Gut Check

In this post I would like to take the focus of our anxiety off of us. Sound good? OK let’s go. I am a huge sports fan so I am going to use baseball as an analogy of life, and try to come in the back door where hindsight, and judgment set unaware.

           

The manager of a baseball team has a big job ahead of him. He has to take this group of young men and get them all focused into the job at hand. (To be winners.) That may seem simple; after all you have to have some crazy talent to even make it to the big leagues. But the wise coach knows that talent is not enough. He makes a set of goals for the team.

I will give 100% when on the field

I will act like a professional off the field

I will support and encourage my teammates

I will (etc etc.)

The whole team signed the goal sheet. The coach gave a short pep talk, and the players leave the locker room cheering, ready to start the season.

The season starts out like gang busters; they were walking through teams like they weren’t even there. This is the team to watch!! The team as a whole is on a high, they’re confident, borderline arrogant. They come to practice just going through the motions, because they know they could turn it on when it counts.

You guessed it. Suddenly they went into a slump. I mean they couldn’t even buy a game if it were free. Oh don’t you know the anxiety level was getting high the players  started bickering amongst each other, pointing fingers. Pretty soon the fans were booing them. The situation was getting pretty depressing.

The players were sitting in the locker room after yet another lose depressed, and bewildered, expecting a royal butt chewing when the manager came in. Instead, he walked in very quietly, and gave every man a folder with instructions not to open yet.  “Men” he said in a slow easy voice, “you are all talented.” “You are all good people….BUT in order to be winners, you must be accountable.”  “That is why I want you to take this list of goals home, that you all signed individually, and bring back an honest assessment of your commitment to the plan.” “Not mine, or Jack or Joe’s.” “YOUR OWN!”

I think we’re far enough into the back door to get the picture. We are the coach of our lives, and the one ultimately responsible for all our victories. So it follows that we have to be accountable for our shortcomings also. There are tons of obstacles in life, and shifting the attention in another direction does not make the obstacle go away. The good coach will have a plan to get by it. You have that power.

One final thought. Like the wise coach, when evaluating yourself be firm but honest. You don’t want to beat yourself up so bad you can’t finish the game.

                                                Peace and love

                                                     easyl

The Woven Mind

Stress, anxiety, panic attacks, depression, even agoraphobia,( avoidance of all social situations) are all very real and happen to almost everyone at some point in life. All to greater or lesser degrees, at any given time. Some justify anxiety, some deny depression, some may not even be aware of it because IT is such a common part of their lives that it just seems natural.

            I have lived with anxiety for as long as I can remember. The funny thing is I didn’t know it. It wasn’t until the same sort of things kept recurring in my life that I figured it wasn’t all coincidence.

            The following is a poem I would like to share that I wrote about 30 years ago as my life was beginning to unfold.

Looking through my minds eye I see,

a mystical being that seemed very familiar to me.

There was no face, no shape, no solidity to his frame

Although I had this overwhelming feeling he and I were the same.

Suddenly I was standing in a large prism of glass,

On every angled crystal was a reflection of my past.

I was hit with a flood of my every emotion,

Love, wonder, hate fear, and devotion.

The room suddenly grew dark as in the blink of an eye,

There was only one section left giving off any light.

I looked through the glass unable to believe what I was seeing,

My young mother giving birth to me, and beside stood the being.

The room faded to complete darkness, then echoed with these words.

It was the most thrilling, chilling story I had ever heard.

I am your soul, your life key, your thesis.

At the moment of birth I was shattered to pieces.

Every part of your life that you have just witnessed

was all preparation. What will you do with the rest?

I woke suddenly to the ringing of the phone.

My soul, the prism, where had it all gone?

A voice boomed over the line, there are two things left to say

You’ve got what it takes, and today is a new day.

           

            I guess why I shared this is because it is a perfect flow into other things I will be talking about in the coming posts. Until then, know that you were created in the image of perfection. Don’t dread the bad days and give them power over all the good days you’ve had, and will have.

                                                                        Peace and love

                                                                              easyl

AM I MY AVATAR?

A few years ago my daughter told me she was being treated for anxiety, and panic attacks. This hit me pretty hard because I am the kind of person who hates labels. It just seems to me that too many people except what others think about them as a way of explaining who they are. Since I was the dad (and I knew my daughter didn’t have a mental illness) I decided to research this label someone was trying to put on her.

            So onto the computer I went, I read blog after blog trying to understand, so I would be able to m help my daughter. To my relief I found that it was not a mental illness at all (although it can be quite debilitating if not addressed). Come to find out, I realized that I had probably suffered from an anxiety disorder for most of my adult life, but just figured I was a little more sensitive, or high strung than most. To empower myself I explained it as me having been given more passion than most.

 I have come to realize that anxiety is not all bad. Sometimes it lets you know something is wrong and compels you to take action. At other times it causes you to judge yourself, your thoughts, and your actions, as compared to what you think others would say or do, or be like in the same situation. Or worse yet, to envy the person who you perceive to have all the characteristics you lack.

As you can probably tell, this is not a very healthy way of thinking. Because the very nature of anxiety, and panic attacks is the mind spinning with false perceptions, that the mind sees as real, and will leave a person angry, confused, insecure and more than likely drained.(take heart, none of the above are fatal, or a curse you are doomed to repeat forever)

Anyways, the more blogs I read, the more I learned. The more I learned the more interested I became to write my own blog . I thought maybe it would help me to put some of my thoughts into words, and possibly help just one person who may think they are a freak, and all alone.  The only obstacle that faced me was I would be doing this all from memory, so could I really still feel the passion enough to make it believable.

That question was answered in the amount of time it would take you to say “oh sh--!!”  Right after choosing my user name came the space to put a picture of myself, or an avatar. Well to say the least this caused me some (looking back) unwarranted anxiety. The picture was completely out of the question. What if someone I know recognized me? What if people look at my picture and judge me without reading my post? Etc… The only thing I knew about an avatar was it was a pretty cool movie. So I looked it up in the dictionary. Avatar- The embodiment of a quality or concept. That is pretty neat, I could be the statue of the thinker, or for my adventurous side I could have a picture of Neil Armstrong walking on the moon. With much thought, since I am looking for thoughts and comments from those further along than me, and since I am only looking to help that one person I have decided to add my picture. I figure it is the only quality that embodies the true concept of me.   Love and peace to you all