really wants to lose their minds, do they? 

So, both to offer something to you and to have a handy cheat sheet for my future self as well, here are some ways to get clear and grounded when you want to harness the energy and reduce the panic of thoughts gone wild.

Always, always, always, and you’ve heard this before, I say just sit down and let yourself breathe. Let your absolutely gorgeous mind/body be as it is. Without judging yourself. Let me repeat – breathe and appreciate your exquisite brain, even as it is in wild moments. 

There are perfectly good reasons for whatever is going on within us that causes our thoughts to run wild. If it helps, after you’ve rested and taken some time to simply breathe, you could make some journal notes about what some of the good reasons for your spinning thoughts might be. But there’s no need to solve or blame or shame yourself or anyone else right now. 

When we are in times of overwhelm, chaos and danger – if not for us personally, then for our loved ones or other people – of course our thinking minds can reflect that chaos. Our brains are attempting to make sense out of instability, shock, or simply the too-muchness of life. And when we have continuous input into our brains through a flood of images, messages, stories of pain, injustice and suffering, or the real, nearly unsurmountable work that we’re facing, it’s completely understandable for our brilliant brains to seem like they’re skitzing out. Sometimes the problems or projects we need to deal with seem so vast and out of our control that the smart parts of brains are no match for our body’s primal wisdom. When we witness the unthinkable, repeatedly, we can end up, as they say, marinating in our own cortisol, flooded with stress hormones, unthink-able. Unable to think clearly.

And sometimes, what I initially perceive as my jumbled, wild brain, is really my heart that’s going wild. So many powerful emotions may be stomping their feet to get my attention, emotions that simply won’t let me push ahead as usual, in that moment, won’t let my brain think its way into peace, calm, clarity. Again, nothing wrong with this. This is our body/mind/heart informing us, letting us know that answers lie elsewhere within us. 

One of my favorite Rumi quotes fits nicely here:

Sit down and be quiet.
You are drunk, and this is the
edge of the roof.

So, brilliant one, sit down and be quiet. Breathe and be deeply compassionate with yourself and others. It’s hard to be human. It’s a monumental challenge, sometimes, to pull ourselves out of the overwhelming wave of chaotic energy, the rush of our busy, demanding, choice-filled, heart-tugging, rapidly changing and not always for the good, present situation.

If you’re someone who calms better in motion than sitting, then move in the way that soothes you. Dance, run, walk. Being in Nature – in movement or sitting – can significantly amp up our access to calm. But don’t add one more obstacle, if it’s challenging to get to a safe green space easily.

Sit or move as works best for you. But huge, really big, don’t forget this: disconnect from even more input. Unplug, turn off, shut the door to any more data, information, stimulation, that your heart/mind/body would have to process. Circuit breakers prevent serious meltdowns. Don’t burn yourself down.

Taking a few moments to sit down and be quiet without judging your wild thoughts and with appreciation for your brilliant brain in process can often be enough to calm and focus you.  There are many ways to proceed from here, when you’re ready. Too many to include in this short segment. Stay tuned or contact me. For now, here’s one.

Remember spinning in circles as a kid until you collapsed on the grass? Or remember what you know about doing balance postures in yoga? Remember when you’ve tackled super big, daunting things in the past?  You learned to solve one problem at a time and then move onto the next one. 

Bottom line in these memories: pick one focus point, either one point on the horizon, or one point in the floor in front of you, or one problem that you can start with before moving on to the others. Then listen to the whispers of your heart/body/mind beneath the swirl of wild thoughts, the whispers you know are solid and trustworthy. Pick one point and then move towards it, even if it feels not nearly enough for all that’s competing for your attention, for all that you want to do or need to do. 

Pulling ourselves out of the swirl of chaos is a critical, absolutely necessary skill in these times. We will get caught again and again with our thoughts gone wild in the chaos of change, in overwhelming situations. It’s a natural human thing.

So, darlings, pause, breathe, quit judging yourself for this understandable human response, pick one focus point, trust yourself, and make one choice moving you in that direction. Repeat the process as needed. Experiment with other ways that work for you. 

Here’s a closing question: What if our thoughts gone wild is a flirt from the universe, reminding us to pause and reconnect with ourselves, with our heart/body/mind wisdom, so that when we’re in an altered state we don’t fall off the roof?