ayame,

While reading your posts, I noticed your use of the word ‘should’; I ‘should’ be doing this and/or I ‘shouldn’t’ be doing that. Our use of the word ‘should’ in our thinking puts a tremendous amount of pressure on us. It also robs us of the pleasure in what we ‘are’ doing. We find no enjoyment in what we ‘are’ doing because we’re so busy thinking of what we ‘should’ be doing.’Should’ makes us a villain, a bad person. If we don’t do what our thoughts tell us we ‘should’ be doing, we immediately become the bad guy (at least that’s what our thoughts tell us we are…wrong). Guilt is often the result of indulging in what we ‘should’ be doing.

Try taking the words ‘should’ or ‘shouldn’t’ out of your vocabulary and replace them with the word ‘could’. When your thoughts tell you what you ‘should’ or ‘shouldn’t’ be doing…exchange it for the word ‘could’. “I ‘could’ be doing this other thing”. Use of the word ‘could’ rather than the word ‘should’ relieves the pressure our thoughts put on us and helps keep us from being/becoming the bad guy.

Also and as one who is quite familiar with anxiety and anxiety attacks, I have found it helpful to stop fighting both things. If I allow myself to ‘sit’ with or ‘be’ with my anxiety (I’m trying to learn to actually befriend…hahaha….my anxiety), it passes in only a couple of minutes rather than being an all day event. Another thing I have found helpful is to remember that anxiety is not fatal and is, in fact, my body’s instinctual self-defense mechanism on steroids. Once I realized that my anxiety isn’t fatal, it became easier to welcome it into my life as part of what it means for me to be a human being. I used to do everything and anything I could to resist or deny what, at that time, I considered to be a negative aspect of my personality. I am trying to learn to take a second (sometimes longer) and ask myself what I’m feeling. I’m learning not to judge the feeling as either right or wrong, good or bad. Just ‘feel’ it. Allow it to be whatever it is. Remember, feelings are just that…feelings. They’re not fatal…they’re part of what it means to be human.

RL