What a waste it is to lose one’s mind.

— Dan Quayle

I had paid him a lot of money to say it to me; practically begged him to say it even.  And after everything that had gone on before, I deserved it.

“You’re an excellent mind-fucker,” he said.

My therapist had such a way with words.

I had spent the last two hours, indeed the last dozen sessions, kvetching over my devolving marriage, my career uncertainty and my existential angst.  Ivy trained to think logically, thoroughly, impeccably and completely, I had succeeded in analyzing, examining, decoding and deconstructing each and every aspect of my imploding psychological universe. All without any clarity – or benefit (to me) – whatsoever.

“Perhaps you shouldn’t think so much,” he said.

Good advice, that.

Not that there’s anything wrong with thinking.  It’s important to be able to think things through, weigh the pros and cons, consider the relative merits, perform the cost-benefit analysis, understand the risk-reward ratio. A sound intellect is, well, a sound thing to have.

It’s just that we can over think things way too much.

And the paradox is this: in doing so we can lose our way.

When we think about our goals and objectives, when we strategize and plot and plan, we never see the whole way through to the end. Sometimes the goal seems implausible, daunting and audacious; sometimes it seems unrealistic or even impossible.

Of course the goal-setting is essential. But the thinking and the planning are just a piece of the puzzle.

The magic is in the unfolding.

As a caterpillar cannot possibly think itself  a butterfly, we lack the capacity to think the full potential of our lives. Yet if we allow it, we become.

We start down paths, we think we know the steps. But we can’t possibly see the entire way.

We must trust in the process. It is in the process of our lives that we are transported, transformed,  made new again in ways that we could never have believed or foreseen or imagined – or thought.

Suddenly new horizons open. Fresh possibilities.

Our lives are not problems to be solved. They are adventures to be lived. And experienced.

When we over think, we fail to feel.

When we endeavor to wrestle our stuff to the ground with our intellects, we lose touch with our intuitions.  When we get caught up in our own minds, we lose touch with our bodies. When we stay in our heads, we lose touch with our hearts.

And our hearts always know.

Go ahead and think things through if you must. But then our job is to show up. With courage and with might.

Our goals will unfold. Our projects will unfold. Our dreams will unfold.

Don’t miss the experience along the way. Trust in the unfolding.

You have never known the way. You will never know the way. But the way knows the way. Remember, love would not have carried you this far to let you down. Love moves in mysterious ways, performs beneath a haze. But this unforeseen magnificent power takes us all the way. It make take us away from the way we may assume. But it takes us all the way.

— Tama J. Kieves