The Challenge...Lesson 3

[Guest]

I will recover, I am recovering, each and everyday I feel stronger. I have everything I need inside of me in order to recover and face any problem or limitations I will ever encounter. Each day I become stronger with my skills and I can access more and more of my inner resources.

Well, my husband and my son are gone. I am doing fine. I was a little anxious before they left, however I got busy feeding the dogs and making diner for myself. I also went to Walmart to buy some yarn. I am making a blanket for a friend who is having a baby.
Before I got married I used to live by myself. I remember that the first few nights I had a hard time falling asleep. However I got used to it. I really enjoyed it. Now is different, maybe because I am in a different contry or because the house is bigger. However I have the dogs with me, as Lindalee said, if there is a strange noise, the dogs will let me know if I have to worry or not.
I feel fine, I am happy and smiling
Thank you all for your support.

Mike,
I really liked that song, it almost made me cry, a good cry, a happy cry.

Jamie,
You are doing great!!! Congratulations
Driving by yourself, on the Freeway, WOW... that is amazing.
I liked what you mentioned " anxiety is not something that is independent of me; it is the result of my own thoughts..." It is so right. We just have to remember that.
Keep the good work.
When I was working I used to meditate in the morning, before work. I would wake up, have a coffee, check my e-mail, take a shower and then meditate for 20 minutes. Somehow it would give me a nice energy. A few minutes of peace and quiet before starting a work day. I would set my cell phone alarm to 7:30 am, that was the time I had to leave the house, so if I would fall asleep, the alarm would woke me up. I only fell asleep once. Meditating or relaxing before work is a habit, is something you get used to.

Lindalee,
Feel proud of your accomplishment. Taking care of the hay, getting help, organizing everything... WOW... You did great.
I have given up caffeine, but since I still love my coffee in the morning, I found a coffee substitute at a "natural" store. I tastes similar to coffee but has no caffeine.
Thank you very much for the ideas for spending the night alone. I am actually enjoying the quiet time. The dogs sleep with us all the time, so we are following our regular rutine, but tonight is my movie night.

I sometimes use a different CD for the relaxation. This is from Steven Gurgevich, Ph.D. it is Relieve Anxiety with Medical Hypnosis. I use this one mainly at night, it really helps me to relax and fall asleep.
Lucinda's relaxation CD is good, however I like to add variety.

THH,
Thank you for being so supportive.

I will talk to you tomorrow, have a nice night.
Hope

[Guest]

Hi Karen,
I'm glad to see you here.
Lesson 3 is awesome, and a very important one.
Enjoy.

Hope

[Guest]

I will recover, I am recovering, each and everyday I feel stronger. I have everything I need inside of me in order to recover and face any problem or limitations I will ever encounter. Each day I become stronger with my skills and I can access more and more of my inner resources.

So i'm feeling strange now and not really knowing how to respond. I mean I was planning to go to the gym and do other things but got so extremely exhausted so I didn't force myself to do that. The get together i found out is actually tomorrow so I just stayed home and mostly watched tv online and played videogames. I'm not sure if i should be congratulating myself for not pushing myself or what. How long do I just take it easy for?

Karen L

Great that you are joining us. The more the merrier. Thats one more person to learn from, share encouragement and experience. Its a great group and I'm sure you'll enjoy it!

mcshope

Thats great that even though you were anxious you are smiling. You are convincing yourself that those anxious thoughts aren't true. I'm going to touch more on that when i address the conversation to everybody a little further on. Great progress mcshope.

I felt really strong about that song so I just had to put it. There will be another song next week, i've already decided which one. Happy cry sounds good, I don't know what that is like though. I've never experienced that.

To All
You know when we do anything by ourselves we get experience and we can grow but when we have more people on board, its like adding more man hours into recovery because there are so many other experiences that others find. We had diffrent responses and ah ha moments and sometimes the experiences of another can really make us think in diffrent ways. I know for myself after reading several of the posts from all you guys that I've made some great changes that I wouldn't have even considered otherwise. I don't know if its just me but I'm starting to feel really close as if we were students in collage (or at least the collage that i went to it felt like family as there were only 13 people). I like this support system we have and I like how we can give insight into each other's blind spots. I think we are all doing a wonderful job so keep up the good work!

Oh and I seemed to remember an interesting thing i had found...it was about OCD which i think includes obsessive thoughts. The part of our brain that stores these memories which cause those intense obsessive thoughts is not a thinking part of the brain. This is why knowledge alone isn't good enough. This part reacts to experience and thus you have to use experience to tell yourself its alright. This I believe is why calming yourself down works and why the 6 steps are really important. Another thing is that the brain reacts to an imagined event as if it was real so you could actually use visualizing as some of your experience as well.


We're all doing so great right now!

Mike

[Guest]

I am recovering and will recover. Each day I am one step closer to my goals. I will continue to work hard because I refuse to let anxiety, fear, and depression control my life. I am changing and change is good!

Lindalee
I was just reading through the posts and had to comment. The only thing that matters is you had a situaton and you took care of it...that alone needs t be commended!! You could have panicked and just walked away, but instead you put on your thinkng cap, came up with a plan, and your situation was solved...Excellent job!!
First, you dealt with the machinery that scared you.....big accomplishment!! Then, you actually got people over to help you!! Great problem solving!!! So what if you over-paid him $50....seriously in a month or year are you still going to be missing that money?? Also, Im sure that are not callin you a gullible fool, that is just irrational thinking. Many times cashiers have given me the wrong change and I dont call them names. And, what is wrong with leaving your own purse on your own kitchen counter? Everyone does that. You are beating yourself up for someone else's actions...that wasnt your fault..people steal, it is the sad truth...and remember life's not fair! As far as your husband's reaction, that is his problem if he is upset about the money. Dont let his reaction upset you. You were a complete success!!
I also have a big problem with sugar, mine is chocolate..I can eat 1/2 bag of chocolate chips/ day.....so dont beat yourself up......you at least acknowledge the problem and need to just try to work on it...just remind yourself that it may add some added stress to your day...
Please dont try to flush the cd....it probably will clog the toilet, cost you money to fix, and piss your husband off lol (my warped sense of humor)
Instead of getting mad at the anxiety and depression use it as motivation to get better

[Guest]

I am on the road to recovery and will reover. Each day I am one step closer to my goals. I will continue to work hard because I refuse to let anxiety, fear, and depression control my life. I am changing and change is good!

Hi Hope:) thanks for the welcome!!

[Guest]

I am on the road to recovery and will recover. Each day I am 1 step closer to my goals. I will continue to work hard because I refuse to let anxiety, fear, and depression control my life. I am changing anf change is good!

Hi THH
just wanted to say I love your outlook on having an easy day....we do need to take care of ourselves

That is a very important concept "we cant have a feeling without having a thought first". It is very empowering
I have actually used Ken's line "thoughts only thoughts" when I have begun to panic when driving. I was in too much of a fog and couldnt think straight to try and figure out some positive self talk. I just started repeating it out-loud over and over....for at least a few minutes....I slowly calmed down and was amazed at how well it worked

[Guest]

I am on the road to recovery and will recover. Each day I am 1 step closer to my goals. I will continue to work hard because I refuse to let anxiety, fear, and depression control my life. I am changing and change is good!

Hope
sounds like your doing great!! way to go!!!

[Guest]

I will recover, I am recovering, each and everyday I feel stronger. I have everything I need inside of me in order to recover and face any problem or limitations I will ever encounter. Each day I become stronger with my skills and I can access more and more of my inner resources.

So I've been thinking alot more about the whole thing that Lucinda said about no matter at any point if you find yourself tired, weak, anxious, depressed your still ok. Many times we focus on our symptoms and catastrophize over them. The feeling of fear is ment to help us prepare for things, thats the positive we get out of it however our fear of our symptoms doesn't really help us. It can help us to avoid things that make us feel those symptoms but that just keeps those symptoms alive. Fear itself can actually create those symptoms and even make them more intense. Those are the times we are telling ourselves things like "oh my god its back again" or "I can't handle it, its too much" or you catastrophize over it getting worse. The negative feelings about the symptoms only make it worse and you aren't going to be any less prepared if you think in a more positive way. Still take some precautions especially when you are first looking to overcome the symptoms. IE have an excuse you can use to get out of a social situation if you have social anxiety, bring your carry along cards when you go to face any kind of limitation.

David D Burns said it very well in his feeling good book. It was actually in the section about anger but it works for any negative emotion. The jist of what he says is we can choose weather to feel good or bad. Each moment is a potential one of happiness and joy but by choosing to react in a negative way we are exchanging that postivie, happy and joyous moment for one of misery, anger and sadness. Is it really worth it? Wouldn't it be more beneficial to do what you can to feel positive?

So how many moments of These;
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Are you willing to exchange for moments of these?;


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HOw do you want to feel? and would you let someone else drag you into all those negative things and steal you away from the positive things?

Mike

[Guest]

I will recover, I am recovering, each and everyday I am more recovered. I have everything I need inside of me in order to recover and face any problem or limitations I will ever encounter. Each day I become stronger with my skills and I can access more and more of my inner resources.

Sataurday;

Comments
Not sure what is up with my lately if i'm still suffering with the aftermath of a cold or what but I have been extremely exhausted lately and today is no exception. It is however a good learning experience as I am learning to be less affected by the exhaustion and other symptoms of anxiety. I'm learning to remind myself that no matter how bad I feel, i'm still ok and it doesn't last forever. I'm also not pushing myself to do things but I'm also trying to avoid using my exhaustion as an excuse not to do things. What i've thought of is what something Lucinda said from lesson 3. I think it was to Carolyn when she said you were so negative about the experience that you couldn't even enjoy the experience. I am negative about many things I do. I'm realizing that when I was transfering that info from my old workout journal to my new one I kept telling myself I don't want to do this and I was focused on everything I "had to do" as opposed to the benefits. I see now that focusing in this way is like shoulding all over myself. So I have a new goal, I want to focus on the benefits of what i'm doing even if I don't like the task. We can motivate ourselves with the carrot or the stick and well i've been beating myself with the stick for a very long time, I think i deserve the carrot now...or maybe some cheesecake, pumpkin pie, chocolate cake, mint chip icecream maybe i'll just stick with the carrot. I can remind myself that I don't have to want to do something in order to do it but if I do it then I can get this feeling or have this reward or benefit this or that way. I'm going to give this a try and see how it goes.


Mike

[Guest]

I have also made a big realization with the affirmation scripts i had made. For the people who don't know what i'm talking about. I read a book called what to say when you talk to yourself and it spoke about affirmation scripts which are a little diffrent then just affirmations. You take a problem and you look at it at many diffrent angles and then you make an affirmation for each angle. This works with negative thoughts you have about a particular thing or situation and then you replace them but in affirmation format (present tense, simple and in a way that makes it sound like what you want has already come to be). Most of the scripts there I had created but some were from that book and I have made alot of progress by using those scripts. My Ah ha moment just happened today and it is likely to help with motivation and with the doubt surrounded by using affirmations. Hope it helps. I'm actually going to get back into listening to my affirmations again.


Mike