It has been a YEAR!!

Dealing with anxiety for 8 years now, I have learned one thing. That thing, is that it requires a lot of trials and error to find out works for you. I would pay for someone to fix me a magic potion to take all my worry away, but no one is the same. What works for you may not work for someone else. It also may not work for you at some points in your life and you will have to adapt at those times. That is where I struggle, I do not handle change very well. I want there to be an easy fix. I want to feel myself all the time and be able to adapt quickly to any situation I face. But then I remember this is LIFE and it wasn't meant to be easy. You are not only given trials in your life that you are responsible for, but you also choose the way you respond to these trials emotionally and physically. 

Things that have worked for me
I have tried a ton of things that I believed to work and some are in my posts. I'm not proud. Mostly, I would love to understand my body more. Ultimately though, ignorance is bliss. It is better to not know the worst things that could happen to somebody because it usually will add to your anxiety. My most recent adventure has been to quit trying to figure it out on my own and get help. A psychologist is an educated outlet that does not have a prescription pad, so they use self-building skills to help improve your own coping skills. That isn't to say that they are not for or against medications. They just find that incorporating some type of therapy in your life can help you in the long run. I found it hard to read because I couldn't sit down and concentrate for more than 5-10 minutes.
What I ended up doing was looking for apps on my phone for "mindfulness" which is what the parts of the book I did read were about. I found some great resources on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. One app that I found extremely useful because it uses audio recordings to help better understand mindfulness and CBT is called Stop Panic and Anxiety. I have really enjoyed this app over the past couple of weeks. I can lay down, close my eyes, and just listen. I find it very relaxing and eye-opening. This type of therapy in summary is about focusing on the present moment no matter the stress involved and being mindful of it, not judging your emotions or reactions or what others are thinking, but literally just being present in the moment. Most people push what is stressing them into the far corners of their mind by working out, drinking, shopping, etc. I do not have anything against this, but I have used these outlets and ultimately if you do not deal with the situation in front of you, it will come back to haunt you. You are doing yourself a favor by dealing with present moments as they happen rather than putting them off until they can't be put off any longer. Annnnddd... that is my two cents for this evening. 
IT'S BEEN A YEAR!!
I have been doing this blog for a year now and although I haven't posted as much as I would have liked, I'm still proud of how open I have been without deleting past posts because I read stuff that I do not like. This blog is about changing and growing and that is what I'm doing. I have changed and I have grown...period. I'm just documenting my mental growth in blog form. Future... I want to post more often, but life will be life and I do not hold any goals stable because this is mainly an outlet for myself. I mainly want to have more accurate day to day documentation of my progress because I like the way I'm heading. I feel positive for the future and would like to not put the main focus on my anxiety, but also the things that I find that cause my anxiety like budget, work, family, etc. 

That's it folks,
​Until next time. 
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