Stress Center Peer Support

I have been enjoying this program so much. I keep trying to apply the tools that I am learning and using them in my life. Not always the easiest thing to do. Facing your fears and facing axiety head on but the program is helping very much. My self confadence is building everday. I was going along very well. At least I thought. I was showing asertive behavior and liking it. I was talking myself out of attacks. I even was able to talk myself out this feeling I get in my chest like someone is pinching me. Doctors have ran all kinds of test and find nothing wrong. They think it is my anxiety and a pulled muscle on my left pectoral muscle. When it happens it scares me and I start to think the worse. All the people that are my support system around me went out of town for the weekend and I was all alone. I had a sales meeting and could not sleep well the night before and also having those pains in my chest. I know it is in my head but it still scares me and so my anxiety was going crazy and I thought all kinds of bad things where going to happen to me. A lot of what if's. Does anyone else have set backs and what do you do about them?

We've probably all had setbacks. At first they frustrated me but it was due I think to my impatience at wanting to feel better 'now'. I did notice that after going thru the program a few times that my setbacks have been less intense and shorter lived. Don't get discouraged. The improvement for me wasn't a straight shot, but had a lot of turnarounds in the process. Eventually I stopped focusing on them, accepted that there will be some, and stopped fearing them. Once I wasn't afraid of them anymore they greatly diminished.

Set backs sometimes come with a bang! I'll be having a great week, thinking, wow, I feeling pretty darn good, then all of a sudden, I'll wake up scared, depressed, anxious, wondering, what the heck happened? I still can't figure this one out, maybe its what we've eaten, or something we saw on TV, maybe something we were dreaming in the middle of the night. Who knows, but this does seem to happen further apart as time goes by and continuing to practice positive self talk. When I feel like this, I start listening to my tapes in my car as I go about my day, and boy, it REAllY helps. Maybe give it a try. Suzzie