Archive for the ‘ Emotional Hygiene ’ Category

Since I posted on anxiety last week, I’ve been talking to people about how they manage their own anxiety. Interestingly, my sister-in-law Janelle, who hadn’t read the post, told me about an anxiety practice she created out of some of the tools in the book. Cool!

Janelle is an in-home health practitioner who works with elderly and disabled clients, and she often feels worried about them (as you can imagine!). Janelle created a way to question her anxieties as she grounds herself. It’s a perfect solution, because anxieties (and all fears) want you to ask questions, figure things out, and take action.

I asked Janelle to write out the situation and her practice so you’d get a feel for it.

Janelle’s Conscious Questioning

I am Health Care Practitioner who visits clients in their homes. Many of my clients are low income and elderly or disabled in some way. I am referred in by a case manager because a client has symptoms like pain, anxiety, depression, or they are in need of some social contact or reassurance. I go in and gently massage painful areas, listen to their stories, or record their Oral Histories. Many of these people have not been touched in years.

Just today I had a new visit with an elder who had immigrated to the U.S. during a violent upheaval in her home country. If you were to peek in on the visit, it wouldn’t look too strenuous: I soaked her feet and hands with warm water and lemon bath oil and gently massaged her. Since she didn’t speak English, her son gave me her physical and emotional history, which included having to watch her husband starve to death. Many of my clients’ stories are deeply harrowing.

Sometimes I feel some discomfort after a visit, when I am in the car on my way to my next client. What I feel, while in the visit, is that I am soaking up some of my client’s story and that I may carry some of their story home with me. I often need to take care of myself and empty out after the visit.

I can sometimes leave a visit with a sense of anxiety, pressure in my body, sadness and/or a feeling of being stuck. I listen to The Language of Emotions in my car, and after hearing about Conscious Complaining, I created another version of the practice called Conscious Questioning.

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Happy New Year! In these first days of 2011, I wish you health, strong relationships, emotional awareness, peace, empathy, compassion, humor, meaningful work, and excellent rest! So many of us went through upheavals in 2010 that I think we could all use a rest and a break. Here’s a strange idea: Let’s befriend anxiety!

I’ve been thinking a lot about fear and anxiety this month, and I’ve got a question and a request for you. I heard an interesting interview last month on the radio show Forum with Michael Krasny. Michael spoke with Dr. Mary Lamia, who is a psychoanalyst and psychologist working here in Northern California. She wrote a book called Understanding Myself: A Kid’s Guide to Intense Emotions and Strong Feelings. It looks like a really good book for kids, and Dr. Lamia has some very interesting things to say.

In the latter part of the interview, Dr. Lamia spoke about anxiety in a way I haven’t heard before, and I’ve been mulling it over a great deal. She sees anxiety as the emotion that helps us take action and get things done. I knew that about fear (the question for fear is: What action must be taken?”), and in the fear chapter in The Language of Emotions, I focus on the very positive aspects of fear. However, I sort of push anxiety off to the side because, honestly, it bugs me when people run around being anxious. I just want them to calm down and focus themselves. You know, just take a deep breath why dontcha?

Putting it off versus doing it ahead of time

Dr. Lamia contrasts procrastinators, who put things off until their anxiety kicks in and makes them do their work with do-it-aheaders, who do their work ahead of time. I’m a do-it-aheader, and we’ve got a joke in our family about thanking Karla from the past. We’ll find some job I finished weeks ago, or unearth finished pieces to a project that is crucial, or we’ll find important papers in my filing system, and we’ll say, “Thanks, Karla from the past, for making things easy on us!” Clearly, this thanking is a great motivator, because in each day, I think of all kinds of cool projects and jobs to do for the future happiness of my friends, my family, and myself. It’s a total win-win. It’s time travel that works!

Before I heard Dr, Lamia, I would have said that I didn’t do anxiety, but now I’m realizing, “Ooohhhh, I’ve got plenty of anxiety, but I’ve been been responding to it at very early points in its appearance, so it rarely gets to the level of a mood.” I have mistakenly thought of my very subtle level of do-it-ahead anxiety as, I don’t know, conscience, foresight, responsibility, or perhaps just being organized. I missed the fact that I was feeling an emotion that was trying to prepare me for the future. Whoops!! We live and learn, so I’m now taking anxiety out of the shadows and asking it questions, looking at people who run anxiety in its mood state, and focusing on anxiety more clearly.

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