Anxiety

  I have returned here following a two month absence. Many people commented that they were concerned about the continuation of the blog, and asked why I had not written more for some time now.
  First, I was travelling most of August, which made it difficult to take the time to compose, and then edit, and rewrite most of the pieces you have read here. A single page may take as much as two or three hours of rewriting to try to get pace correct, and I always intend to deliver good product. This is of course good for the reader, and it is good for me as well, as it will make me a better writer.
  August was understandable as I was never home most of the month.
  September is another story, and was a much different kind of month for me.
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  September ushered in three major points of anxiety for me. One was financial, the second was the state of my health, naturally, and the third involved family. My mood is almost always good, or if not that, level. But the first couple of weeks of September did indeed foul my mood.
  If my mission here is to deliver uplifting pieces to help other people, I had no business posting anything while my mood was so dark. This seemed like good sense.
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  Now for the "uplifting" part of this piece.
  It took me a while to establish a clear head about things.
  In a nutshell, anxiety is emotional. You feel it in your belly, and your chest. You might even get a headache from the worry.
  Anxiety is real, and your emotions are always real, and they are valid. Pay attention to your emotional state. The emotions are delivering a message.
  My anxieties were pointing me in the direction of real problems. So in that way, those feelings were both valid and useful. But we are more than emotional beings. We also have rational heads (most of us, anyway).
  Real problems can be broken down into their elements, and then strategies can be put in place to solve the problems. This requires rational thinking.
  I took this approach to the problems my anxieties were concerned with, and for the most part the anxieties have gone away, at least until the next episode of what seems like chaos. My stress level is back to a low level. and I am better able now to serve you here, dear reader.
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  The message here is that of course we all go through periods when it all seems so overwhelming. This is especially true if you have cancer. Pay attention to your emotional state, because it is valid. It will have an effect on your physical state. Try to translate the emotional state into rational thinking. Rational thinking will lead you to take action, and that is where changes occur.
  Some things we do not have control over. These things are in the hands of a higher power, always, and we must learn to accept that fact.
  But there actions we can take to help ease the burden from worries and anxieties. Change your mind, change your mood. It can be done.
Mr. Charming