Maria!

If I told your life story then you picked up exactly where I left off!

Thank you so much for sharing what you’ve learned. YES, I always had a reason to worry and struggle. YES, I’ve trained my brain to do this. You are so spot on here for me; in an effort to keep me safe as a child some of my family members absolutely had a “better safe than sorry” mentality. This was ingrained deep within me. The world is a dangerous place — worry and fear — these are good things, these will keep you safe. This mentality was supposed to be a good thing, and yes I get it there’s a time and place to be prepared, but I was taught to needlessly worry. I was taught to worry from my family and I later taught myself to worry. So much so that I’m realizing that I believed for a very long time that worrying prevented danger. How silly to see that spelled out. Of course worry is wasted energy, anyone can tell you that, but what about when worry masquerades as preparedness? Ahh, then you think this worrying is a justified use of energy and before long your brain has been 100% trained in the art of pointless worry and anxiety. And yes, this is the part where I blame “mommy and daddy.” I’ve been there, held anger for them, but thankfully as I’ve begun to forgive myself I’ve begun to forgive them as well. I can see that it’s not their fault, they were just doing what they thought was best and you can’t fault anyone for that.

I am so happy to see you point out that my trained brain is now just running on autopilot, because it is, it so is. I really feel like I am stabbing in the dark trying to handle all of this on my own and from what I can self-identify and then search on the internet. It’s been a slow process without a community to speak with and I’m grateful for this forum here. What a great group of supportive people. 🙂

From what I’ve found on the internet before this has been the letting go of anxiety must be a passive approach. They say you can’t do anything. That was the hardest part of all, hearing that I can’t do anything, that I just have to wait and let it flow through me. It’s good advice for when I’m in the throws of a panic attack, but truth be told panic attacks are very, very rare for me these days. More than anything I’m dealing with this trained autopilot way of thinking and I want to run to wherever you are and throw my arms around you! Thank you, thank you, thank you for sharing Maria.

Yoga is an amazing gift and with as much as it helps me I really should do it more often; I only do yoga about once a week, typically choosing intense fitness instead. I need to make more time for it. Have you been to doyogawithme.com? It is an amazing wealth of resources. And yes, I completely agree fitness is a must. It’s rare that I go more than two days in a row without exercising, and when I do my whole world lacks focus. It’s dramatic but true! you mention the serotonin that your body gets and yes endorphins are obviously huge, especially if you work out frequently you begin to get addicted (in a good way!) and your body misses those endorphins when you don’t workout, making you feel even more down. Chalene Johnson is an all-time favorite of mine and while she’s a fitness star her true passion is personal development so exercising with her videos is a great all-in-one. If you’re looking for something new search for TurboFire or PiYo by her…and if you’re looking for just a killer intense workout go to lesmillsondemand and try the Body Combat to feel seriously accomplished and proud of yourself! Lol but I digress…I could talk about fitness for hours 😉

You mention to give myself credit for the small things that I do properly and this is big one, I think. I just realized after starting this forum yesterday that I rarely give credit to myself for facing things that stress me out. In an effort to overcome some of my triggers I face them head on and when I get through it, all sweaty and fumbling and nervous, instead of being proud of myself I mentality say, “you shouldn’t get so worked up about something so trivial anyway. It’s nothing to be proud of” and then I compare myself to how I “should have been” instead. I hope that just by recognizing this pattern I can start to give myself pats on the back and train away this mental behavior.

I will look more into online courses for the cognitive therapy, I’m not in a place where I can visit a therapist so something online is exactly what I’m looking for. Do you have any favorites of your own?

Truly a tremendous help, Maria. Thank you kind soul! 🙂