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...
here on this second day of summer vacay, i woke up worried and control freaky. the elder children, 10 and 8, started campaigning for visits with friends as soon as i opened myself to interaction with them. here on a farm, friend visits require making plans with the guardians of the visiting friends. grown-ups are such complicated critters. . .
my control freakasaurus is rattling her proverbial cage this morning. why?!?!? because **i** said so! ! !
today's read from "courage to change" is helping to calm the i.c.f. (inner control freakasaurus). typing out and sharing these meditations often helps to reinforce them in the chaos of my hyper-active brain. just sharing. . .
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in the words of socrates, "life contains but two tragedies. one is not to get your heart's desire; the other is to get it."
translation: my will gets me into trouble. i aim for some goal or other, but even when i get it, i am rarely satisfied. it doesn't make my life complete, so i raise the ante, set a new goal, and push even harder. or i don't get what i want and feel inadequate or deprived.
the only times i have ever found lasting satisfaction were when i let go of self-will and committed myself to seeking the will of my higher power. prayer and meditation are two means by which i seek to discover what god's will holds for me, and they help me tp gain access to the power to carry it out.
sometimes my hopes and desires are forms of guidance. when i am willing to place god's will above my own, those dreams have a chance of becoming a wonderful reality.
today's reminder
the path to my true heart's desire is to surrender to the will of my higher power.
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apologies to any who are offended by use of the g-word. no theological debates intended.
yup, typing it out did, indeed, help to calm the icf. so far. the real test will be in my next interaction with the munchkins.
thank you for the sharing space.
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Hey All...I hope that you have a lovely, peaceful beginning of your weekI have a bunch of chores that need doing but may put them off til tomorrow and just hang out with my landlord/roomie todayWhat about you?...Anything special going on?Have a great day and take good care of you!!..Xo
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I haven't written in my diary on my computer since May because I thought that my computer was dying. I got away from writing but my computer is hanging in there. I think that I will start writing in it again. It's so therapeutic.
Your meditation text sounds very helpful to be able to put down impossible expectations for yourself and trust that there is room in your life for something more real and satisfying that reflects some power higher than yourself.
I have grown up in intensive connection with religious sects and in my anxiety had agonies of seeing my best and most diligent efforts to follow all the rules I felt were the important backbone of scripture, and saw an underlying message of peace and love but couldn't calm myself and see it as central.
It has been such an experience of peace to have a current pastor who has tears in his eyes giving his view that the god he sees in scripture looks at each of us not under a lens of commandments other than to love each other, but sees each of us as the best thing he ever made and wants us to know that and have that gift of peace.
In his church the pastor points out that the 10 principles for life in early Hebrew society were through diligent study and debate turned into I think 722 or 723 laws, and Jesus who was educated and compliant with all these laws offered the new insight the all the laws boiled down to just 2 principles which he described as love God, and love each other as strongly as you love yourself. Not so simple to DO, but something for me that can be more full of peace than fear for me. God or god, or Good or some power important and bigger than us indeed isn't meant to generate any discomfort or theological debate.
I hope you have a great time with the visiting munchkins and their munchkin parents. Lesson learned from the part of my career as a school counselor: be as excited with the antics of the parents as the antics of the children, and you won't run out of thrills! You've created Disneyland with shorter lines!!!
I like what you wrote!!
In the face of all the people who are so sure of themselves and life (and maybe that’s my assumption)
And then I think of myself and the limit of what I can and cannot see..and then all our differences and perspectives, it tells me our religion truly is a marvelous thing and maybe all human attempts at religion is wonderful to try and bridge the gaps between us and create consensus. I sense it’s all about taking care of life and keeping it going. Good morning ahead!
I know religion isn’t perfect but in the ideal of creating harmony is what I like!
I know we’re all just human animals, sometimes I guess I wish or yearn for meaning. I find it in taking care of life and keeping it going. I feel hugely flawed and limited. I guess in a weird way that kind of process is my self seeking validation through the strongest aspect of what the noise is like in my head. I need to turn it around. Though I may be flawed, I can also be humbly proud and confident.
Own my flaws and just be empathetic towards myself and others. You can’t be happy all the time. I’m doing pretty good in life all things considered:-) !!
and yet. . .
i honestly do not believe i could have survived my childhood without iffy, my "invisible friend." iffy responds equally well to god (with or without the capital), allah, higher power or fred.
iffy has been nagging me for years to carry our relationship into a church community. so far, the efforts have not been sustainable. i think. iffy is a seriously mysterious spirit. i'm never quite sure where we are going, but we keep on going. i can always count on iffy.
And now that they are grown, I’m supposed to go tothese parents homes of their current gf to meet and dine. It’s really beyond uncomfortable I’m sure I’m being judged
My adult kids say it’s no big deal mom they just wanna meet you. Haha. Oh yes it is a big deal they are sizing us up
ah. . . the things we do for love. . .
I dread the meeting of parents and I don’t understand the need when my kids are now in late 20s parents still needing to meet me lol the level
Of micromanage is wild
a theme my now departed son (class of 2002) picked up in high school and harped on to his end at age 35 is "reviving extended family." he felt like the "modern family" model developed in the early 20th century had devastated family cohesion and needed to be reversed. the theme was a shock to my old bubblegummer senses. multi-generational families?!?!?! what planet are you from?
in my own life, the theme keeps coming up from his age peers and younger. the advent of my second parenting career at age 65 has given me extra exposure to those folks and? ? ? i find myself wondering it your son's "need" for you to meet his gf's parents lives somewhere in that alien logic set. maybe. repeat that the trend remains as alien to me as janis joplin was to my parents. when i was in my 20's, i was living on another continent and never did introduce my parents to my husband, much less my in-laws.
it's a strange, new world. is it time to let our children lead the way?
gag me with a spoon. . .