When the Thoughts Get Too Big, Go Someplace You Feel Small

There are seasons in life when the mind becomes unbearably loud.

A decision to make. A future to plan. A problem to solve. A conversation replayed for the hundredth time. We sit in our homes, staring at screens, turning the same thoughts over and over, convinced that if we think just a little harder, we’ll finally arrive at peace.

But peace rarely comes from overthinking. More often, it comes from perspective.

When the thoughts get too big, go someplace you feel small.

Go stand beneath a mountain. Walk into a forest. Paddle a river. Watch a thunderstorm roll across an open desert. Nature has a remarkable way of restoring proportion.

Most of what consumes us exists only inside the walls of our own minds. Mother Nature gently reminds us that life is larger than our worries, larger than our plans, larger than our need to control every outcome.

We worry about so much when freedom is right outside the door.

I have experienced this countless times. I’ll leave home carrying a head full of questions and arrive in the wilderness only to realize that none of them mattered quite as much as I thought they did. The trail doesn’t care about my five-year plan. The mountains are unconcerned with my productivity. The river has no opinion about my latest mistake. And somehow, that is incredibly liberating.

Out there, away from the noise, something else begins to happen. The labels start disappearing. The mental chatter softens. The endless categorizing and analyzing starts to loosen its grip.

The first things to drop away are the names...

I no longer see a rock, a lizard, a tree,

I only see.

There is a profound difference between looking and seeing. Most of our lives are spent looking through the lens of thought. We see a tree and immediately call it a tree. We see a mountain and call it a mountain. We see a problem and call it a problem. But occasionally, if we stay still long enough, we move beyond naming and into direct experience.

For a few precious moments, life becomes astonishingly simple. There is only the wind. Only the sunlight. Only the sound of water moving over stone. Only this moment.

And in those moments, answers often arrive without being chased. I’ve found that clarity emerges from allowing. From trusting. From surrendering our desperate need to know exactly how everything will unfold.

I find that when I open up and surrender to the present moment, accepting it for all its beauty and amazement, the universe guides me to all the right places. Decisions are just decisions. Either answer is correct. Just choose.

What if the decision you’re agonizing over isn’t nearly as important as you think? What if life is far less fragile than your mind would have you believe? What if there are many right paths?

Nature seems to understand this intuitively. A river does not obsess over every bend in its course. A hawk does not question whether it should ride one current or another. Life moves. Life adapts. Life unfolds. And perhaps we are meant to do the same.

Somewhere along the way, we forgot that we belong to this living world. We began treating ourselves like machines that need to optimize every choice rather than wild creatures participating in a grand mystery. The wilderness helps us remember.

Every now and then, if we’re lucky, we stumble into a moment so complete that thought itself disappears. A moment where nothing needs fixing. Nothing needs improving. Nothing needs understanding. Only experiencing.

One afternoon deep in the backcountry, I tried to describe such a moment in my journal:

My alertness borders on intoxication, my senses excruciating. I think I’ve found the heart. The living, beating heart of this place. Not a single thought passes through my mind for what seems like an eternity. If the Holy Grail exists, I have found it.

I don’t believe the Holy Grail is hidden in some distant land. I think it lives in moments like these. Moments of complete presence. Moments where we stop trying to control life and simply participate in it. Moments where we remember that we are not separate from nature but an expression of it.

So if your thoughts have become too large lately, don’t try to outthink them. Go someplace you feel small. The mountains have a way of shrinking our problems back to their proper size.

If your thoughts have become too large lately, don’t try to outthink them. Go someplace you feel small. Walk into the forest. Climb a mountain. Sit beside a river. Watch a sunset. Let the vastness of the natural world remind you that life is bigger than your worries and wiser than your plans.

The featured quotes in this essay come from my first book, Wilderness: The Gateway to the Soul, a book about stepping away from the noise of modern life and reconnecting with the deeper intelligence found in nature, solitude, and the present moment.

Since writing Wilderness, I’ve gone on to publish 7 more books exploring themes of freedom, travel, creativity, personal growth, and our relationship with the natural world. But this is where it all began.

If you haven’t read Wilderness yet, I think you’ll enjoy it.

It’s a reminder that the answers we’re searching for are often found far from the places we’ve been looking.

📖 Wilderness: The Gateway to the Soul, and my other 7 books are available at scottstillmanblog.com.