Thoughts and Inner Peace...can there ever be harmony?

I remember when I first became aware of thoughts.  They were simple. "I want that toy".  "I want ice-cream not broccoli."  "I want to go outside to play".  "I want to wear my red dress today."  Those simple thoughts were all relevant and mattered to me. As I got older and my world got bigger, my mind became a storage depot for all sorts of things. They just started accumulating. As my experiences expanded so did my collection of thoughts. Unsolicited they came. It was as though my mind had become a spammer. It became like a whirlwind. Imagine climbing a ladder with four arms and four legs. Wouldn't work very smoothly would it? How would I ever sort through all my thoughts?  Should I be examining every thought?   Some thoughts were just too enticing not to follow. So down the rabbit hole I went. That answer I gave in science class really was stupid. And now everybody else knows that I really am stupid. I am stupid.  And before I know it, I absolutely believe that I am stupid.   This is a thought and a thought does not make it true.  Here's the kicker...I have a choice, I can believe this thought or not. I do have that choice.   

Thoughts are a fact of life. The question is how can I have thoughts and inner peace? Here's what I have discovered. Thoughts in and of themselves are not a bad or negative thing. Thoughts are a tool so I don't want to restrict or eliminate them. I have found that when I am aware of my thoughts (in other words I am in a conscious state), rather than allowing them to be a random thing, I can decide which thoughts I want to embrace and which thoughts I will let go of. Kind of like choosing to open an email or choosing to delete an email.  I don't need to stop my thoughts, but rather step out of them to maintain my inner peace. My body lovingly lets me know when I am out of awareness. My gut starts churning, and I know it is time to stop my thoughts and come back into awareness and I have my inner peace back. I have made the choice to live with peace.

As you take two minutes to consider peace for our world today, think about how you can become aware of your thoughts and step into inner peace.