Saying It May Make It Come To Pass

Fear: A strong, uncontrollable, unpleasant emotion caused by actual or perceived danger or threat.
Anxiety:  An unpleasant state of mental uneasiness, nervousness, apprehension and obsession or concern about some uncertain event. 
Stress: Emotional pressure suffered by a human being or another animal.

Interesting the main difference between fear and anxiety is that one is real and one is not.  Yet both of them are unpleasant.

I release my anxiety into the universe.

My anxiety is not my enemy.  It has something it wants to say and I'm trying my best to hear it talking.  I'm not going to get mad or curse or belittle it.

Don't deny the anxiety.  Don't pretend it isn't there and don't try to banish it into the outer darkness.  Sit there and look at it without judgment.  The more I try to make it vanish the more power it attains.  It's like trying to ignore some idiot in a meeting who bugs me - I hear every fricking word he says.

Kenner, mom, dad - I'm open to the grieving process in whatever form it takes.  I'm open to weeping.  I'm going to research weeping as an educational opportunity.  I wonder if my local community class offers Weeping 101 or Weeping For Alcoholics.  One of my Program buddies related a story by Gunther Grass where a grief group would get together and cut up onions to stimulate water coming from the eyes, or "tears" in common parlance.  This would usually result in one grieving person actually weeping real grieving tears, and the rest of the class would fall like dominoes; sort of like wanting to vomit if you're in the vicinity of someone else who is vomiting or about to vomit or has just got done vomiting.  This sounds ridiculous but I'm really in that zone where I'm open to anything.

I'm 60.  I want to acknowledge the fact of my aging without succumbing to an excess of caution. Sometimes I bitch about it too much but I have a tendency to dismiss this as mere bitching - and I admit that maybe it's more than that - because I still do a lot of things even if I'm a little slower or less forceful in the doing.  I'm aware of some limitations but I'm not overwhelmed or intimidated by them.  I hope that if I decide that trying to climb Mt Kilimanjaro wouldn't be a smart long term move even though I may be able to do it in the short run that this falls under the category of "appropriate caution" rather than "excess fear."  I no longer run because I don't want to subject my 60 year old body to the pounding that running entails.  I'm not doing this because I think I'm old - I'm doing it because I believe I'll be able to do other things for a longer time if I keep this fairly jarring exercise out of my exercise routine.  I guess I'm saying I want to keep pushing forward with the caveat that it be common-sense pushing.  But I do have to be careful - I had an anxious, over-protective mother and this has led to a . . . ahem . . . healthy preoccupation with all carnal matters Seaweed.

Positive Affirmations - you become what you think.  Well, maybe.  I'm going with this one but it has a strong touchy-feeley New-Agey vibe surrounding it.  But then again if you tell someone over and over how stupid they are - especially children or adults with the emotional maturity of children, like me - then after a while they may start to take this to heart.

It's enough with the back already.  The back is uncomfortable but it's not debilitating.  My back feels tighter and stiffer when I'm anxious.  Quit thinking about it.  This is a Negative Affirmation.

Jesus Christ I sound like a panelist on Oprah.