uitwaaien FACTS ...

i am on a uitwaaien. i am taking a mental health break while i walk in the wind of my life. giving myself the space to decompress, de-stress, and deal with my internal struggles. 

and this uitwaaien causes me a whole lot of anxiety!!

i have this theory that when faced with anxiety and self-doubts, and worrying and self-loathing, one way to battle the negative self-talk is to list the facts. 

i call my theory: Fast Accurate Concise Truthful Statements (FACTS). 

for example, i am worrying and unable to sleep because of an appointment with a specialist tomorrow who is going to tell me to lose weight. 

FACT: i know i need to lose weight. 

FACT: he has no idea what a day in my life is like. 

FACT: it will be a brief appointment and i can decide not to see him again if i don't want to see him again. 

FACT: this will not kill me. 

FACT: i have polycystic ovarian syndrome and hypothyroidism which makes losing weight extremely difficult. 

i am also anxious about taking a laughter yoga class. because i don't know what to expect. because it sounds crazy. because i can't picture myself making myself laugh in front of a group of strangers. 

FACT: i never have to go back if i hate it

FACT: i don't have to do anything that i don't want to do

FACT: i can get up and walk out if it's too much

FACT: i can choose to watch

FACT: this is not going to kill me. 

when i am in the middle of a panic attack, there are several strategies that i have used. nosy nora suggests 2 techniques, one is to activate the rational brain (eg. counting backwards by 3's) and the other is to activate the parasympathetic nervous system. (for more info click on the links at the bottom of this post ...) i do this by squeezing the edges of my finger tips, or finding a sore spot in the fleshy but of my thumb and rubbing that spot. 

and now i have added my Fast Accurate Concise Truthful Statements (FACTS) technique while i am activating my parasympathetic nervous system. so i squeeze my finger tips while listing the FACTS  about the situation that is causing me anxiety. 

i will admit that sometimes i forget to do any of these techniques. sometimes i fall into the spiral of the panic and let anxiety be in control of my life. AG likes to tell me to tell anxiety that it is no longer in control. and i sometimes need that reminder. okay ... i OFTEN need that reminder as i am struggling to breathe. 

so back to the anxiety around my uitwaaien. i worry that my students are falling behind. i worry that i am being judged by everyone around me. i worry that i am being selfish. i worry that i am wasting time. i worry that i am not getting better.

FACT: some days i can make it through an entire day without crying.

FACT: my students are already "behind" and a few weeks without me isn't the end of the world.

FACT: i am not that important. work carries on without me. 

FACT: i am not selfish, i am taking care of myself and my needs. 

i encourage you to find your own  Fast Accurate Concise Truthful Statements (FACTS) when you are faced with anxiety and self-doubt. don't get me wrong, this is a very new strategy for me and i often forget to do it. i am still learning the best way to approach my FACTS; whether to write them, or to list them in my head, or to tell them to a friend. 

xoxo

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http://www.wisebrain.org/ParasympatheticNS.pdf

https://sites.google.com/site/psychospiritualtools/Home/psychological-practices/activating-the-parasympathetic-wing-of-your-nervous-system

anxiety is a meteor, a tsunami, and a broken alarm clock

do you ever lie awake worrying about things that are both completely beyond your control but also completely impossible? 

i set 3 alarms for tomorrow morning. 

and i am convinced that all 3 of them will be defective, or i will sleep through them. 

i am convinced that i am going to get lost going to an appointment that i have in the morning. and i am convinced that i am going to spontaneously lose the ability to speak or write in English which means i won't be able to communicate with anyone to ask them for directions. clearly, i will get lost just trying to find the elevator. and then if i do manage to find enough English words to ask for directions, i won't remember the directions that i am given mere moments after i am given them. so i will wander around aimlessly which means i will be late. 

that is assuming that my car starts in the morning. and that i have enough gas. that is assuming that one of my three alarms that i set is effective. 

and once i do arrive at the hospital where my appointment is ... where will i park? there is a parking lot, but i don't want to pay for parking. hospital parking costs way too much. so i need to drive around and find a side street that has parking for more than one hour at a time. 

and all that is assuming that when i DO get out of bed if my alarms go off and i don't run into heavy traffic, that i am not struck by a meteor and that i arrive at the hospital and don't find that it has been destroyed by a tsunami that somehow made it's way from the ocean across several provinces. 

of course, as AG said, we could be completely wiped out by aliens, which means i wouldn't be alive to have to worry about any of these whatifs anyway. 

but back to my original question ... do you ever spiral out of control with your whatifs? 

i get so stuck on what could happen that i can't focus on what is happening NOW. it can be debilitating. 

i am trying to work on looking at the FACTS. 

FACT: my car probably needs gas so i should leave 10 minutes earlier than i had planned and fill up the tank. 

FACT: one of my 3 alarms is going to wake me up, and SC gets up hours before the time that i set the alarm for and i will likely get out of bed with her anyway. 

FACT: it is highly improbable that i will forget both the speaking and writing of English at exactly the same time, so i can probably ask for directions.

FACT: if i ask for directions and then either get lost, or forget what the directions were, i can ask someone else. 
there are probably signs. 

FACT: meteors and aliens are also quite unlikely to impede my day.

FACT: we are too far from the ocean for a tsunami to affect us ... and the hospital is too far from the lake for a flood to affect it ...

FACT: if i do end up parking on a street for free and it turns out to only be one hour parking and i am there for two hours, the worst thing that will happen is that i get a parking ticket, which will piss me off because it would have been cheaper to park at the hospital, but it won't actually be the end of the world and i can just pay the ticket and move on.

making a list of facts when your anxieties are crowding out your rational thoughts is quite useful. Nosy Nora suggests counting backwards by 3s from 100. and if the list of facts isn't enough, and if counting backwards doesn't activate your rational brain, then activating your parasympathetic nervous system while listing your facts can help to take away any physical symptoms of anxiety. 

i like to rub the fleshy bit of my thumb muscle under my thumb. i poke around until i find a tender spot and then i push and rub hard on that tender spot. i call it the come-back-to-me spot because it brings me back to reality instead of letting me float away in a tsunami of what ifs ...

xoxo

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