Archives: anxiety

For many people, anxiety can be a continuous background rhythm to our everyday lives. Sometimes the drumbeat takes center stage and we are driven by these feelings and become dominated by an anxiety state of mind. We may begin to experience physical feelings (butterflies, sweating, GI symptoms) and/or anxious thoughts, feelings and perceptions that cause us to believe that we are on the verge of catastrophe and shape the way we see and influence our world.  Our culture is filled with stress, so that even if you are not an “anxious person”, you are internally responding to stress and it can take a toll on your health and mental functioning.  It is therefore very important to begin learning ways to manage stress and to treat anxiety. This is the beginning of a conversation about it.

On January 28, 2014, I was a guest on Jordyn Goodman’s “Empowered” LA talk radio show. The link to her page is, Empowered.  We focused on how anxiety manifests itself in young woman in particular, and talked about how to understand, manage and treat it. Psychotherapy, hypnosis, meditation, and self-care are all discussed as ways of managing anxious feelings.  Here is a clip from her show that features my discussion. (To hear the rest of her show, or to hear other interesting topics, please go to Empowered.)

.

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

— Jelaluddin Rumi,
translation by Coleman Barks
(shared by http://www.drpayam.com/)

Continue reading

It is no surprise that a diagnosis of cancer brings with it quite a bit of fearfulness and anxiety. You are now facing a great threat to your whole experience of yourself and the world, as well as a threat to your survival. You may experience a new existence of uncertainties and insecurities. In facing the anxiety of cancer, it is important to know that this is a very typical feeling, and that however unpleasant it is, it helps to accept that you are anxious. When we panic about our anxiety, we create more anxiety, and this fearfulness becomes self-perpetuating. Once you accept that you are anxious, and see it only as a state of mind, one of many possible states of mind, you can allow it to manifest itself and be dealt with. One way of gaining control over your anxiety is to gain more control over your life. One of the many facets of a cancer

Continue reading