We hope you enjoy the Oldies but Goodies we’ll be posting between now and 2011. Happy Holidays!
After having written my last post on replacing fear with good memories, another side-effect of fear occurred to me. When we focus on our fear and we physically spiral into extreme fight or flight, we are fighting two problems in our attempt to move forward. We feel horrible psychologically AND we feel physically horrible. I know I’ve said they feed on one another… and they do. But we need to acknowledge that it’s harder to go out in the world when on top of being scared, you have a sick stomach or worse.
When I finished my first year of training and had customer accounts that were mine, every day was an “adventure.” My territory was spread all over. Because of the traffic, getting to a customer could take 45 minutes to an hour. Prior to getting this job, the farthest I’d driven was to college, which was 45 minutes from home. I had one way to get there and reversed that to get home. (I get lost going around the block. GPS’s were invented to keep me out of places I shouldn’t be in.)
Continue reading » Mickey Mouse to the Rescue
Anxiety is the rust of life, destroying its brightness and weakening its power.
— Anonymous
Recently, I’ve been reading another book about how our brains work. In Dr. Daniel Amen’s book Change Your Brain, Change Your Life, he describes the chemical interactions that occur as a result of our thoughts. Putting these various pieces of research together, I have learned that I can affect how my mind behaves and I can create an outlook that serves me. With that comes greater freedom from anxiety and depression and that makes it worth working at understanding the science, and developing the skills that conform with the research.
In some of my most recent posts, I’ve written about the effect of thoughts on the shape and structure of our brain. Repetitive thoughts or actions become imprinted in our brains and the more repetitive they are the deeper the imprint. The deeper the imprint, the harder it is to change them.
With the addition of Dr. Amen’s research, we start to understand how Continue reading » Get Rid of the ANTS
Too much bad stress, too often can make you sick. How do you relieve tension and anxiety?
Don’t let your mind bully your body into believing it must carry the burden of its worries.
— Astrid Alauda
With apologies to Paul Simon’s 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover, take a listen and let his music inspire your creative release of whatever tensions plague you. Of course, the problem isn’t all inside your head – bad stress permeates your body, your heart and your soul… and it’s as damaging as can be. Shaking off your stress is well worth the struggle.
Stress is the trash of modern life – we all generate it but if you don’t dispose of it properly, it will pile up and overtake your life.
— Terri Guillemets
There Must Be 50 Ways to Shake Off Your Stress
- Just slip out the back, Jack.
- Make a new plan, Stan.
- Bake some bread – beat that dough into submission!
- Learn to forgive. Really, do it, forgiveness matters!
- Make funny faces to a mirror.
- Yawn on purpose. Do it again.
- Remove yourself from the situation. (Hop on the bus, Gus.)
- Turn on a radio talk show, talk back or mimic the commentators.
- Help someone who needs help.
- Take off your shoes and soak your feet. Continue reading » 50 Ways to Shake Off Your Stress
For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who don’t believe, no proof is possible.
— Stuart Chase
Here at BouncebackCafe.com, Ellie and I focus on providing ideas, skills and techniques for helping you to live your best life. One of the things that I’ve found is that each person is only as open to trying some of these ideas as they are hopeful about their future.
Each and every day, we are bombarded by messages about ourselves, the world around us, the future, opportunities, problems and a million other things that we’re not even aware of. Without even thinking about it, we choose which messages to accept as true and which we reject as false. If you’ve been overwhelmed by negativity, it’s hard to try new ideas.
The Chicken or the Egg?
This raises an interesting question. What determines which messages Continue reading » What – Me Worry?
Every faculty and virtue I possess can be used as an instrument with which to worry myself.
— Mark Rutherford
Lately, fear has been a big topic of conversation. It seems that there have been lots of crazy things going on in the world, even if we ignore the wars. An oil rig blows up right before it goes into production (and, incidentally, right after President Obama endorses off-shore drilling). Another person who hates the US tries to bomb us into submission – and then another person leaves a cooler with water bottles in the middle of Times Square. (Weren’t they embarrassed?) The market drops almost 1,000 points and then rallies back 650 points – all in less than a half an hour. Lions and tigers and bears, OH MY!
Life has always been uncertain, yet now it seems even more uncertain than it was a couple of months ago. (Oh, and the clergy in the Catholic Church in Ireland has been abusing minors – I’m not sure why this is a surprise, but it contributes to the general sense of anxiety.) All of this gangs up on us and can leave us feeling Continue reading » Thriving in These Anxious Times
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