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...
"random targeting" is a symptom for which i have received considerable psychotherapy. "random targeting" is where anger is channeled onto innocent bystanders, etc., rather than the target at which you are actually angry. it wouldn't be much of a surprise to find there is a new name for ^it^ now, but "anger management" is the title of the formal therapy by which i learned about random targeting. my hyper-active metabolism predisposes me to explosive behavior and the challenges of life in the kiddie whorehouses fine-tuned that nature into a dirty fighting machine. i am as likely to bite a hand off as i am to shake a hand in friendly greeting. the good news is that all that anger management work has paid off. these days the hands i do not care to shake are going home with their owners, unshaken and intact. the anger management tools work when i work them. i still frequently wash wishes to be a normal girl who cries instead of biting off hands, but. . . ply radical acceptance here. i is what i is and i ain't what i ain't. over the decades of radical acceptance, i've gotten to where i can recognize my anger and ply anger management tools before i act that anger. just lengthing the space between reaction and action was a breakthrough, all by itself.
i caught myself random targeting in my head this morning. i am struggling with a moral dilemma within my three chicken flocks and my dog mama conditioning is howling like an animal rights activist. i gotta do WHAT to my feather babies!?!?!?!? alas, procrastinating on the solutions has created far more cruel conditions within the flocks --mother nature ain't no dog mama-- and a solution is sorely needed. letting nature run her course is ? ? ? equally shocking to my dog mama morals.
the aha moment this morning was of just how much easier it is to channel my anger at nearby targets than it is to shoot for the heart of the problem. as i walked past the problem coops on my way too and from the school bus stop, i was able to give brief thought to the list of potential solutions, but my dog mama conditioning immediately resisted and jumped to criticizing the people who live nearest those coops. they live closest to the action. it must be their fault.
am i making sense? anybody relate? reality checks requested. unsolicited advice tolerated.
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It's going to get hotter here with Thursday being the hottest. It's noon and 75f feels more like 80 or more.I've been cleaning up the deck in this morning and cleaning the windows outside. Then I cut up a pallet in half, I've decided to call it quits now because I went a bit light headed. Joanne, some drugs we take have an effect on us in the heat, I know a couple of mine do, maybe yours...
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thank you for the encouragement, sonata. personally, i've plied radical acceptance to my outbursts. trying harder only seems to add to the volatile mix. as one of my medical doctors put it a few decades ago, "some of us is just hard-wired for high voltage. you're one of them." learning how to accept and love myself just the way god made me has gone a long way toward helping me see more clearly when and where to ply therapy tools.
Plus, I'm starting to be annoyed with my selfish coworkers. Although, I have a law degree it wasn't until working at a law firm (newest job of 8 months) did I realize I am not a fan of lawyers. Some how I have avoided practicing for 20 years. I keep telling myself I will stay at the firm for the people/clients my coworkers are too important to listen to.
But right now, I'm on indeed.com looking for environmental type jobs. However, sounds like farming can be just as traumatic!
i can barely handle the law office meetings attached to my farm llc, but i find myself wondering if jumping the hurdles which have kept you from using your law degree might be a most excellent channel for the frustrations of caregiving. just wondering in a not-mine-to-sort sort of way.
I have no advice about the farm but I do know I frequently bite off too much to chew. Start projects where I am literally in pieces by the end of it. I tell myself to hold on and persevere. I remind myself, lot of positive self talk, that I am strong and this is a blip in the life of myself. But sometimes we do need to step back and re-evaluate our plans or our ideas. If it is too much, too stressful, maybe we need a second think on this. Or maybe we just need to keep persevering. I heard Dr. Laura on the radio telling a woman who asked how does she cope with her husband's death, and the response was "we endure day by day". So now I sometimes tell myself, just endure today, let enduring be enough for today. Big hugs to you.