Dear Juanita:

You are very kind and I appreciate you greatly for your kindness: it is kind of you to express your appreciation the way you do, when you do.

The last paragraph of your recent post is very meaningful to me. What caused you to feel very badly earlier, that “acute stress” you mentioned, was partly that your cat was feeling badly and you were not happy with the vet you took her to at the time, and partly because you blamed yourself for what you were not guilty of. The torture of blaming yourself and accusing yourself was a big part of that acute stress.

Once you took your cat to a different vet, a better vet, and she feels better, and you “being less self-critical”, that is less blaming and accusing yourself- you feel much better.

This means that in all situations where there is no rational basis for you to  blame or accuse yourself, if you maintain the non-self-blaming, non self-accusing state of mind, you will feel better.

anita