Blunder what? Letting it go and leaving it here... You too Anxiety

Guess whose back? I got the writing bug again. I drifted into facebook world, writing a blurb everyday for my status update. It was quicker than writing a blog, which could take me a few hours and sometimes days to write. But I miss it. I miss writing whatever comes to my mind. I miss writing about nothing. All the articles I do write these days are about something and not for use on this blog. So HERE I am.

For my return post I do want to write about nothing, just a brain dump of everything that has happened over the past few weeks. Wait until I tell you about my big blunder. I screwed up again. I made a mistake - the same mistake I made 3 years ago. But I'll come back to that in a little bit.

I spent the end of September and the first few days into October in New York. While I was there I experienced EXTREME anxiety for the first time in my life. On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being severe - my anxiety was at level 10 for 7 consecutive days 24 hours around the clock. All I felt is anxiety. It was horrible. I hated every minute of it. But I learned many things while it was happening.

Here is a list of things I did to overcome my severe anxiety.

1. Can I say “hypertension” that’s what I thought when I felt the stress in my muscles. I tried to relax them for as long as I was conscious of it by letting go.
2. A nice distraction also works. I ran my hands under warm water. I became aware of the warmth of the water and the sensation as it runs down my fingers.
3. A jolt to the immune system makes me feel good. Oddly enough I didn't feel any anxiety when I worked out - Not with weights and not when I did cardio.
4. Breathing does the body good. Oh yes it does. The single - double - triple breathing technique works miracles. Take five single breaths nice and deep. Followed by five double breaths (without exhaling the first one). And lastly five triple breaths (without exhaling the first two). Repeat 3 times. Try it for yourself. It really works miracles.
5. The journal trick is my favorite. I opened my journal and wrote down everything I was thinking and why I was feeling so anxious. I wrote down a few experiences I thought were the culprits along with any lesson I may have learned from it, and a solution if required.

Now that I am back in Toronto and I'm anxiety free once again. And no, being in New York did not contribute to my anxiety. Rather it was an event I attended two weeks ago that heightened it to the extreme. I tried to memorize content. I didn't mean to but I guess I got carried away. When it came time for me to speak nothing I wanted to say came out of my mouth, "BLAAAAAAAAA."

I can’t count how many times I've said, "Speak from the heart you know the material its what you do everyday."

Sometimes we are our own worst critics. We punish ourselves relentlessly for our performance. But we fail to realize is that life is subjective and everyone’s experience is different. I know it wasn’t great but it wasn’t a complete disaster either as much as my imagination wants to take it there.

It was just a blimp in time, a single experience that doesn’t define me, and now I am leaving it right here where it belongs.

Glad to be back - Bruno LoGreco Master Life Coach & Author

Blunder what? Letting it go and leaving it here... You too Anxiety