CATEGORY: Little Pieces Of Life

Lesson 1

Thoughts That Give Birth to More Thoughts

It is late afternoon, and I am still at the beach. I have had my swim, and now I am sitting in my little beach chair, looking out at the sea. The heat of the day has begun to fade, and a gentle breeze drifts in from the water, cool against my skin. It is that time of day when the beach slowly begins to change. The sun is sinking lower, the shadows are growing longer, and the bright light of the summer afternoon is becoming warmer, softer, as though it too were preparing to give way to evening.

The sea stretches out before me.

The sun has begun its journey toward the west, and the whole horizon is changing. The blue of the day slowly recedes, giving way to colors that were not there just moments ago. Orange, gold, a touch of pink higher up, and between them, thin ribbons of clouds glowing at the edges as though they have caught fire. The lower the sun sinks, the deeper the colors become, as if someone were slowly brushing paint across the sky, changing the picture before my eyes.

Its light falls across the sea, creating a long golden path all the way to the shore. Each small wave breaks it into hundreds of pieces for a moment, only to put it back together again. I look toward the horizon, and for a while I cannot tell where the sea ends and the sky begins.

The breeze has picked up a little. It comes cool from the sea, moves across my damp skin, and stirs my hair. It carries with it the scent of the sea, that salty, clean smell you never need to describe in order to recognize.

And then there is the sound.

The gentle lapping of the water against the shore. A wave comes in, spreads across the sand, and retreats again. For a moment, it leaves behind a thin line of foam, and then the next one arrives. Again and again. Without hurry. Without expecting anything. Like a quiet breath that has been repeating itself for thousands of years.

And I am not there.

My body is sitting in the chair. My feet are still resting on the warm sand, and the sea is only a few meters in front of me. But I am somewhere else. I have disappeared into my thoughts. One thought brought a second, the second brought a third, and then I went back to the first one in case I had missed something. I looked at it from one side, then the other, connected it to something that had happened in the past, wandered into what might happen later and, without even realizing it, there I was again. Analyzing the analysis. Oh, analysis…

And then I hear a voice. Tender, feminine, very close to me.

“Katerina…”

For a moment, I look around. Who called my name? No one. The voice is coming from somewhere much closer.

From within me.

Ah, right. I got lost in my thoughts again.

I look at the sea in front of me and almost get angry.

“God, sometimes this habit of mine really makes me angry. All of this has been here the whole time, and where was I?”

Instead of looking at the sea, swimming, feeling the sun and the breeze against my skin, I had once again sunk into my thoughts. Thoughts giving birth to other thoughts, and then thoughts about those thoughts.

And did I get anywhere? No. I only became more confused. Not to mention the exhaustion I feel every time I return from those endless journeys of my mind. Because when I finally emerge from overthinking, I do not feel rested just because I have been sitting still in a chair all this time. I feel as though my shift at the quarry has just ended.

I am exhausted.

And then I hear her again.

“Katerina…”

This time, I do not look around. I know who she is. She is that other Katerina, the one who knows me well and knows exactly where I have been all this time. She does not ask me what is wrong. She does not need to. She knows I have lost myself in my thoughts again, and she can tell that I am angry with myself because of it.

Strangely enough, she is not angry with me.

She is much more tender with me than I am with myself right now.

“Are you angry?” she asks.

“Yes, I am. I did the same thing again. I am sitting here in front of all this beauty, and instead of being here, I got lost inside my head again. And the worst part? I got angry with myself for getting lost.”

She is quiet for a moment, as though giving me the space to hear what I have just said.

“What if, instead of getting angry at your anger, you simply observed it?”

I fall silent for a moment.

“Observe it?”

“Yes. Without trying to make it go away. Without deciding whether you should or should not be feeling it. It is already here. Just look at it for a while. What is it like? Where do you feel it? What happens inside you when it appears?”

I like this idea. There is something almost magical in its simplicity. For the first time, I do not need to do anything with what I am feeling. I do not need to fix it, justify it, or make it disappear.

I only need to observe it.

I stay with that thought for a while. Perhaps this is what I need before anything else. Not to get angry because I have lost myself again, nor to demand that I stop immediately. Just to observe what is happening to me while it is happening.

And somewhere around there, I begin to wonder.

What is overthinking, really, for me?

I think, then rethink, and then think about what I have just thought. I return to the same point in case there is something I did not see the first time. I imagine possibilities, create scenarios, have conversations in my head that never happened, or replay the ones that did, this time changing the words. I go a little backward, then far into the future, and somewhere between “what if” and “maybe,” the present disappears.

“Katerina, what are you looking for in there?”

“An answer?”

“Certainty?”

“Or perhaps the feeling that, if you think long enough about everything that could possibly happen, nothing will be able to catch you by surprise?”

That last question makes me stop.

Could it be that behind all these thoughts lies my need to have a little more control? To know what is going to happen, what something means, what another person is thinking, which decision will turn out to be the best one?

And how much of that can I truly know?

I do not have a ready answer.

But I am beginning to understand something about myself: when I overthink, I often try to find, within my thoughts, a certainty that life itself cannot give me.

So perhaps I need a different way of meeting those moments. Not to forbid myself from thinking. That would probably just become another battle with myself. I need something that helps me recognize when I have stepped onto that endless path again.

Observe.

That will be my first exercise.

When I notice that one thought has begun to give birth to the next, I do not need to chase it or make it disappear. I can simply stop for a moment and look at it.

What am I thinking right now?

What am I feeling?

Is what I am thinking something I actually know, or something I am assuming?

Is there anything I can do about it right now?

And if there isn’t?

That is where it becomes a little more difficult for me.

Because perhaps my real lesson is not learning how to think less. Perhaps it is learning how to leave some questions unanswered.

And then I remember something I have read many times.

“Some things are within our control, and others are not.”

Epictetus.

So simple when you read it. Much less simple when you have to live it.

I look at the sea for a moment and return to my thoughts. Not to lose myself in them again. This time, I simply want to look at them.

“Katerina, of all the things you have been thinking about for so long, how many are actually in your hands?”

I do not particularly like the question. Perhaps because I suspect I already know the answer.

Some of them, yes. There are things I can decide, talk about, act on, change. But there are others that, no matter how many times I turn them over in my mind, will not obey my thoughts. What another person will do. What they are thinking. What will happen tomorrow. Whether a choice I make will have exactly the outcome I expect.

And yet, how many times have I tried to solve all of those things inside my head?

As though, if I thought long enough, I could predict every possibility. Prevent the mistake. Avoid disappointment. Be ready for something that has not even happened yet.

And then I remember another thought, this time from Marcus Aurelius: it is not only what happens that disturbs us, but also the judgment we form about it.

I pause here for a moment.

Because this is something I can observe.

What actually happened, and what did I add afterward?

What do I know, and what am I assuming?

How many of the scenarios that passed through my mind a little while ago are facts, and how many are things that may happen, may never happen, or may happen in a way I cannot even imagine right now?

I am beginning to understand why I become so tired.

I am not simply trying to think about a problem. Sometimes I am trying to think through every possible version of it. Then every possible consequence of each version. And then what I will do if each one of those possibilities actually happens.

“Come on, Katerina. Didn’t we say it feels like a shift at the quarry?”

I smile.

And somewhere around here, the most difficult question appears.

“If something is not in your hands, what exactly are you trying to change by continuing to think about it?”

I do not know if I have the answer yet.

But perhaps I am beginning to see the need hiding behind all those thoughts.

I want to know.

I want to be prepared.

As much as possible, I do not want to be caught off guard.

I want to be in control.

And perhaps this is where I need to stay a little longer.

“How much do you want to control everything, Katerina?”

Ouch. That hurt.

“And where are you right now, Katerina?”

“At the beach,” I reply.

“Not where your body is. Where are you?”

Ouch. Again.

I look ahead of me. I had been sitting facing the sea all this time, but in truth, I was not here. I was in things that had already happened, in things that might happen, in conversations that had taken place and in conversations that may never happen at all.

And yet, what is happening now is right in front of me.

The sunset.

I lift my gaze a little. The sun has sunk even lower, and the sky is filled with orange. I watch the light on the water. I hear the gentle lapping of the waves again. I feel the breeze on my face and the sand beneath my feet.

For a few moments, I do not try not to think. I simply begin to pay attention to something else.

What is here.

What is happening now.

Perhaps this can be another small exercise for me. When I realize that I have once again become lost in my thoughts, I do not have to order myself, “Stop thinking.” I have tried telling my mind what to do plenty of times and, between us, it is not particularly obedient.

But I can return to my senses.

“What do you see right now, Katerina?”

“The sea. The orange colors of the sky. The sunlight on the water.”

“What do you hear?”

“The lapping of the waves. The wind. Voices coming from farther away.”

“What do you feel?”

“The breeze on my face. The sand beneath my feet. The warmth the sun has still left on my skin.”

“And what is around you that you had not noticed before?”

I look.

For a moment, I remain silent.

“Hmm… I know where you are taking me now.”

I almost smile.

“To the uniqueness of this moment.”

I look around again and begin to understand it a little differently. Every time I get lost in my thoughts, I do not have to force them to stop. I can simply return to whatever I am doing at that moment.

“So right now, I am here. At the beach. I can simply be at the beach. Look at the sea, listen to the waves, feel the air. Later I will be at home. I can be at home. When I am eating, I can be there and eat. When I am doing something else, I can be as fully present as I can in whatever I am doing.”

I pause for a moment.

“One thing at a time?”

The voice inside me almost seems to smile.

“One moment at a time, Katerina.”

Hmm.

I like that better.

One moment at a time.

“I like this,” I tell her.

And then, a little more softly:

“It helps me.”

I sit for a little while longer, looking at the sea, and a new thought comes to me.

“Katerina, can I ask you something? What would happen if, instead of trying to push the worst-case scenario out of my mind, I let it go all the way to the end? If I said, all right, let’s suppose that what I am afraid of actually happens. And then what?”

The question hangs between us for a while.

Let’s say I have sent someone a message and I am waiting for a reply. One hour passes. Then two. No answer. And that is when my mind begins. Did I say something that upset them? Maybe they do not want to talk to me. Maybe something has changed. Maybe I should have written it differently.

And of course I can spend the next two hours examining every word of the message, its tone, our last conversation, and everything this silence might possibly mean.

“And what is the worst-case scenario you are afraid of, Katerina?”

“That perhaps this person does not want to reply to me.”

“All right. Let’s say that is true. And then?”

I stop.

“Then?”

“If they truly do not want to reply, two hours of overthinking will not make them answer. It will not change what they feel or what they have decided to do. The only certain outcome up to that point will be that I have spent two hours waiting for an answer and have mentally lived through ten different versions of what might be happening.”

And then, a little later, a message might arrive:

“Sorry, I only just saw this.”

I smile.

How much noise the mind can sometimes create inside a simple silence.

“So?” I hear Katerina ask.

“So perhaps I can even look at the scenario I am afraid of and ask: If it really happens, what can I do then?”

Because perhaps I do not need to solve today something that has not happened yet.

And if it happens?

I will meet it when it comes.

Somewhere around here, I feel my excitement rising. I love this conversation. I really do. Who would have thought that a voice that found me lost inside my thoughts only a little while ago would become the best company of the afternoon?

“You know something, Katerina? I like talking to you.”

And I mean it.

Because I am beginning to understand that I do not have to stand against myself every time something becomes difficult. We can sit down, as we are doing now, and look at it together. Without accusations. Without that exhausting “You did the same thing again.” We can try to understand what is happening and, if we can, find a way to make our life a little freer.

An ally.

That is the word that comes to me.

I like it.

“So, ally, what do you think? How can the two of us live a little more freely? Without constantly trying to predict everything, prevent everything, control everything?”

For a while, I hear no answer. And this time, I do not rush to demand one. I smile.

Look at that. Maybe I am beginning to learn something.

Perhaps freedom is not having all the answers.

Perhaps it is being able to keep going even when I do not have them.

“Come on, look at the sea with me for a moment…”

I look at the sea.

“Do you see those little waves? They come and go. One arrives, reaches the shore, then pulls back. Then the next one comes. And then another.”

I watch them for a while.

They come and go.

“That is a little like our thoughts. They come and go. You do not have to follow every wave. You do not have to hold it at the shore. And you do not have to push it back into the sea any faster.”

The sound of the waves reaches my ears differently now. One wave comes in. Spreads across the sand. Leaves. Then the next.

“Let your thoughts do what they know how to do, Katerina. Let them come and go.”

I smile.

Waves that come and go. Thoughts that come and go.

Perhaps the difficult part is not that so many thoughts appear.

Perhaps it is that I try to keep every single one of them on the shore.

And then something inside me becomes quieter. Not because I have stopped thinking, but because I realize that I have a choice I had forgotten only a little while ago.

I can simply observe.

Observe a thought without needing to follow it. Observe an emotion without needing to fight it. Even look at the things I have done in my life without setting up a little courtroom inside my head every single time.

I have made mistakes. Of course I have.

I can look at them. Recognize which ones were mine. See what they taught me. And remain open to the possibility that, when I find myself in a similar situation again, I can choose not to do the same thing.

“Now that is freedom, Katerina.”

Freedom not from thoughts, nor from difficult emotions, nor from mistakes.

Freedom from being held captive by them.

From needing everything that has happened to me to decide forever what I will do from this point on.

And perhaps somewhere in there, for me, lies freedom from victimhood as well: not in denying what happened to me, nor in believing that I could have controlled everything, but in remembering that even when I did not choose what happened, I can still look for what I can choose from here onward.

And that freedom, for me, is peace of mind.

And then Katerina returns.

“I have an idea.”

“Go on.”

“Let’s suppose this were the last day of our lives.”

I stop.

“Well, that started nicely…”

I can almost hear her laugh.

“No, wait. Think about it for a moment. If you knew this was your last day, how would you want to spend it?”

I look at the sea. The sun that has almost touched the horizon. The orange colors on the water. The waves that continue to come and go.

“Drowning in your thoughts?”

“Hmm… I don’t think so.”

I smile.

“Neither do I.”

I would want to be here. To watch this sunset. To listen to the sea. To feel the air on my skin. To speak with the people I love. To laugh. To eat something I enjoy. To walk. To hug. To say the things I want to say.

To be inside my life.

“Aha…”

I have just realized something.

“To live with intention, Katerina.”

Not meaning that I have to plan every minute of my day. Quite the opposite. To be there when life is happening. To choose where I want to give my time, my attention, my energy. And when something does not unfold the way I expected, to be able to return to what is in front of me and ask: from where I am right now, what can I do?

Perhaps this is also how I build my resilience. Not by trying to predict every difficulty so that I never fall, but by learning that when life changes my plans, I can steady myself, look at where I am, and continue from there.

“I like that.”

To live with intention, without demanding that life always follow my plan.

The sun has almost disappeared beyond the horizon now. The orange tones of the sky have begun to deepen, and the sea changes with them. The small waves continue to reach the shore, one after another.

I watch them.

They come and go.

Just like thoughts.

I know they will come again. I know myself too. At some point, I will catch hold of one, then a second, and before I know it, I may have set off on another one of those endless journeys of my mind.

Only now, I have an ally.

“Katerina?”

“I’m here.”

I smile.

Perhaps this is what I need after all. Not to win the battle with my thoughts.

To remember to return. To observe. To distinguish what is in my hands and what is not. To leave some questions unanswered. To allow the waves to come and go.

And to return to the life unfolding in front of me.

I get up from my little chair and walk toward the sea. The water touches my feet and then pulls back again.

Another wave comes.

And goes.

This time, I am here to see it.