Thoughts about positivity and anxiety

I'd taken a lot of time out from my self development. Life got in the way and I got busy.

Today I sat down to watch a TV Documenary about personalities. It explained theories about why some people are more stressed and anxious than others and how anxiety levels can be changed through mindful meditation and conscious positive focus exercises.

It's another sound bit of proof which contributes to the whole "you get what you focus on in life" theory. Look for the positive and you'll get it, look for the negative and you'll get it.

I really want to be more positive and less anxious, but there's obviously some kinda reasoning going on in my head which stops me from adjusting myself to a more positive mindset.
I would guess my brain thinks that anxiety and negative thinking helps: prepare me better for negative outcome, lets me plan for future events better, the added pressure I give myself can motivate me to avoid potential bad scenarios, allows me to see a more balance view of reality, pushes me to keep standards as high as possible.

Perhaps I fear I would lose the above benefits if I were to be this blind, fuzzy-headed optimist?

I keep fluctuating between valuing happiness as the ultimate goal and maintaining a realistic view of the world. Happiness wont earn me money and allow me to survive. Then again, perhaps being a happier person will be the catalyst for life changes that will allow me to gain more than ever before?

Perhaps when I am ready, I can begin mindful meditation and conscious positive focus exercises with the hope that it will lead me to a better existence?

Multitasking

"If you've mastered the art of multitasking, you probably feel you're getting more done in less time. Think again, experts say. Research suggests you lose time whenever you shift your attention from one task to another. The end result is that doing three projects simultaneously usually takes longer than doing them one after the other."

Interesting. It makes sense, but equally if I get stuck or lose enthusiasm for one project, it makes sense to take a break by working on something else until I feel ready to go back to the original task.

As a general new rule, I think I'll try to multi-task less from now on.

Working towards happiness

"We need to always be working towards something in order to feel useful and have a sense of purpose."

I read this quote today on another blog. It's true and most of us know it. I know it, yet that doesn't stop me from getting stuck or sometimes I forget what it is I actually want!

Sometimes I check out Maslow's hierarchy of needs  to remind myself what humans need most and what my priorities should be. It would seem I need to work towards acquiring:

1. Employment / Money
2. Love and Sexual intimacy
3. Self Esteem / Confidence

I never know if I should be chasing the Employment which will result in self esteem through sense of achievement or if I should be chasing Self Esteem so that I am able to function within Employment? I suppose most people get their self esteem without even thinking about it- they do what is expected of themselves: finish school, then go to work, then find a partner, then settle down and so on. Through this process self esteem usually finds them, rather than them needing to find it.

I guess then, employment, a career and money should be my top priorities for now. As mentioned in my previous post, I have been trying with this one. I suppose now that I've identified nailing the whole work/ money thing as being most important I should focus most on that.

I will also continue to keep my other goals and activities ticking along in the background. I'll attempt to carry on with 3 weekly workouts, keeping an eye out for potential girlfriends (I have a date tomorrow in fact), maintaining a small daily blog (separate from this one) and attempt to get some enjoyment from the occasional game, cinema trip, friend meet up, tv show, internet browsing session.

Until I have money or can move out on my own, there's no point expecting anything new or fun trips out and doing new things every other day.

Making money

One part of my life I need to turn around is my career. Or lack of! My worrying question is this:

What do you do when you're a 30 year old with no in-demand skills, a lack of confidence, little motivation and a resume consisting of just 3 or 4 irrelevant jobs over the last decade with each one mostly lasing no more than a matter of months?

It's pretty true what they say about the 30 year milestone in one's life = a time to reflect and assess. I am a fully qualified adult now! Or at least I should be. In reality I'm in the same financial situation I was after just leaving school. How the hell did this happen?

Being in employment has never been easy for me and I'm sure anyone who has a long history of anxiety, avpd, depression and so on can relate. I STILL don't know if there is a job out there or some way of working I can do and feel comfortable with. My preferred option has been the idea of working for myself, being a freelancer and entrepreneur. I get to escape the constraints of working to someone else's rules or working with people I hate BUT then I lack the self motivation and real world knowledge to make a success of things.

So far as going it alone, I have tried:

• Spending several months creating a personal portfolio and promotional website for myself from the ground up. It's allowed certain customers to find me, but now only generates a dozen or so hits per day and next to no substantial work. I don't know how I can substantially promote it. With insufficient knowledge and resources I find myself spending weeks just to get a dozen or so crappy back-links in place.

• Spending months promoting myself via Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Deviant Art, Youtube, Blogger, Squidoo, Forums, Google adwords. I followed the advice I was given by creating decent content on these sites but couldn't figure out why I would get next to no traffic to these sites, let alone be able to funnel that traffic to my personal portfolio and then convert into real money-earning business opportunities.

• Entering several art and design competitions. I'd win or place in small $20 prize pool competitions, but it's hardly worth entering if each takes an average 20 hours of work. For substantial competitions I realize my work is often just not near being good enough to place. There was one exception where I won a $5000 prize.

• Selling stuff online. Over the course of 5 years on and off I made nearly $18,000 profit selling video games until the competition muscled me out business.

• Creating two Zazzle Stores. One with 500 products, the other housing over 3000 products. I must have pumped like 500 hundreds of hours into this project, but so far it's only generated $250 or so!

• Creating a line of greetings cards and pitching these along with my own design services to over 50 card companies. Unfortunately with no success.

• Asking over 30 illustration agencies to represent me / find me work. No takers

• Asking several fine art galleries and art agents to represent me and my work. No takers

•  Taking art and design commissions via Devintart and Crowdsourcing sites like Freelancer.com. I got several very small jobs, but in the end they'd typically work out at like $2 an hour! Not enough to bother with.

• Creating custom Tshirt designs for Designbyhumans. My submissions were not ranked high enough to be made, so no luck there.

• Sent dozens of self promo letters out to potential online stores and businesses, but these generated no work or even replies!

• Sent several letters to design agencies asking to work with them on a freelance basis, but these generated no work or even replies!

• Spending 3 months on creating a high quality, professional 10 page mock-up art manual book for a book project and pitched it a Publisher I knew, but with no success.

• Tattooing! I bought $2500 worth of equipment and tried teaching myself on and off over the course of 2 years. I earned enough to pay off the cost of equipment but could not get the hang of it enough to start charging anywhere near what a professional would. I spent weeks visiting and writing to over 40 tattoo shops in the area in an attempt to get an apprenticeship, but had no luck. 

• Attending several networking meetings to promote myself. I talked to people who couldn't really find a use for my skills and ended up with no leads from this.

• I found a semi-regular paying client! I freelanced for a company I was employed with for a short time as a web designer, they only helped to generate me $3000 of income over the course of 3 years.

• Spending months applying for about 100 employed roles as a designer. A few interviews, but no job. Not sure I would want to work in that capacity anyway?

I give myself credit for making an effort despite my problems and no one else to help me. I had a few prestigious one-off freelance jobs. One with a very high profile client. It only lasted 3 days, but earned nearly $1000 a day! If only I could get that every day! And I worked with another client for 18 months which earned me around $70,000. I'm happy about this, but after 10 years I would have liked to have earned a fair $500,000 total, like many of my peers. The actual real figure is closer to $150,000. I'm now at a stage where I don't have my own place and not even earning enough to run my car. I don't know how to earn a decent wage. I've mostly worked for myself and relied on luck to get by, but I want more than to just exist while living with my parents. I'd like to be financially free to move out, support myself and a family one day. I'm 30 now and it's about time I considered how I'm going to do this.

Happiness Article- Remembering to Savour

This was emailed to me, so posting it for future reference!...

-------------------
There is this puzzle in most Western (and some Eastern) societies
that is really confusing. See if you can figure it out – we’ll use the
United States as an example.

40 years ago…

The average house was 1000 sq feet, now it’s 2422 sq feet
A McDonald’s cheeseburger cost 30 min of wages, now it costs 3 min
There was 1 car for every 2 households, now there are 2 for every 1 household
Life expectancy has since gone up by an average of 8 years
GDP has since tripled or gone up 8.9 trillion dollars
So we live in bigger homes, make more money, and have longer lives.
If that is the case, how can we explain that in the last 40 years:

The divorce rate has doubled
Teen suicide has tripled
Recorded violent crime has quadrupled
And Depression has increased 10x – that’s right ten times.
If things are getting better, why are people getting worse? There isn't a
one line answer to this paradox, but I’m going to offer a two part theory:
(1) We have been focusing on the wrong things to make us happy; and
(2) When something is wrong (anxiety, panic, depression) we only practice
reducing the negative feelings – we ignore increasing the positive.

Guess what? Happiness doesn’t come from just reducing negative feelings.
In other words, if everything “bad” in your life were wiped away, you would
not automatically be incredibly happy. To live a joyous, fulfilled, and
meaningful life, you need to practice positivity. Yes, happiness takes practice.

One simple practice you can start with is called savoring. If you rush around
all day long from the moment you get up to the moment you hit the pillow, you
are probably not taking time to savor. Slow down and savor the good stuff.
Savoring has been scientifically researched to increase your well-being. Try
the exercise below.

Exercise: According to researcher, Fred Bryant, there are 4 effective
ways to savor:

Basking: Receiving praise and congratulations
Thanksgiving: Experiencing and expressing gratitude
Marveling: Losing yourself in the wonder of the experience
Luxuriating: Engaging in the senses fully

My request of you is that you pick one of these 4 techniques and sit
down to savor right now. Sit down for 5 minutes (if you’re busy,
even 2 minutes will do). Think about one pleasant thing that happened
today (smell, touch, sight, sound, experience) and close your eyes and
enjoy it. Reminisce about what you loved about it.

As humans we are great at doing and moving and pushing through to
the next goal; but we need to also focus on enjoying, savoring, and
just “being”. Remember, happiness takes practice, so make it part of
your day.

Love & Light,

Amelie Chance
Certified Coach of Positive Psychology
-------------------

Note: Not to sound cynical and I appreciate the advice but I wonder who certified her? Herself?

Hmm, the art of savouring. It sounds good in theory, but takes effort and a mindset to want to feel good and in the mood to appreciate the good. This is something I'm not naturally comfortable with. I'll try to savour things more often though if I remember!

The obstacles in fixing one's life - Sleep issue

I often ask myself  "why is it apparently so much harder for me to do things than other people?"

It's more than a dumb, biased feeling that everyone else manages to sail through life without problems. I don't want to adopt a 'Victim mindset' and I don't want to make excuses, but it would be dumb not to factor in genuine obstacles I need to deal with or come to terms with in my efforts to progress.

One thing I read up about again recently recently was Circadian rhythm disorders. There are 4 different types- two of which resonate with me:

• Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome (DSPS): This is a disorder of sleep timing. People with DSPS tend to fall asleep very late at night and have difficulty waking up in time for work, school, or social engagements.
• Non 24-Hour Sleep Wake Disorder: This is a disorder in which an individual has a normal sleep pattern, but lives in a 25-hour day. Throughout time, the person's sleep cycle will be affected by inconsistent insomnia that occurs at different times each night. People will sometimes fall asleep at a later time and wake up later, and sometimes fall asleep at an earlier time and wake up earlier.

According to one site I read:

How Are Circadian Rhythm Disorders Treated?

Circadian rhythm disorders are treated based on the kind of disorder diagnosed. The goal of treatment is to fit a person's sleep pattern into a schedule that allows him or her to meet the demands of a desired lifestyle. Therapy usually combines proper sleep hygiene techniques and external stimulus therapy, such as bright light therapy or chronotherapy. Chronotherapy is a behavioral technique in which the bedtime is gradually and systematically adjusted until a desired bedtime is achieved. Bright light therapy is designed to reset a persons circadian rhythm to a desired pattern. When combined, these therapies may produce significant results in people with circadian rhythm disorders.

Chronotherapy is something I've naturally learned to do myself. I naturally seem to have a 25 hour day, so when I keep going to bed an hour later and getting up an hour later each night to the point where I'm sleeping at 8am and waking at 5pm, I know it's time to do something about my current sleeping pattern! I commit to what I call "going around the clock".  Basically it's a case of trying to stay up later and later each day until bed time goes from 8am to 11am for day 2, to 3pm for day 3, to 6pm for day 4 and so on. It's a gradual thing that takes at least a week to sort out. In the mean time going to a place of work, enjoying a social life or arranging day-time appointments is very difficult if not impossible. Not only is it very disruptive to day-to day living, but it's hard work staying awake, and feeling happy when your body is crying out for sleep for 4 or 5 hours towards the end of each day!

I obviously suffer from the symptoms of a Carcadian Rhythm disorder. Perhaps if I can adopt a long term habit of sleeping and waking at the same time each day it's something I can overcome completely?
- I would probably need a regular 9-5 job, or at least a solid work routine which I don't deviate from unlike I have done for the last 10 years!

Until then, it's something I need to deal with, factor into my life and hope other people around me can understand this condition. I fucking hate the thought of people thinking bad of me- that I'm lazy for feeling tired and unmotivated instead of offering understanding and sympathy.

I'll add CRD to my list of ailments!

Living with Stress and Anxiety

I feel anxious every day from the moment I wake up.

It's a constant level of anxiety which has a big impact on the quality of my life. I feel scared at the thought of doing most things and fearful towards my future. It's a truly horrible ailment and as far as I know there is no cure.

I've tried curing myself with several different courses Anti-depressants. However these have an equally negative impact on my life via side effects so feel I can't rely on these. Benzodiazepines such as Diazepam helps me relax and sleep, but I lose my sharpness, alertness and feel tired if I take these plus they are not a long term solution due to potential for addiction. I wonder if there is a drug which will make a significant reduction to these feelings of worry and persistent tenseness in my stomach?

So far doctors I've seen have been pretty useless. When I ask for alternative treatments I often just get a "I don't know what to suggest. I guess you have to just live with it" response. CBT and conventional therapy isn't an answer for me and I think once that and 4 or 5 ADs fail, there doesn't seem to be much help.

I might see if a diet or life routine change could effect how I feel? The only thing that comes to mind which I should probably change is reducing sugar and perhaps fat in my diet. I don't eat a massive excess of bad foods, but feel I could do more to eat healthier. I'll also continue to see if there are other treatments of helping to rid myself of this.

I wondered why I feel anxious all the time? Is my body overly affected by stress hormones and neurotransmitters or perhaps it's producing such hormones too readily? It almost seems irrelevant as from what I can find, there is no sure-fire way to treat my GAD (generalized anxiety disorder).

According to scientists they believe anxiety and GAD are a combo of biological and environmental issues. Seems obvious! And so to relieve anxiety one must re-regulate imbalances in brain chemistry and changes to physical brain functioning- Regulation of serotonin, norepinephrine and gamma-aminobutyric acid in the brain can relieve anxiety. On top of that, feeling in control on one's external life plays a big part in one's mental state.

As long as I am dealing with anxiety and an increased negative response to new and unknown, or known situations, my journey through life will be a tough one. I had/have big ambitions to achieve success in various aspects of my life but am hindered by afflictions such as GAD. It is wrong to compare myself to the next man when I am at a disadvantage. Knowing I have to struggle gives me a small degree of comfort when I am not attaining the same as the next man, but that still doesn't stop me from wanting to achieve great things within my life. I have done well to achieve as much as I have despite my problems and will continue to push myself as far as I can.

One other thing I often theorize is desensitizing myself to life. The idea is to get stuck into things which scare me in an attempt to realize such things aren't so bad after all. The problems are- this can potentially be be a stressful and traumatic experience for me, so I am reluctant to put myself in a place of pain on the off chance it will be beneficial. Second, I want to experience positive references from engaging in new experiences. I could continually attempt new things I'm not prepared for, but feel that the constant negative feelings of humiliation, rejection, loneliness and failure will result in fuelling my fears and leave me even more house-bound and anxious.

Perhaps there is as way to do new things with people I feel comfortable with to help turn the new experiences into enjoyable shared memories? Maybe listening to some of my favourite music while at a new venue or reading some funny jokes could help build a positive reference?

Why Most Self-help Books & Blog posts suck

I've read dozens of personal development and self help books. Probably close to 100 articles relating to personal growth for sites like Psychology Today. And then hundreds for forum posts, blog articles, magazine columns,videos and so on.

I love them! They can prove to be immensely insightful, interesting and sometimes inspirational. They can also be pretentious, stupid, pointless, confusing, re-hashed bullshit presented in a way which disguises it's true nature (to some people). In fact 9 out of 10 articles I read on psychology sites are watered down, pointless rubbish which doesn't really mean a lot in a practical sense. Also many self-help books and articles never address the problem they propose to be solving.

A typical example might be an article/book/video with the title "How to feel confident"
- I read that and think: "Wow, I want to feel confident!" so I check out the article... It then talks about how confident people act, the positive results one starts to gain once confident and why it's no good to act in a way which makes you less confident. Sometimes at the end of such articles there are dozens of internet user replies talking about how thankful they are to have read the article or how they feel boosted and ready to become a more confident person. I'm thinking "Wait a minute! This didn't actually explain "how" to feel confident. It just kinda skipped to the end objective and didn't lay down the path one must follow with the relevant sign posts in order to achieve such a goal". I expect practical methods of 'unstifling' one's self, flipping to a positive mind-set or maybe daily tasks one could carry out to then progress to different levels of confidence? In the end, many articles just don't have enough quality substance to them to make a lasting impact on my life.

Another thing that bugs me is how an article which leaves out detail. I'll read about an experiment which makes a conclusion without certain important variables taken into consideration. Perhaps certain variables were taken into account and the article author just neglected to mention all the facts, but either way, without all the facts it makes such articles pretty useless.

If I were to ever write a "how to" article, I want to make sure I am as detailed and comprehensive as possible and that I actually answer the hard questions in a well thought-out, intelligent way! Those are the kinda things I wanna read about.

Overcoming a Fear?

Today my friend and I discussed how overcoming a fear is more than just a case of facing it.

Using the roller coaster example: Certain rides scare the shit outta me! Not in a fun way, but in a genuine terrifying, unpleasant way. During a Theme Park visit a while back I'd attempted to face my fear of riding their most scary ride. I was anxious and fearful before I got onto AND during the ride. After the roller coaster came to a stop and I got off I felt REALLY proud of my achievement of facing a huge fear. Yet it was not something I felt I'd want to go on a second time straight after, nor several years later.

Sure, rides are supposed to be scary, but I want to be able to enjoy to thrills of the ride like everyone else. However the feelings of fear totally obscure the simultaneous positive emotion I feel I should be having. I'm still scared- Facing my fear obviously did not make me realize it wasn't so bad after all like we're all taught to expect.

People might say: "You're simply just a wimp" or "you just don't like scary rides, so live accept it". But I don't want to feel restricted by irrational fears! I know the ride is totally safe and I have nothing to worry about and until I am able to deal with a safe, fun activity in a "normal" way then I am not content.

Equally, I find it terrifying to approach strangers. A few months back I did pluck up the courage to chat to someone in a bar. It was scary as hell and not an enjoyable process, but I did it and once again felt proud of the accomplishment. A week later, I did the same thing- approached some girls in a bar for a chat and once again I had a ton of anxieties and fears before, during and after the encounter. Despite having tried approaches one week and then the next, I still feel as scared (or perhaps nearly) as I did before I'd even faced the fear!

WHY?!

Firstly perhaps getting over a fear by facing it only works if it generates a positive outcome. If the roller coaster proved to be less scary or equally thrilling and fun and if the girls I chatted to showed more interest and made me happy, then things might have worked out? I dunno.

Secondly I might have done a great job at pre-programming my mind to think something is scary that it has a placebo-type effect and becomes what I expect it to?

There is one theory we discussed which might solve the problem of fears not being conquered when faced. The idea was basically constant repetition within a short time frame. In theory this would be enough to desensitize you to the fears by creating a habit in a short time gap without space to re-establish old, fearful thought patterns.

So, for example: Go on the scary ride 5 or 6 times in a row, or approach 5 or 6 strangers a day EVERY day for a week. Hopefully this will then cement the idea that it really isn't as bad as initially perceived. Cementing the idea with an intensive course of repetition is the key.

I don't know if this would work, but would love to give it a go!

The only problem (and it is a HUGE problem) is that it takes massive amounts of courage in the first place to face one's fears. And even more courage to re-face them once you've effectively proved to your brain that this really is as bad as you've imagined it might be. Once your brain has hard evidence that something is as bad as the mental image you'd initially projected, it takes a special kind of commitment to carry on and persevere despite this. It seems to me to be on par with considering putting one's own life in risk!

[Side note: For more positive thinkers/mind-sets, recovering from failure is a lot easier as is a general positive interpretation about attempting any particular situation in the first place. Developing an ability to interpret in a positive way might be a more important step than attempting to grind it out as above?]

Winning the Shame Game

Kill shame-inducing situations before they become a threat, advises David Allyn, Ph.D., a Harvard-trained social scientist and visiting scholar at Columbia University's Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy. His book, I Can't Believe I Just Did That, includes a few pointers:

• Be on time. Punctuality creates self-discipline and impresses both others and yourself. It's a healthy habit that keeps you calm about the clock.
• Stick to the facts. You're bound to get caught lying, so why bother? Lies just set you up with unnecessary opportunities to feel ashamed.
• Cut the gossip. Comments made behind your back sting, and don't forget how you feel about those who talked about you. Focus on deep, meaningful talk where every conversation can be a chance to realize a dream or accomplish an aim.
• Keep your word. It feels good to be considered reliable, so honor your word no matter what the reasons are for disregarding them. Remember, a promise is a promise. 

I do all these already. I could work on punctuality, but other than that, I do well to avoid shameful situations by being my natural considerate self :D Glad to have a few things I don't need to work on for once!