Know Anxiety

"In 2018, I want to work toward..." - my list is below. What's on yours?

Notes from the field: I'm terrified by icy roads and Mike is driving us out to pick up Joe who went to a friend's house prior to the snowfall. Trying to distract myself but kind of feel like throwing up. Good times. Update: we made it without any mishaps.

It's beginning to feel a lot like my annual Christmas panic. Other songs include: why do I always leave my shopping to the last minute when I hate crowds, fa, la, la and I'm dreaming of a white magic spell to clean my house before Monday.

I came across an article recently that listed 15 ways to deal with anxiety; many of the suggestions were excellent and I felt like I should do them all, every day starting RIGHT NOW. Then I got overwhelmed and ran away. Then I realized I have a blog about anxiety and I went back to the article to try at least one of the recommendations. This song was designed by scientists to be the most stress-reducing combination of notes and after listening to it the last couple of nights, I can say that it has helped to calm my thoughts at bedtime, when my mind likes to be the most active. Let me know what you think

Question: do you think difficulty making decisions is an anxiety thing? I can't decide it it's that or a Libra thing. See what I did there? I can't even decide about decisions.

I just discovered this cartoonist and had to share this one!

Have you ever thought about what superpower would be helpful in dealing with anxiety? Here's what I want: the ability to rewind what I say. Not all the time, just when I start telling someone a story and part way through realize that it's really boring. Or when leaving a voice message in some professional capacity and I start rambling and can't seem to stop and there's no way to erase the message.

Some helpful tips here. As a long-time catastrophiser (is that a word?), I need to work on noticing that tendency.

I feel like there is a one-minute window in which I am neither too early for an appointment (awkward) or too late (stressful). I'm currently sitting in my car since I'm on the early side of that window.

we could substitute "ourselves" for "kids" in this article, I believe. Understanding the neuroscience behind anxiety and all big emotions is so helpful.

I came down with a cold this week and, surprise, I have cold-related anxiety. I'm missing work which makes me feel bad; there'll be lots to catch up on when I go back (what if I fall so behind that I never catch up?) What if I go back too early and people glare at me for coming to work sick? What if I give the cold to everyone in my family? What if I'm still sick on the weekend when it's our son's birthday? Why am I obsessing about a simple cold when there are a gazillion worse things out there that people are dealing with?

In case you were wondering, a lack of posting on this page does not indicate a lack of anxiety on my part. This week's highlights include a dentist visit and insomnia. Details coming soon

#isitjustme who sees news headlines that are guaranteed to make me feel worse about the state of the world but can't seem to help but read the article? Seriously, what is that about?

Ah yes, Imposter Syndrome, my old friend.

This post isn't about my cat, although given the way he hides when anyone comes by, he may have a problem with social anxiety. (No pressure, Oliver...just stay in your laundry basket.)

Confessions of an anxious mind: snow edition. I know that the amount of snow we get on Vancouver Island is pitiful compared to the rest of the country but that's part of my anxiety. I don't have a lot of snow-driving experience and it freaks me out. What if I hit someone else because I don't know how to drive in the snow? What if I get stuck on a hill in traffic? What if I slide into a ditch and no one finds me for days and I have to survive on almonds that have fallen out of my lunch and are covered in fur? #itcouldhappen

I have a theory that people that either love to dress-up for Halloween or hate it. I'm in the latter camp. I really don't like being looked at and that's kind of the point of a costume. I thought this was an anxiety-type thing but then someone told me that they feel *less* anxious being dressed up because it's a character, not themselves. Any thoughts on this?

Do you know why our bodies produce sweat when we're anxious? 1) to cool us off and 2) to make it harder for predators to grab us. Fact #2 is especially relevant to me today, as we had a bear in our yard last night. (Good to know that I would've just slid out of his grasp.) #fridayfunfact

Ooh, I love this quote!

Started writing a blog post on how to deal with feeling overwhelmed. Then started to get overwhelmed. Will add this to the list: it's okay to leave it for another day.

Confessions of an anxious mind. Today, I had to cross the street. I know, right? It was the big 3: 1) I had to press the pedestrian light, bringing all traffic to a standstill. 2) It was a busy time of day and 3) I was the only person crossing, so ALL THE EYES WERE ON ME. I would much rather jaywalk (hypothetically, of course) or go to an intersection that has an automatic light and hopefully hordes of other people crossing.

I came across a version of this quote when listening to an excellent Ted Talk entitled "Make Stress Your Friend". The sentiment really resonated with me, so I played around with the wording until it clicked. (Then after posting it on Instagram, I realized it wasn't quite right and played around with it again. I'm nothing if not indecisive.)

When you have a little bit of website knowledge + a great deal of indecision, you have this amount of revisions on your home page. (Note: it's not even done yet!)

A little Friday morning chuckle.

New post. Finished it 3 days ago but kept second-guessing what I wrote. Of course

You know how September feels like a fresh start month and you think of all the things you will accomplish / change but then the month passes in a back-to-school blur and you feel more disorganized than ever? (No? Just me? Awkward.) Well, I am declaring the next 31 days #organizingoctober. Who's with me? (No one? Just me again? Awkward.)

This article has some excellent points and suggestions for dealing with self-doubt.

#Confessionsofananxiousmind - putting gas in the car. What if the gas station is busy and there's not enough line clarity and I accidentally cut someone off? What if I'm too far from the pump? Too close? On the wrong side? What if the pump malfunctions and overflows? What if some freak accident occurs and I blow up? And if I'm at a different station than the one I usually use, what if I accidentally use diesel? #theifword

I can't even imagine how much harder adolescence would've been if social media was around when I was a teen. Even now, I'll get drawn into "everyone else is having more fun / doing more" comparisons.

Confessions of an anxious mind: social media edition. Ok, I could probably write a book on the ways in which social media stresses me out but today it is the "tried to post something but got the error message, so tried again...and again and then checked my page to see if it I'd inadvertently posted it three times and then looked at the item in question and started to question why I was going to post it in the first place because it wasn't really that interesting. #overthinkersanonymous

Anxiety sometimes feels like a game of whack-a-mole; get rid of one anxious-provoking situation and an unrelated one pops up elsewhere. (Hmm, I just had a vision of hitting my anxiety with a giant mallet - kind of fun )

Confessions of an anxious mind - hobby edition. I've recently taken up gardening and as grounding as it usually is, my thoughts can still get me in a tizzy. This week it's edamame - never grown it before and not sure when it's ready. What if I pick it too early? Or too late? Shall I freeze it in the pod or shell it? Silly as it sounds, I can feel anxious about it. And don't even get me started on yarn anxiety! (That will be a separate post.) Does anyone else do this?

In which I discover the DYI infographic. (Oh ya, and try to be positive.)

Confessions of an anxious mind: public bathrooms. (No, this isn't about germs - that is far too reasonable ). My mind likes to worry about reading the signs wrong and walking into the Men's room, pushing open a stall door when someone's in there (yes, that would be more embarrassing for them but I would still feel bad), the lock on the door malfunctioning and someone walking in on me. And one more for good measure - waving my hands around for those motion-activated taps...especially when they're not actually motion-activated

This is the first year that I actually managed to get all the back-to-school shopping done before Labour Day weekend. (Usually I just worry about leaving it to the last minute and then...leave it to the last minute )

The correlation between sleep & anxiety seems particularly crazy-making: less sleep = more anxiety, more anxiety = difficulty sleeping. Last night I finally slept well and my anxiety voice has magically quieted.

I don't know about you, but I find this simple video really soothing. I'm going to try and get my computer-savvy kid to design something similar for my website but with a plant theme.

Thanks to Shannon for the lovely photo. (I'll say it now - I'm a really bad photographer, so assume all blog photos are taken by her, unless stated otherwise.)

Confessions of an anxious mind, traffic edition: being first at a red light, construction stop and/or detour. What if I miss it and someone honks? What if I stop too close / too far from the flag person? What if I take the wrong detour and everyone follows me? Anyone else do this?

A long article but some really interesting observations about social media & social justice. Bottom line for me - the more anxious I am, the less I feel able to help others.

My first post of my new blog. (It only took 6 months to get to this point!)