Dancing Through Anxiety

So I'm not really a fan of the saying "trust your gut" because, well, my gut doesn't really seem like something with knowledge. I much prefer the saying "trust your instinct". If there is one thing that I have learned from therapy, and is something that I continuously have to work on, it's my ability to trust myself. Since I tend to have a lot of self-doubt, I also have a large inability to trust that my instinct is right. This is especially a problem when I'm going through a down period. When I'm suffering from my depression or my anxiety, part of coping is understanding that my brain is lying to me, but at the same time I need to take care of myself and trust my body enough to know what I need. How do I trust myself when I'm lying to myself at the same time? How do I know which thoughts are the positive helpful ones and which thoughts are the negative sabotaging ones? I tend to fight my instincts and what my body is telling me it needs...

I don't know about you, but when I am feeling down and anxious it is so incredibly easy to throw myself a pity party. It's not that I want to, it's just what my brain is telling me to do and I don't have the energy to fight it. My pity party always takes the form of "why me" statements. Just an example of a few: Why is this happening to me? Why do I need to stay home and work on myself while other people who have anxiety are leading normal lives? Why doesn't my progress always stay? Why do I have to fight the same battles more than once? These are just a few of the thousands of thoughts that cross my mind during one of my pity parties. They are so unhelpful, but yet when I'm already down I really struggle with fighting them. They consume me and then I start to believe that I am incapable of getting better and that I'm just incredibly unlucky. Wow, how annoying right? Even just writing this is embarrassing, because at this moment the...

When I first started out with my therapist I was pretty blind to what panic disorder was, well along with everything else I was going through. I simply thought that panic attacks were a part of having anxiety. I didn't realize there was a whole other being that made up panic disorder. To help me truly understand what it's like to have this, my therapist lead me to a site called Centre for Clinical Intervention . This site has different modules to help you understand your feelings and going through the panic disorder one was like a light bulb going off in my head. I highly encourage you to check out this website and go through the modules, especially if you are someone who suffers from these illnesses. In the meantime, though, if you don't have time to check out the modules for yourself I want to summarize some of my favorite takeaways to help better explain what living with panic disorder is really like. I think the most important thing to start off with is giving a ...