The Cuckleburr Times » anxiety

How to Drop Your Creative Resistance

Valery Satterwhite — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 20:37:11 +0000

The simple truth is creativity functions best when you let go of resistance to the creative flow. Resistance comes in many forms. Anxiety over a creative block is a form of resistance. Finding Excuses And Reasons (F.E.A.R.) for why you cannot or aren’t whatever enough to come up with the vision or the energy to create is another face of resistance. Worrying about how you’re going to pay your bills or how the critics will view your work is nothing but resistance. Resistance is saying NO! to YOU. It is saying NO to what your heart is calling you to be, do and experience.

Let go of your resistance. Trust. Trust that you can, are ‘enough’, will be able to keep a roof over your head and handle criticism of any kind. Just drop the baggage of resistance that you’ve been carrying around with you that makes you too exhausted to get your creative juices flowing. Even if you give yourself permission to let go for only 1 day, just drop it! Drop out of the vicious cycle of artist block and stunted creativity.

“Drop out” suggested an elective, selective, graceful process of detachment from involuntary or unconscious commitments. It meant self-reliance, a discovery of one’s singularity, a commitment to mobility, choice, and change. Unhappily my explanations of this sequence of personal development were often misinterpreted to mean ‘Get stoned and abandon all constructive activity.’” -Timothy Leary

When you drop your creative resistance you change your structured path of least resistance. Your current path is mired with fear and self-doubt. When you drop your fear and self-doubt you create a new path; a path that is clear, free from the quagmire of restraints and limitations to your creative flow. You are open to new vision.

“It is the function of art to renew our perception. What we are familiar with we cease to see. The writer shakes up the familiar scene, and, as if by magic, we see a new meaning in it.” – Anais Nin

It is very easy to drop your creative resistance. Just be willing. Take a deep breath and begin. It doesn’t matter how you begin; just do anything. If you’re a painter pick up your brush or knife and choose a color. Put some paint on a canvas and let go. If you’re an actor, audition for a role that you think is impossible to win. If you’re a writer, write a romantic comedy if your work is largely science fiction. Do something out of your ordinary, out of your comfort zone, and be willing to fall flat on your butt.

“Every man, through fear, mugs his aspirations a dozen times a day.” ~Brendan Francis

If you do create a stink bomb, have a good chuckle over the experience and notice that the fall didn’t kill you like you feared it would. In fact, you learned a thing or two about yourself and how you can improve your work. It is in the lessons learned from new experiences that your vision of what’s possible for you expands. And laughter will give you distance. Laughter lets you to step back from an event, learn from it and then move onto bigger and better experiences.

Drop the resistant Inner Critic monkey-mind chatter filled with doubt and anxiety. Chuckle and hum a little tune..”I can see clearly now, the brain is gone…”

“The creative act is not hanging on, but yielding to a new creative movement. Awe is what moves us forward.” – Joseph Campbell

Copyright (c) 2009 Valery Satterwhite

Valery is a Creative Mentor who specializes in empowering people to create more passionately, profoundly, productively & profitably. Learn how to trust your intuition, acknowledge your truth, and disarm your fear & self-doubt. Valery developed a proven unique “Inner Wizard” methodology to empower the Wizard Within to actualize and express your full creative potential. Subscribe at Free “Empower the Wizard Within tips!” http://www.InnerWizard.com

Do You Wake Up Happy or Anxious?

Margaret Paul, Ph.D. — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 19:50:40 +0000

“I can have a really great day, but when I wake up the next morning I feel anxious. Sometimes the better day I’ve had, the more anxious I am the next morning. I can’t figure it out.”

I hear this over and over from my clients. What is happening here?

The Tyranny of the Ego Wounded Self

All of us have a wounded part of us that we created when we were young to try to get love, avoid pain, and feel safe. This part of us is housed in a peanut sized part of our left-brain called the amygdala. Within the amygdala is all of our programmed false beliefs – the conclusions we drew from our experiences as we were growing up, or the ideas we were taught by parents, siblings, teachers, media, religion, peers, and so on. This is our ego – our wounded self.

When we are young and not receiving the love we need, we decide that it must be our fault that we are not being loved. We decide that we are not good enough – that were are somehow flawed, inadequate, bad – that there is something wrong with us. This is one of the major false beliefs of the wounded self.

Once we decide this, we learn to hide away who we really are and we go about developing a self that is acceptable. The more we do this, the more we lose touch with who we really are. We come to believe that we are our ego wounded self – that we are the self we created, not the Self that God created. Over time, the ego gains more and more power, and very much doesn’t want to lose this power. Our ego wounded self becomes addicted to being in control.

Like a dictator who doesn’t want to be toppled, our wounded self fears losing its power. The more inner work we do to heal our limiting beliefs and move into the truth of who we are, the more our ego wounded self is threatened. The one time it can exert its power is when we are asleep. So it often take over while we are asleep and we wake up with the thoughts of our wounded self that create anxiety. Being asleep, we do not have the wherewithal to limit these thoughts. We might be totally unaware of the thoughts that create the anxiety because we are half-asleep, but when we wake up, we experience the anxiety of the lies that the wounded self is telling us.

In fact, the more growth you do, the more you might wake up with anxiety, as the wounded self becomes more and more threatened of losing power. What to do?

The Way Out of Anxiety

What often happens is that we get hooked into ruminating about the very thoughts that are creating the anxiety, thus becoming more and more anxious. We may try to explore why we are having these thoughts that are making us feel bad, which only seems to exacerbate the anxiety.

Focusing on these thoughts is NOT the way out!

The way out is to consciously and deliberately focus on what you are grateful for. Gratitude dispels the power of the wounded self, so the more you focus on gratitude, then better you will feel.

Try it for yourself. Instead of trying to figure out what the anxiety is about, or what you are thinking, or why you are thinking what you are thinking, move into gratitude instead. Be thankful for the day, for another opportunity to learn and grow and share love with whomever you encounter. Be thankful for your life, for the journey of the soul, for the sacred privilege of evolving your soul in love. Be thankful for the big and small things in your life that you might be overlooking.

Then notice how you feel!

Margaret Paul, Ph.D. is the best-selling author and co-author of eight books, including “Do I Have To Give Up Me To Be Loved By You?” and “Healing Your Aloneness.” She is the co-creator of the powerful Inner Bonding® healing process. Learn Inner Bonding now! Visit her web site for a free Inner Bonding course: http://www.innerbonding.com or email her at margaret@innerbonding.com . Phone sessions available.

Enjoy that? Discover lots more of Margaret’s excellent articles here in our Inner Bonding section.

Diet, Anxiety and Depression

Margaret Paul, Ph.D. — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 01:57:32 +0000

Marianne consulted with me because of anxiety and depression. She had tried various forms of medication but was not reacting well to any of the drugs. She was exhausted from lack of sleep, and from the intense anxiety that kept waking her up. While there were challenges in her life, like in everyone’s life, none were extreme enough to have this effect on her. She spent her days depressed and her nights awake and anxious.

Marianne had done years of inner work and fully understood that her thoughts create her feelings. She was vigilant about thinking thoughts that were positive, so she could not understand why she was having such a hard time. When she awoke at night in a panic, she could not seem to gain control of her thoughts. She would ruminate over and over about the various challenges in her life. She was very discouraged that she had so much therapy and had done so much inner healing work, and still felt so awful. Sometimes she felt like she was going crazy because she felt so out of control over her thoughts and feelings.

Marianne had a deep spiritual connection. She did not feel alone in her life, knowing that her spiritual guidance was always with her and always guiding her, which made her anxiety and depression all the more perplexing and upsetting to her.

“I just don’t get what is happening here. I take really great care of myself. I attend to my own feelings, I eat well and exercise, and I have great friends and a wonderful relationship. My kids are doing well and I love my work. Why am I having such a hard time?”

Fortunately for Marianne, I had gone through the same experience. I discovered the source of my problem through research on the Internet, which proved much more accurate than what my doctor was telling me. It appeared that Marianne was suffering from low blood sugar – Hypoglycemia.

Marianne would fall asleep just fine, but would awake in a panic 4-6 hours after falling asleep and then couldn’t go back to sleep. When a person’s blood sugar goes too low, the adrenal glands take over and shoot epinephrine, also called adrenaline, into the system to raise the blood sugar, which causes anxiety or even panic.

I suggested that Marianne ask her doctor to give her a glucose tolerance test, and it turned out that she did have hypoglycemia. Her doctor told her to go off all sugar and refined products, such as white bread. Her doctor advised that she eat 6 small meals that are balanced between protein, complex carbohydrates, and fats, and to be sure to eat just before going to sleep. Her doctor, fortunately an alternative medicine doctor, also advised her to take a chromium supplement just before sleep.

Within days of going on this food plan, Marianne started sleeping through the night. When she did wake up, she was not anxious and was able to go back to sleep. She no longer felt depressed. Then one night she went back to not sleeping and having the anxiety.

“Marianne, what did you do the day that you couldn’t sleep?”

“I joined a gym and did a hard workout. I read that exercise is good for hypoglycemia.”

I asked Marianne to do a little more research on this and she discovered that intense exercise greatly lowers the blood sugar – that she has to eat during exercising. After doing this, she had no more sleepless nights.

It is important to know that anxiety and depression can have physical, emotional, and spiritual causes. The emotional/spiritual causes of anxiety and depression are generally related to what we tell ourselves and how we treat ourselves. Self-abandonment through judging ourselves, ignoring our feelings, turning to addictions instead of to Spirit, and making others responsible for our feelings cause anxiety and depression. Diet, illness, and hypoglycemia can also cause anxiety and depression.

If you are willing to take responsibility for yourself and learn how to lovingly treat yourself physically, emotionally, and spiritually, you can heal your anxiety and depression.

Margaret Paul, Ph.D. is the best-selling author and co-author of eight books, including “Do I Have To Give Up Me To Be Loved By You?” and “Healing Your Aloneness.” She is the co-creator of the powerful Inner Bonding® healing process. Learn Inner Bonding now! Visit her web site for a free Inner Bonding course: http://www.innerbonding.com or email her at margaret@innerbonding.com . Phone sessions available.

The Worriers Guidelines

Tina B. Tessina, Ph.D — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 07:52:19 +0000

What we usually call worry is a continuous thought that keeps interrupting your mode of thought and that you find it hard to get away from. If it’s continuous and not focused on any one thing, we tend to call it anxiety. Worry drains and wastes your energy and makes you less likely to make good decisions. If you take that same energy you’re using running around in mental circles, and you do something productive with it, it’ll serve you better.

Late Night worry: Get out of the habit of using your brain as a memo pad. The best sleep aid I know is a pencil and paper by your bed to write down whatever is bugging you. If you’re worried about forgetting something, write it down. If you’re anxious about something you have to do, organize it with a written plan or checklist.

“What if” Worry. Fretting about what might happen? Figure out what you would do in case the hypothetical disaster occurs. Answer the what if” question factually. “What if I forget Susie’s Dr. Appointment?” Answer: “I’ve got a lot to do. I’ll start carrying a calendar with everything marked on it.”

Endless Replay Worry. If you regret something you said or something that happened, then figure out how you could handle that situation better next time. Practice it over and over until you feel confident you know what you’re doing. Obsessive thinking is common. If it’s interfering with your ability to function, get help. If obsessive thinking keeps you from leaving the house or working productively, or if you’re sleeping all the time, or not sleeping well, or it’s disrupting your relationships, then consult a trained therapist. As emotional problems go, obsessive thinking is simple to fix.

I often find myself worrying about a future I can’t predict, or things I haven’t done. Worry saps energy, and accomplishes nothing, so I’ve developed a method of dealing with worry that you might find helpful, especially when you cant sleep or if you’re anxious. Whenever you’re worried, follow these simple steps:

This exercise is especially effective when you can’t sleep or when you experience anxiety attacks. If you worry a lot, or obsessively think about future events and problems when you should be concentrating on other things, follow these simple steps:

1. Write it down. If you’re feeling anxious or worried, or you can’t stop thinking about some event that hasn’t happened yet, take a few moments to write down whatever is worrying you. If you can’t write it down, think it through carefully until you can clearly say what you’re worrying about. Clarifying your worries will stop the free-floating sensation of anxiety with no basis.

2. Evaluate. Think about the first item on your list. Ask yourself “Is there anything I can do about it now?” If you’re at home and worrying about the office, or if the problem won’t occur until next week or next year, you may not be able to do anything about it right now. Or, you may be worrying about a problem you can do something about, such as calling someone, or getting an estimate of costs, or making a doctor’s appointment to check out a worrisome symptom.

3. Do Something. If there is something you can do, do it. Sometimes, worry is a way to procrastinate. Often, worry is a way to keep a mental list going, as in “I’m worried that I’ll forget to bring the slides for the presentation tomorrow.”

If you’re worried that you may be fired, update your resume and call some agencies. You don’t have to take another job, but if there’s a real problem you’ll be prepared. If you’re at work worrying and about cooking dinner when you get home, write down a menu or a list of ingredients.

If you’re worried about a health problem, look up the illness or injury on the Internet, or call your doctor and ask some questions. If you’re worrying about how your presentation will go at work tomorrow, go over your notes and lay out your clothes for the morning.

Here’s an example: If you’re worried that the roof may leak the next time it rains, start making a list about what you can do about it. Your inner dialog may sound like this:

“The news said it was going to rain next week. I’m worried that the roof might leak.”:

“Call a roofing company and have them look at it.”

“I’m worried that a roofing company will charge me more than they should because I don’t know how much it should cost.”

“Call my brother, (or my neighbor, or my friend) who had his roof done, and ask him what it costs, and also if he liked the contractor he used.”

“Okay.”

When you reach this “okay”, it’s time to make the call, or, if it’s too late at night, make a note to call the next day.

4. Distract Yourself. When you’ve done what you can, or made your lists or notes, then distract yourself: Get busy doing something else, or read, or take a walk or a bath. Repeat the above steps every time you catch yourself worrying.

Tina B. Tessina, Ph.D. is a licensed psychotherapist in S. California, with over 30 years experience in counseling individuals and couples and author of 11 books, including It Ends With You: Grow Up and Out of Dysfunction (New Page); How to Be a Couple and Still Be Free (New Page); The Unofficial Guide to Dating Again (Wiley) and The Real 13th Step: Discovering Self-Confidence, Self-Reliance and Independence Beyond the Twelve Step Programs (New Page.) Her newest books, out from Adams Press in 2008: Money, Sex and Kids: Stop Fighting About the Three Things That Can Ruin Your Marriage and Commuter Marriage. She publishes Happiness Tips from Tina, an e-mail newsletter, and the “Dr. Romance Blog” and has hosted “The Psyche Deli: delectable tidbits for the subconscious” a weekly hour long radio show. She is an online expert, with columns at Divorce360.com and Yahoo!Personals as well as a Redbook Love Network expert. Dr. Tessina guests frequently on radio and on such TV shows as “Oprah”, “Larry King Live” and ABC news.

Moving Beyond Negative Emotions

Margaret Paul, Ph.D. — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 18:10:36 +0000

“Sooner or later, all of us must see that negative feelings toward another person is like tossing dust at him while the wind blows against us. It all comes back.”
–Vernon Howard, Psycho-Pictography

Negative emotions, such as anger, blame, resentment, misery, jealousy, hurt, guilt, shame, and anxiety, often come from thoughts we are having about another person.

Vernon Howard states:

“It is strange how human beings miss the most obvious facts about their negativities toward others. A hateful man seldom reasons, “Hatred toward others makes me miserable, so in the name of common sense I’d better abandon it.” Rarely does a resentful person think, “Resentment of other people drains my strength and destroys my mental powers, so I’d better clear it from my life.’”

At other times, negative emotions are the result of lies we tell ourselves about ourselves, such as “I’m stupid,” or “I’m ugly,” or “I’m worthless.” Even these negative thoughts are often in relationship to other people, fearing that others will think of you as stupid, ugly, or worthless.

Negative emotions such as anxiety and depression can also come from other lies we tell ourselves, such as “I’m going to end up being a bag lady (or a bag man)”, or “I will end up alone my whole life.” All negative emotions are letting you know that, in one way or another, your thoughts are off track. Negative emotions are like big STOP signs, telling us to stop thinking the way we are thinking because our negative, judgmental, untrue thoughts are never going to get us where we want to go.

What happens when we ignore our negative emotions? What happens when we blot them out with various addictions, or continually believe that they are being caused by the past, by events and circumstances, or by other people?

We get stuck feeling like victims.

The only way out of feeling like a victim is to take full, 100% responsibility for your own feelings by connecting your thoughts with your feelings. By learning to be vigilant about your thoughts, you can gradually move yourself out of feeling like a victim and into personal power.

Even if your painful feelings are being caused by outer circumstances, such as various forms of loss – loss of a loved one, loss of employment, loss of finances – how you respond to these circumstances has a huge impact on how you end up feeling. If you compassionately embrace your loneliness, grief, and helplessness, you will not feel alone and abandoned inside. If you move into anger or blame, you will end up feeling victimized and will be stuck with your painful feelings.

We have all known people who have suffered a lot of loss, yet still maintain their ability to love, care, and laugh. These are people who have made a decision to stay connected with their own feelings and with a spiritual source of love, truth, comfort, and guidance. These are people who have decided to take responsibility for their feelings rather than allow people, events, or circumstance to determine how they think and feel.

Which kind of person do you want to be? Do you want to be like a ship without a captain, being blown here and there by people and circumstances, or do you want to be the captain of your own ship, steering your own course? The choice whether you want to be defined and controlled by externals – by people and circumstances – or by your own inner choices is entirely up to you.

Each moment you can choose to be a victim, or you can choose to come from an inner place of personal power and take responsibility for your feelings.

Gratitude vs Complaining

Margaret Paul, Ph.D. — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 05:01:18 +0000

“All happy people are grateful. Ungrateful people cannot be happy. We tend to think that being unhappy leads people to complain, but it is truer to say that complaining leads to people becoming unhappy.” – Dennis Prager

Take a moment to think about this statement. Have you ever known a happy person who wasn’t grateful, or a grateful person who wasn’t happy? Perhaps a way to look at this is that happiness is a result of gratitude. The wonderful thing about this is that, while we cannot always just choose to be happy, we can always choose to be grateful, which results in happiness. So in a roundabout way, we are choosing happiness when we choose to be grateful.

There is always something to be grateful about. You can be grateful that you are alive and have opportunities to learn and grow and share love. You can be grateful for the sun, the rain, the snow, the beauty of nature, the green of grass, the glory of trees, the color of flowers, the presence of animals, the food you eat. You can be grateful that you have a computer on which to read this article. If you have health, you can be grateful for that. If you have friends, you can be grateful for them. If you have a mate, children, a home, a car, a job, you can be grateful for them. You can choose to be grateful for all the big and little things in life, each and every moment. The more you choose to notice what is good and beautiful, the happier and more peaceful you will feel.

On the other hand, there are always things to complain about if that is your choice. Instead of noticing the beauty of the flowers, you can complain about having to water them. Instead of being grateful for the opportunity to be alive, you can complain about how hard it is. Instead of being grateful for the sun, the rain, or the snow, you can complain about how hot it is, how wet it is, how gloomy it is, or how cold it is. Instead of being grateful for your food you eat, you can complain about how hard it is to cook it, or how expensive it is to buy it. Instead of being grateful for your health, you can complain about your weight. Instead of being grateful for your partner or your children, you can certainly find endless complaints about them. The more you complain, the more unhappy you will feel. It is not the person or the situation or the event or the past or anything else that is causing your unhappiness – it is your choice to complain about it instead of discovering what is wonderful about it and being grateful for it.

At any given moment, we each get to choose which part of ourselves we want to express – our ego wounded self who lives in our mind, or true, essential Self who lives in our heart and soul. If you decide to trust your mind over your heart and soul, you will likely find yourself noticing what you don’t like and complaining about it in order to attempt to control it. Complaining is a form of control and the mind believes that if you complain enough, you can have control over getting what you want.

Your true Self, the aspect of you that is connected with your higher Source of love and truth, lives in the present and feels grateful for the opportunity to express love and appreciation for all that is.

The really great thing is that, given that we are beings of free will, we get to choose to who we want to be, each and every moment!