Monday 29 October 2018

Gratitude List

This month I'm grateful for:

An Arabic dance workshop with Katie Holland
A Regency dance workshop with my group BD4U
Getting a charger for my new toothbrush that I got last month!
Beautiful autumn leaves and colours
October roses and sunny, golden days
Meetup events
Still the Hallowe'en chocolate (and doughnuts too!)
Hallowe'en/Samhain this week!

Bonus: Getting a new coat for winter.


And for a change, here are a couple of autumn pics:

Tree at Shoreham Library



Sunday 14 October 2018

Feeling Your Emotions- Fear and Anxiety (Part 1)



This is the next post in the Feeling Your Emotions series. You can read the introductory post here: https://fallingpetalsuk.blogspot.com/2017/11/feeling-your-emotions-introduction.html


Disclaimer: I'm not a doctor, so if you're having mental/physical issues please seek medical help in addition to reading this. :)


I've previously covered Anger and Sadness and Depression. Now I'm moving onto fear and anxiety. Like I did with sadness and depression, I'll address fear and anxiety as two separate things. As with my previous posts I'll divide it into two parts; this part will look at fear and anxiety in general and the 2nd one will be about dealing with fear and worry, and healing anxiety/feeling better.

In my understanding, fear and anxiety are a bit different, but it is confusing. "Anxiety" is these days termed as a mental health disorder. I myself have what's called "health anxiety", also known as hypochondria. My type of anxiety has also been termed "phobic anxiety". I would say I also have generalised anxiety (GAD) and social anxiety (although to a lesser extent). I don't believe I've been officially diagnosed with the last two though. Let's look more closely at the differences between fear and anxiety.

Some people believe that fear relates to a specific threat whereas anxiety is more a vague unease.
Hilary Jacobs Hendel, author of It's Not Always Depression which I recently read, defines fear as a "core emotion". The core emotions are sadness, fear, anger, joy, excitement, sexual excitement and disgust. For more on this and the Change Triangle, a healing process and guide to feeling better, visit this link: https://www.hilaryjacobshendel.com/what-is-the-change-triangle-c18dd