Dear Cali Chica:

You are amazing, Cali Chica, and I hope you go on and on being and becoming more of this amazing person that you are, exceptional.

Regarding your first recent post: if I was you, I wouldn’t share with anyone (other than with me and with any other individual who fully supports you already, on whose full support you can rely on) regarding you not having contact with your parents and planning to keep it this way. And if someone asked me about parents, I would refuse to answer or talk about the issue, stating just that, politely but firmly.

Too many people endure abuse by parents and keep contact and encourage others to keep contact with their parents, feeling guilty to cut contact themselves, they promote that guilt in others. They view their parents the ways they wish they were and view their childhood the ways they wished it was, so you don’t get correct information from them. Not a good idea to share and open a discussion.

Being back to work in full force means that old habits get stronger. The biological goal of habits is to free yourself to do what needs to be done here and now, at work. It takes, like you wrote, a “deliberate practice of ‘checking with me’ first” and that is difficult and sometimes impossible when “inundated with outwardly people and stimulation”.

Better than, reduce the stimulation by not sharing, as I suggested above and by being selective as to who you spend your time with, when it is up to you. Also, don’t make decisions when in that state, inundated, when you can make these decisions when calm and able to check with yourself first.

You wrote: “I am proud to have the courage to speak and heal”. I am proud of you too.

Regarding your most recent post, my thoughts: I think that as you proceed with the issues regarding the move, if I was in your place, facing this, I will expect the anxiety to continue. I will expect to not feel calm, settled and at ease.

Maybe it is a bit like this: one is in a wheelchair and can move only by moving the wheels of the chair (would be like operating sensibly when anxious). But if the person in the wheelchair  expects to not be able to stand and walk at any time (expecting to be calm and settled), she will focus on what is not possible (stand and walk/ be without anxiety) and not do what is possible, which is to move that chair and make sensible choices.

In my experience anxiety long term does lessen and lessen, significantly so, only it takes so very long. My functioning in life has improved a whole lot as well.

Regarding there being fewer people with whom you can have a meeting of the minds, it is the way it is. The reason is that people are motivated to not feel pain and seeing reality for what it is, initially, involves pain. It involves giving up one’s feel-good delusions about their childhood, their parents, their lives.

I wrote the above before I read this part: “I ponder this, go back and forth. Wait for that ‘right feeling’ and realize it may not come”- yes, don’t expect that settled, calm feeling (the wheelchair example). Make the best sensible choices you can make and move on without that feeling.

I wonder if you can fit a relaxing massage into your schedule? Such things as hot baths, relaxing things you can do, are very important. Taking a moment here and there in your busy day to relax, refocus. I wonder if you can print a paper that you can carry with you with words you can read/ meditate on during those breaks, if you have breaks. Words to remind you, words to refocus your intent in your day and life.

And do  post any time.

anita