Waiting for the other shoe to drop...

Sometimes I get anxious for no good reason. Things may be going along OK – and then, suddenly I am filled with apprehension and feel on-edge and nervous and fearful – like something bad is about to happen. This seems to happen when I realize that nothing bad has happened for a while and I just can’t get used to that – like I am so accustomed to difficulties and memories and dealing with hard stuff that I almost can’t get used to the experience of being OK – and sort of have to brace myself for the next crisis or even create one because that is my “normal” state. And then when or if something happens it’s like – yeah, I knew it – a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Anyone else have this?

Any ideas on how to just enjoy the reprieve (rare as it is) and not “borrow trouble”?

Lee

In a way, we can tend to camp out on the "dark side". In fact, the "dark side" is what we were taught and as strange as it seems is our norm. I always have a mental vision of what I want in life and who I want to be as a man. That vision is not in the darkest realms if who I know could be. Transitioning comes in steps; in events and moments. Follow you vision of the man you know you can be and the "dark side" will fade in time.

Hang on Lee!
Recently I've fund some good article about fear and anxiety.
Here is fascinating quote from it:
"The problem with chronic fear and anxiety that are triggered by stimuli that do not present acute danger to your life is that these emotions sap your resources, causing your self healing and preserving mechanisms to dwindle in efficiency. So the longer you experience chronic fear and anxiety, the worse your overall health becomes.
My personal belief, established over the years through personal and professional experiences, is that overcoming chronic fear and anxiety requires that you create memories that can modify or simply overpower the memories in your head that are currently responsible for your chronic fear and anxiety. But this is no easy task, as your current memories are deeply established patterns of connections that exist between the trillions of interactive surfaces that exist between the billions of nerve cells that make up your brain."
Here is link to article, could be interesting for reading:
http://drbenkim.com/overcome-chronic-fear-anxiety.html

When we are working on our lives and begin to enjoy it , it is almost foreign to us . My life was full of chaos and when there is not chaos it is scary it almost feels like something is missing . My son is going through this he is my step son but I love him as my own . His uncle had been abusing him and now that he has been living with me over the last 4 years we have faced many things together and he is learning much as did that when life is not about drama and chaos that is is almost scary . Every time we affirm him in his school work and his behavior we almost just expect him to go off the deep in so to speak. The expectation has risen and this is not comfortable for him as it was uncomfortable for me at one time.

I used to feel this way when my life started coming together the more together it got the more i freaked out because i had to learn how to handle success because i was so not used to having any. Now i no it is just a lie i refuse to fall into it now that i no better . It is not going to all come tumbling down infact it is going to get better because with each thing that i consider something negative or bad i just look at it as a learning experience instead of something bad coming on me . And i have learned to handle them better as they come because my mind is more stable my growth has allowed me to look with wisdom instead of fear and not to say i have reach perfection or that i have somehow "arrived" but the growth is at a point where i can truly enjoy my life . Life is good how can it not be my faith is in a place where i truly believe with all my heart that I can do ALL things through Christ which strengthens me. If i do not believe this than i am wasting my time . I am just speaking for me at the place i am in my life right now.

It is hard not to think these negative lies about something is going to happen bad to me because i somehow do not deserve to live a good life . But it is all lies we have fed ourselves to get by a coping mechanism it gives us some kind of weird control so we think . The fact is we are not controlling anything all we are doing is making sure that the chains are firmly in place in that area of our lives.

I have chosen to not except this false sense of control and i hope you will one day be able to do the same

i think you are right, nlt.

today my T said pretty much the same thing about control.

i used to have the really obsessive kind - and realized that was bad - so then i thought i had to go to the other extreme and not try to control anything.

my T said there is a helpful, healthy sense of control and a harmful, destructive, negative sense of control. he described it as 3 baskets: #1 is where all the stuff is that i have no control over - it makes me anxious and fearful and panicky. #3 is the things i have total control over - that give me a sense of comfort and confidence and power. #2 is the place for all the rest - where the control is shared. that sometimes is good - when the others sharing the control are cooperative and have compatible goals and values and agree on the same means to the same ends. but sometimes it is a source of conflict because of differences and imbalance, etc.

what will help me is to start recognizing which things are in which basket - and if it is in #1 (no control)and it needs to be changed, try to get it moved to #2 (shared control) and work out a compromise. If it is in #1 (no control) or #2 (shared) and belongs there - don't try to act like it is in #3 (my exclusive and total control). that only leads to more stress. maybe i can also move some things from 3 to 2 so i don't have to take so much on myself!

so i need to assess everything and make sure it is in the right basket and not try to obsess over it all as if it was all in my own #3. and i need to let go of the stuff in #1 and not worry so much about it cause i can't do anything about it anyway. how can it be so hard to let go of something that i didn't really have a handle on to begin with!?

lee

.

i made another post about a possibly confrontational situation in a meeting coming up today. just realized i need to apply the 3 baskets concept to that.

it feels like the situation is a #1 - no control on my part. i have been trying to make it into a #3 - total control on my part. that makes me super-stressed. neither of those alternatives is likely to work well for any of the parties involved. it SHOULD be a #2 - shared control. that is what i should be going for. if i can just get both sides - myself, as well as the principal and head teacher - to meet in the middle in a fair and reasonable way... i feel a little better now - knowing specifically what the anxiety is coming from - not just me vs them.

we'll see how it goes.
lee