Exciting day!

Today was a real exciting day for me, my anxiety was all excitement-based. First, I was all excited about getting a replacement video card for my laptop to fix a lot of the problems I was having for some time now, finally they are fixed and my laptop is more stable! So I had the excitement of a little kid getting a new toy. This excitement built up into anxiety. So, I finally grabbed my relaxation tape, and for the first time, I could really envision what the narrator was saying, and really feel relaxed, much more so than I have been able to in the past. That's real improvement! I'm so happy that I'm responding better to the relaxation tapes that I have, they are a great tool. And I'm also getting better at using proper breathing techniques to help calm myself down.

I was feeling so good about this I even made a special chicken dinner for the family, I used to be a real good cook, but I stopped doing any serious cooking a couple years ago when my anxiety and depression started getting bad. Another good sign!

Tonight, I attended a group therapy session put on by the clinic I go to, and it was real interesting, got to meet some very interesting people and had a really long conversation with one of them that I share a lot in common with. Group therapy is great for me, it helps me to realize I'm not the only one out there with these same struggles, and also gives me a chance to help other people see different points of view on their problem, and that helps me in return. It's not all easy, my anxiety makes it difficult for me to attend the sessions because my hands are always trembling when I talk to people, and my anxiety wants me to just run out of the room, but I, myself, know that it's just my anxiety doing these things so I am able to put it aside for the greater good of my well-being.

Also, I'm going back once again to John Bradshaw's Homecoming: Reclaiming and Championing and Championing Your Inner Child to work on my emotional maturity issues that I described in an earlier post. Between that and my workbook Breaking Free: A Recovery Workbook for Facing Codependence, I think I'll have some great success. I find myself having a lot more insight into my problems as I go through these books and others and speak with other people about my problems, that makes me excited too.