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One Hour At A Time
By leahpeah | October 30, 2007
I’ve found the secret to my life for the moment. I literally only think about what I have to do for the next hour or so. My world has become much more manageable. It’s also much smaller.
Topics: leahpeah |
October 30th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
This is the advice given to me the most regarding my own anxiety but also the action I can accomplish the least. I just can’t stop it. When you find yourself worrying about the moments beyond the hour, what do you do? Simply tell yourself to shut it? Distract yourself with a task at hand? Just curious.
October 30th, 2007 at 3:30 pm
@Zoot - when the thought enters my mind and the anxiety starts up again i remind myself that right this instant, in this moment, i can’t do anything about any of the things i’m worrying about. i can only do the next thing right now. and then this next thing and so on. it mostly works. however, when it comes to the weekend and i have responsibilities with the kids, i have a harder time.
October 30th, 2007 at 6:09 pm
zoot- sometimes when I notice that I’m anxious, and then figure out why (I’ll often get a stomach ache and then say Oh! ok, what is it?) I’ll just basically tell myself: oh, that is anxiety about abc. There it is. In some weird way acknowledging it takes the edge off for me.
Another thing I’ve done, depending on the situation, is to imagine the things I’m worrying about written on a piece of paper. I mentally crumple it and throw it away; again it seems to help but ymmv.
leahpeah- I’ve only recently started being able to do “a little of something” for instance if the sink and all of its damn dishes is freaking me out I have a hard time doing a few if that is what I have time for. And yet I’m figuring out that if I can take one small bit at a time it works out ok. My therapist keeps saying “how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” It isn’t easy, but it does seem to help when I can stick to it. Hope keeping things small for a bit keeps on helping you.
October 31st, 2007 at 7:47 pm
Right on.
“Age Quod Agis”