..
..

Most anxiety sufferers use negative words that destroy their self-esteem and promote a sense of loss of control.

I call these "victim words." A few victim words include: can't, always, never, and should.

Victim words perpetuate your anxiety and fear. They create a negative self-fulfilling prophecy that results in anxious thoughts and physical symptoms.

When you use power language, the statement: "I can't control my anxiety" becomes "I can control my anxiety, and I'm learning skills to conquer it."

The statement: "Why do I always feel so anxious?" becomes "I often feel anxious, but not all of the time."

The statement: "I shouldn't be late for dinner" becomes "I may be late for dinner. It's unfortunate, but it's OK."

..
..

To me love meant pain, and being vulnerable meant being hurt. In daily life this translated to my belief that the less I loved assorted beings (people, birds, cats, dogs), the less shattered I would be when they left or died. 

I also believed I could monitor and control who, when, and how much I loved. Then my friend Sally foisted a cat her husband didn't want on me, and my entire life -- including my beliefs about love, death, redemption and cat birthday parties -- changed forever. 

Although I didn't particularly like cats or consider myself an animal person, I fell inexplicably, stunningly, madly in love with Blanche and by the time he was two-years-old, would have given up everything I had to keep him alive indefinitely. 

Since he seemed to be the key that had pried my winched heart open I believed it -- and I -- would bang shut if he died.

His death, following closely after my father's death sent me reeling into a regressed, desperate, quicksand grief. 

But as I allowed myself to feel the losses of both my father and Blanche, rather than drown in them, and as I learned to stay in the present moment rather than wander off into self-constructed drama, my experience of loss utterly changed -- and I along with it. 

I stopped fighting, stopped resisting, stopped believing it would be better if the beings and people I loved lived forever. I began to feel as if I were gliding in a kind of vastness through which life as I knew it was being blazed. 

The Craggy Hole in My Heart is a tale about the crucible of love. When we deeply enter into relationship with another being -- a cat, a dog, a person -- we are ultimately saying, "I am willing to go through the grief of being there when you die. Or of leaving you behind when I die." 

The book, then, is about opening the heart enough to love full-tilt, then losing what you love most and surviving. About coming to terms with what you believe will destroy you. It's about love like the Midtown Tunnel.

..
..

It has only gotten worse since then, complains David M. Levy, a victim of information overload who is also a computer scientist at the University of Washington's Information School.

Levy is all but helpless, he says, when new e-mail arrives. He feels obliged to open it. He is similarly hooked on the news, images and nonsense that spill out of the Internet.

Levy is fed up, and.. organized a conference [May 11-12, 2004] called "Information, Silence and Sanctuary," which will diagnose and prescribe treatment for what is ailing Levy -- and, in his view, most of the developed world.

Information-polluted people need to organize and protect psychic space and quiet time, Levy believes, much as environmentalists organized in the 1960s to protect wetlands and old-growth forests.

..
..

A lot of people say they want to get out of pain, and I'm sure that's true, but they aren't willing to make healing a high priority. They aren't willing to look inside to see the source of their pain in order to deal with it.  ///

When I was younger, there were times when I was in so much pain I would lock myself away for days, never telling a soul. Finally, one friend I had, through relentless love, got through to me.

But you can't always make it somebody else's responsibility to come get you. At some point you have got to take responsibility for saying, "Okay, I'm doing it again. I'm locked away," and use your will to reach out for help. 

I would experience terror trying to reach out. I'd ask myself, "What's the big deal? Why can't I call? Why can't I tell someone?" Finally I'd get the guts to call my friend.

Afterwards, I'd be so embarassed that I even had to ask for help and I was mortified that she had seen me in a fragile condition. 

Then I'd cry and we'd laugh and it would be over and I'd go, "That wasn't so bad, what the heck was I so afraid about?" 

But I'd go throught those same feelings again, every time. Eventually it got easier and easier, and through that relationship I learned to do in life what I learned to do through my work.

....Natural Highs: Supplements, Nutrition, 
and Mind-Body Techniques to 
Help You Feel Good All the Time 
by Hyla Cass, MD and Patrick Holford

Traditional cultures the world over have used psychoactive drugs to attain these peak states. 

We substitute various herbal combinations that you can use to alter your mind-state. 

They also used specific methods, such as meditation, movement, drumming, visualization, or special breathing techniques that you will find in Part Three. 

These techniques depend upon the mind-body connection, with brain chemistry as the link. 

One of the most exciting new areas of medical science, the study of the 'mind-body' interface, is helping us to understand for the first time just how this works, and what you and I can do to improve our minds and moods.

..
..

By helping them modify their brain chemistry, we have witnessed remarkable recoveries to robust mental health. 

We've found that certain natural substances can pull you out of depression, restore balance in times of stress, or promote an exhilarating sense of well being. ....

Since neurotransmitters are literally made from nutrients - amino acids, vitamins and minerals, we can formulate the perfect 'brain food' to improve how we feel and think. 

Nutritional supplements can create a state of high energy, increased focus and good mood. With the right combinations, well-being, connection and joie de vivre can become your normal state of mind.

..
..

What is this about? What is my ego about? My personal journey? 

And what is this search for with drama? 

And actually it was to understand people and understand myself greater through playing other people, learning things about myself that I didn't know already, or about human nature, and how what we do affects other people. 

I made that decision, and it meant that I sacrificed certain elements of what other people expected of me -- agents or whatever -- to make sure that I kept pure. 

You have to keep your spirit alive. And I think it's very hard, and it's ongoing. 

..
..

On the back cover, Kay Redfield Jamison, author of An Unquiet Mind and Johns Hopkins medical school professor of psychiatry, praises the book as "extremely helpful" to children "who are confused and hurt by a parent who suffers from mental illness."

"I wanted to a write a book for 'outsider' children - children who don't have happy childhoods," says Campbell... [who] is active in NAMI, the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill. Bipolar disorder is an issue in her family...

That afternoon, she yells at Annie and accuses a caring neighbor of spying on them. But Annie has created self-soothing rituals, calling her grandmother when her mother frightens her, eating healthful snacks, thinking "happy thoughts."

Though Annie gets support from her grandmother, a warm teacher and two neighborhood sisters who offer to have her come over after school, "the kid has to take care of herself," Campbell says. 

Yet the book ends on a hopeful note. Writes Campbell: "Sometimes my mommy has dark clouds inside her. I can't stop the rain from falling, but I can find sunshine in my mind." Campbell also points out that the book applies to a child whose mother is an alcoholic or a drug abuser, "someone who is not working to full capacity."

..
..

"My wife wanted a divorce as I was being downsized out of my job. Then I learned she was having an affair with my brother-in-law. It was unthinkable. 

"I felt naive and ridiculous, questioned everything I'd ever believed." He took Prozac, consulted his pastor, his lawyer and went into psychotherapy. All were helpful, he says, but important questions remained unaddressed.

"I had some huge insights," he says. "I'd hate for anyone to go through this, but I saw there's a silver lining. 

"If this kind of bomb drops on you, and you hook up with a good philosophical counselor, you can find more clarity and meaning in your life than you actually had at the start."

..
..

The first step in the cognitive approach is to identify our thoughts or internal dialog that is negative, perfectionistic, black and white, rigid and demanding. 

In other words, you are more likely to experience stress if you believe that you, the world and other people "should or must" behave in a manner consistent with your demands and standards. ...

Once you are convinced that the dialog is negative and counterproductive, you are ready to move on to the third step in the cognitive approach; challenging and replacing the negative internal dialog with a healthier, more productive internal dialog.