Week 5 Anxiety Support Group

I suppose if I do a week 5 post, I should do the first 4 weeks?
Oh well....

In this six-week Anxiety Support Group we have built, week by week, learning where anxiety lives in the body, how to soothe and calm the body, how to talk gently and kindly to our bodies, to use Tapping or T.R.E. routinely to calm our entire nervous systems. 

People have been asked: so where did anxiety start for you? Intergenerationally, before you were born, as a result of childhood adverse experiences? And do you define yourself as an anxious person. And if you do, who would you be without the anxiety?

Each week we have done T.R.E and last week we learned Tapping and will do that for the next two weeks until our sessions come to an end.

This week is all about self-care. What is self-care to each person? What entails a life managed well, a life in which all the factors - social/employment/career/recreational/spiritual/emotional/relational...in which all the pieces that make up a life are included? On week 5 people can look back and see how far they have come. How much they have learned and practiced, or need to practice.

In the beginning I encourage people to make a list of what works because when anxiety kicks in - actually when the Autonomic Nervous System kicks in - it is GOOD to have a 'go-to' place where you can look at ideas and do them. Rather than flounder around in your mind thinking...what was that again...what was that, meanwhile just getting more and more anxious. And now ashamed or guilty because you could not THINK of what to do!!!

I like this image as a healthy reminder for all of us. Try this for yourself: make a list! And then USE IT!