I think too much? WTF?

Ever get this accusation leveled against you?

"You think too much?" 

What in the world does that mean? How much do more normal people think? How would I ever know how much they think and try to emulate that? How do they NOT think so much? Or is it that I think too much about the wrong things, i.e. me, or why I think too much?

In reality, I do think too much, except when I write. I write with little thought going into it at all. I call it ghostwriting, though that's not really what it is. (ghostwriting is crediting the writer's  work to another person). I write something from a form of a trance and then read it later and ask, "Who wrote that?" I'm not bragging, it's sometimes a bit disconcerting.

I've come to realize that the ghostwriter in me could be the most normal persona I have. I had some pen-pals for more than a decade and not once did they tell me I had a mental illness.

The other thing that makes my writing more "normal" is the ability to edit it, though I hate to edit my own work. But by doing so I learn something about myself more often than not.

I'm further defining certain terms that I need to bring into my daily life to grow, heal and maybe even thrive. I'm learning more about these terms in my weekly therapy sessions. One term is self-awareness. As profound as that is, I wasn't practicing it. A simplified definition is that self-awareness is conscious knowledge of one's own  feelings, desires and motives.

Instead of babbling I'm learning to take a breath, listen to myself, and then close my mouth. Does that sound easy? Well, if you consider the fact that I'm only saying about 20% of what I want to say, it's difficult to not just spew forth everything that my brain processes, plus not able to keep up with my thoughts, so the babbling turns to babbling incoherently. No biggie, nobody seems to listen, and if they do, they're too nice to say they can't follow me.

I'm becoming self-aware that nobody wants to hear about my life. I can't blame them, I'm not much interested in theirs either. I'm also becoming self-aware that I'm on a conquest inner thought quest for a smart-ass response, or a follow up question. I get frustrated when the talking keeps talking on and on and I don't get to input what I had to say three topics ago, the last time that  person took a breath.

The next term that will come along here in the blog often is "mindfulness."  I love this one most of all, and credit my self-awareness of my mindfulness to the woman I took  to my senior prom. I drilled this term down to focusing on the awareness of the present moment. But if I'm self-aware that I'm being mindful,  I'm not quite mindful.

Is there anything better than an invigorating bike ride around the city lakes in perfect weather, realizing that the playlist for Pandora was a good one? Only afterward I'd congratulated myself on spending most of the time seeking a great photo, my breathing, pulse, and watching people.

I had a pretty mindful ride yesterday. I  say that now, a day later, because I remember it as a great ride. But I also am not going to ignore the fact that the other reason it was a good ride was because I had just taken my Buspar (Buspirone HCL 15mg) and Depakote (Valproic Acid 250mg). Without that dosage, I can kiss any good mindfulness good-bye.