7/2/09 Thursday 12:15 pm anxietytribe blog

Feeling this inner frantic drivenness to keep working as fast and hard as possible in an anxious , compulsive way that leaves me feeling filled with dread that things are going to blow up in my life and disaster or calamity will occur. I try to slow down and try to be less frenetic. I am taking deep slow breaths and closingmy eyes and trying to remember God's presence. I am trying to apply what I have learned about in this book about teaching children emotional intelligence by Dan Goleman. He talks about how emotionally intelligent parents teach kids to accept their emotion including anxiety and then to try to find ways to not dismiss or condemn it (which is what I tend to do with myself, which just makes things worse). He talks about how emotionally intelligent parents can teach kids to talk out their emotions (or in my case, write out my emotions on this blog) as a way of learning to process the emotions and help discharge it. I've had this book for a while but hadn't read it until I went to Berlin on a business trip and brought it along to read on the plane. I kept thinking of how I really need to apply the lessons to my inner psyche. I believe in providence and I think that God may have been nudging me to consider the lessons from this book.

12:23 pm

I also always have a lot of resentment at how much pressure I place on myself and become very reluctant and passve aggressive often as a way of trying to assert my autonomy but it really becomes a inner battle and it 's been hard for me to work on reasonable compromise between my inner parent who keeps pushing and judging and my inner child who is often overwhelmed, despairing, angry and passive aggressive. I feel sad when I think about how my parents role  modeled an inability to compromise in a healthy way and I act out that inability everyday as part of my inner identification with my parents.

12:26 pm

My therapist has suggested that I try being more contemplative, observing the inner struggle inside myself and yet try to become both more detached and more compassionate with my inner struggles. She encourages me to remember that trying to step out of the constant reenactment is a breath away.

I think of the Holy Spirit who is symbolized as wind or a type of breath. I try to visualize the Holy Spirit pouring into me as I breathe. Help me God in my daily struggles. Matt 9:1-8 talks about how JC said Your sins are forgiven, rise and walk and the paralytic rose. Ifeel emotionally paralyzed. Help me , forgive my sins of excessive self condemnation and mistrust.

I reflect on Genesis when God breathed life into Adam and Eve. (Genesis 2:7, the Lord God breathed into his nostrisl the breath of life andthe man became a living being" Help me breathe in more deeply your Spirit and help me to become a more fully living being instead of the half living anxious being I am now.

12:34 pm

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6:00 pm

I feel so afraid of being a disappointment to my inner parent that I often don't even bother to try. I feel like why take the risk of failure and condemnation. It's like I feel so certain that I will fail because that is my preconceived notion of my life.

6:01 pm