When you feel down, you are thinking too much about yourself. You can only tie yourself in knots when so many of your thoughts get wrapped around you. Then your thoughts become like spider webs that wind themselves over and over again.

Enough thinking! Rest your weary mind. Give it a break. Give yourself a vacation from thinking. Take some time off.

See a blank sheet of paper before you instead of one all crowded with notes every which way. You can start anew. Right now you can. Simply let go of these trains of thoughts you have been riding on. If you were on a train, and it didn’t take you where you wanted to go, you would get off and find another train. Or you would walk. In any case, you would know you don’t have to stay on the same train as if you had no choice.

Your thoughts are your choice. And if thoughts come unbidden, you can ignore them or shoo them away like the flies they are. You don’t need to make too much of them. Thoughts are a dime a dozen anyway, aren’t they? When certain thoughts are a waste of your time and energy, don’t get you anywhere, then, beloveds, find some thoughts that energize you, not revolving thoughts from your rolladex but new thoughts. What a novel idea. You can have new thoughts. You can think anything you want. Your thinking can be purposeful. It can take you where you want to go.

Perhaps your mind has been on a pony path, a small circle, and you go round and round. If your mind has been tethered, undo the tether and jump over the fence. Why, there is a whole field of new grass to chew on.

What is a beautiful thought you could hold right now? What might it be? Is there something to prevent you from thinking of it and putting it at the top of your list?

Look up at the moon and find yourself there. Be the moon looking at you. Immerse yourself in the stars, the beautiful stars of the night. Soon all the stars will turn into One Sun. Think of the sun. Think of how it shines, and how it shines on you. Feel how its golden light reaches you.

Let thoughts enter you in the manner of the warmth of the sun. There is nothing you have to do to absorb the sun. Be out in it once in a while. The same way you can find thoughts new to you, thoughts that you are happy to take home with you.

When you buy something at the store and it turns out to be defective or simply not what you really wanted, you return it to the store. You don’t have to live with it. You don’t have to claim it as yours just because it’s there.

Manage thoughts the same way. Let some in, and send some out. It is no big deal. Thoughts are not inviolate. They are only thoughts. They have no life at all without you.

Thoughts are meant to serve you, not roil you.

And when you have thoughts that were once serviceable and now are worn out consider them like appliances that have seen better days -- you would go back to the store and buy new ones. You do not to be stuck with a thought that now is of no use to you.

When you are feeling down, you need to think some new thoughts. Bring them on. They are waiting in the water. Haul them in. Take them on board. Rescue new thoughts. Change your mind.