thoughts I thought while in the shower today — “on me, my inner critic, & I”

Today, I thought I’d wake up and write about stuff I thought about in the shower. I sometimes see it as a game to retrace my trains of thoughts to figure out, “How the heck did I start thinking about that?”

I’m going through the Anxiety & Worry workbook my therapist recommended, and Chapter 3 includes a worksheet to fill out my “Dangerous Thinking” profile. This was the worksheet my therapist mentioned specifically, so naturally, I’m doing it today before my follow-up appointment is tomorrow. Hey, at least I’m not doing it the morning of — progress!!

Now, I’m making an active effort to address my anxiety: instead of avoidance & procrastination of all the things, I’m dealing with or doing something about it!

trying to capture my secret sauce to managing my anxiety in my own thoughts

1. Step 1) Recognize you are feeling anxious / experiencing symptoms of anxiety.
2. Step 2) Get to the “why” of your anxiety at that moment. What is the concern or situation that has made you feel anxious? What is the worst-case scenario in this situation? Try to identify the underlying fear.
3. Step 3) Set a goal of letting go of your anxiety in this area, and make a plan for tangible things you can hold yourself accountable for doing as part of your ideal routine/daily self-care ritual.

For example, for me this has now looked like a couple of solutions.

One option, I actually recognize I’m feeling anxious and my heartbeat increases, I feel a tightness in my chest, and have the urge to cry, so then I take my “as needed” meds.

The other path that I’m taking now for SO MANY THINGS that I used to always procrastinate (and always beat myself up about not doing but then still continued to avoid doing) is to just DO THE THING so it’s not hanging over my head anymore and therefore I can no longer be anxious about it.

I feel like this quarantine has been a wild & crazy beautiful internal journey for me. And I think the life lesson I’ve been learning this last week especially (moreso than focusing on any other piece of the puzzle that is the anxious mind) is how to silence my inner critic.

Before, I self-sabotaged and held myself back from doing so many things. It’s like I was trapped in non-doing, just overthinking and questioning and doubting myself. So far, this whole “address my anxiety” project has been possibly the most freeing venture I’ve ever undertaken.

---

Photo by Anne Nygård on Unsplash