by Simone Wright

The ability to think is an amazing human gift ~ but an even more amazing skill, is the ability to NOT think. 


From our earliest childhood experiences we are given credit and acknowledgment if we have proven ourselves to be great thinkers. We are praised for being intelligent, clever and astute ~ and we have felt the wrath of our parents or our teachers if we have done something deemed foolish and been admonished with the statement "What WERE you thinking?" There is a huge difference between being thoughtless and being mindless - the thoughtlessness I am encouraging you to consider is a MINDFUL one.

 
Most of us have probably heard the statement that we participate in over 50,000 thoughts a day, our mind, brain and ego place us on an endless hamster wheel of thinking about the who, what, where, when and why of our lives. Then we burden the spinning wheel with the additional weight of our judgments as to whether those thoughts please us, or are good or bad. 


Imagine your self as a little hamster on that wheel, constantly spinning and going nowhere ~ what would it be like for just a moment to jump off of the wheel to take a breath and just BE for a while without having a thought about things?


Despite what we have been taught - this 'thoughtless' place has great power. This is the place of 'flow'. Great athletes, great artists, and great creative visionaries spend a great deal of their time 'off the wheel of thinking.' Their massive skill comes from an intuition beyond thought, and a knowing beyond intellect. Einstein got most of his best ideas when he was OUTSIDE of the laboratory, either walking or dreaming.




Have you ever noticed how many hits of inspiration you get in the shower? Or right before you fall asleep? Why? Because most of us aren't thinking about having a shower, or thinking about falling asleep ~ for a few short minutes, we 'jump off the wheel.'

 
If you are finding yourself stuck and trying to THINK your way into an answer or solution ~ stop. Take a walk out in nature, listen to the birds, look at the trees ~ watch the sun come up, or go down ~ feel the blood and breath flow through your body. Take a shower ~ pet your cat ~ and then keep a pen nearby to write down what 'pops' into your head. Genius does not exist in the brain ~ it exists beyond the mind in the realm of all things seen and unseen ~ and if you can tap into that and get yourself off the wheel, the places you can go and things you can create are limitless!