So grateful you posted this! After meditating this morning, this thought–seemingly random–crossed my mind. Now I understand why I was pondering it. Every morning I wake up already expecting the best. Living in NY (the city) can be so stressful when you leave your home already expecting it to be this crazy and hectic city. So I begin by expecting my day to be filled with positive experiences. However, we’re human, and we do get overwhelmed sometimes. That’s when I do breathing exercises to keep me grounded. I also take walks through local parks! Sit for a while, just breathe and look around… at least until winter comes lol.

Sending you light, James!

Dear James:

I live in a place totally opposite to a big city. This is one of the most peaceful places on earth, away from city, seven miles or so to the nearest store or food establishment. Yet, at this peaceful place, a few of my neighbors run around anxious all day long. I have been fascinated by this. One of my neighbors in particular, she is anxious-crazy no matter what. She has the biggest three story house and tons of land perfectly manicured, plants, flowers, a tree house, no financial problems, she is not working and can do anthing she wants but she picks up a reason to worry at any and all times, there is always something and never did I see her calm.

So, the craziness is really in between her ears. She is constantly running away from her distress and never succeeds.

anita

Dear James:

I suggested meditation, to bring my computer and have guided meditation with her. She didn’t take me up on it. She lacks insight into what makes her anxious, thinking it is this or that, nor realizing there will always be this or that. So I would have suggested psychotherapy but I am afraid she will chop my head off if I suggested that to her…

anita

Dear James:

I can’t save a single person and I am working very hard on saving myself, saving the rest of my life from being wasted on crazy. I am here on this site only to save myself, one comment at a time. Posts trigger me, make me think, figure things out, figure me out. If anything I type helps anyone, even for a moment, that is a good thing. But leaving behind my own dream of saving others is a big part of saving myself.

Take care, james:
anita

Dear James:

I see more than ever before. I see more and more every day. I am getting good at peeling of the BS layers from bare reality- I call it evolving. What made me evolve? It started with my first good psychotherapy in 2011, CBT/Mindfulness/DBT. Lots of healing took place since, lots and lots of hard work, regressions, transgressions, inaccurate projections, distorted thinking, huge blinders, knowing-but-not-knowing (having been disconnected from my emotions- a NECESSARY source of knowing, the kind of knowing necessary for mental health). I worked every day since 2011, every single day, for more than a year, it was my FT job, hours and hours per day.

The seeing MORE is the benefit of this long term, persistent hard work.

Sometimes I get tired and almost look with nostalgia at parts of the past when life was simpler in a way- but I can’t go back, that is the “problem” – I chose a path, a healing path, stayed on it consistently, persistently and I went too far, so far that I can’t go back and take refuge in things of the past, such as believing someone else can save me (pathological but a source of pleasant daydreaming in the past), such as finding comfort in anyone’s company (now I am so selective I find myself more alone than ever) and so forth.

anita