Anxiety Support Group
Anxiety is a physical condition marked by intense and persistent feelings of distress, fear, angst or dread. General anxiety caused by routine day-to-day stresses usually passes quickly and is experienced by almost everyone at one time or another. However, such feelings that linger over time and are very difficult to cope with, and which lack a clear cause, may indicate...
My life seems to be straddling a period of extreme stress and turmoil to a sustainable stability. Seems. . . Still I am haunted by the metaphorical wonder of whether that proverbial light at the end of the tunnel is yet another fast moving train. Even without that normal-for-me anxiety, all of this is so new that it is difficult to know where I stand. My life today is radically different than it was a year ago and even more radically different than it was two years ago when my grandchildren were taken into protective custody. I miss retirement.
This morning's meditation read from "Courage to Change" seems especially pertinent. Thought I'd reinforce it through my thick skull with the extra work of typing it out to share here.
Begin quote
In the past, many of us learned to make choices strictly on the basis of our feelings, as if feelings were facts. If we were frightened about taking a certain action, for example, then it was best avoided. There was no middle ground and no room for more than one feeling at a time.
Part of recovery involves learning that feelings aren't facts. I am a complex, fascinating human being with a wide range of emotions, experiences and thoughts. There is more to my identity than one feeling or another, one problem or another. I am a wealth of contradictions. I can value all of my feelings without allowing them to dictate my actions.
Today I can feel anger toward someone and still love them. I can feel afraid of new experiences, yet move forward through them. I can survive being hurt without giving up on love. And I can experience sadness and still be confident that I will be happy again.
Today's Reminder
Today I am learning to embrace my complexities and contradictions and to be grateful for the richness they bring.
"Life, for all its agonies. . . is exciting and beautiful, amusing and artful and endearing. . . and whatever is to come after it --we shall not have this life again." ~Rose Macaulay.
End quote.
Thank you, all, for the share space.
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I did the dumbest thing today. I charged my earbuds, unplugged the block and put the block in my little bag instead of the earbuds. I wasn't happy about that when I got to the gym. What a dummy!
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Ever since I stopped doing therapy because of insurance, I've been feeling that old tense and irritable sense of anxiety and stress. I hate that. I was making so many strides and changes during therapy, my therapist would acknowledge all of my progress and accomplishments, and I miss that reassurance. Today I thought about it, and I made those changes! She would always tell me that I chose to...
Here's to your better balance!
Thank you for sharing!
I hold that meditation and prayer are two of the many words for the same act. By whatever name, ^it^ be a potent psychotherapy tool. I further agree that finding words and sharing those words gives a far fuller effect.
But. . .
Prayer (by whatever name) also helps me when I have no comprehensible words for my agonies. I pray the ABC's and trust the cosmos to send back the letters I need.
It also gives me something to do when there is nothing I can do.
I vacillate between questioning my own sanity and then thinking that I'm going to be okay. Sometimes I need to hold onto something sturdy to avoid getting whiplash from how quickly my emotional state changes.
When I read the part about being a complex person and having a wealth of contradiction, I felt like someone understood me. Thank you for the great post, Arfie.
Partly truth and partly fiction
Taking every wrong direction
On our lonely ways back home ~Kris Kristofferson
Glad you benefitted from the Read as much as I did, Ladyhawke. For me, the most amazing aspect of peer support is how often my brothers and sisters-in-healing hit exactly the note I need to hear when they share their strictly personal experience.
The on-line advice-givers are a different thread, entirely. . . Millions of digital gurus are always a surf away and ? ? ? Nothing personal? ? ?
Welcome to DS.
It was a great post.
I feel like I also benefited from it .
It really spoke to me. And I do aporeciate that.