Gratitude List

 Things I'm grateful for this month:

• Gingerbread lattes
• Yule/the Winter Solstice
• Going to Haskins Roundstone garden centre
  
• Christmas
• Books
• Friendship
  
• Christmas trees 
• The weather warming up again after a cold spell

Feeling Low

With all that's been going in these past few months (the coronavirus and lockdown/quarantine, and then the murder of George Floyd and all the racial tension and unrest), I've been feeling quite low lately. I'd imagine that many people are feeling the same, so I thought I'd write a post about feeling low and how we can start to pick ourselves back up.

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

I have written before about having depression and anxiety, and last autumn I went through a period where I was struggling. I did start to feel a bit better but then the end of the year was quite hard for me personally, and then of course in early 2020 the coronavirus spread and lockdown happened. I wasn't able to get to places and do things that I usually did, since everything shut down and we were all told to stay home. And then with recent events I've been feeling more unsettled. I wrote about my thoughts on the year so far in my Mid-2020 Reflections post. You can read that here: https://fallingpetalsuk.blogspot.com/2020/06/mid-2020-reflections.html

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

Reflections

In March I started a series of posts called Design Your Universe about the Law of Attraction. I've written one post so far and you can read it here: https://fallingpetalsuk.blogspot.com/2017/03/design-your-universe-part-1.html

Since then I've been planning to carry on but I've been feeling held back in my life lately by my anxiety, in particular health anxiety. I've started the second post but it's not ready yet, so I thought I'd do this post instead. I'll write about my thoughts on creating the life of your dreams and how you can feel held back by challenges, especially mental health.

Healing Health Anxiety- Part 2

Last month I started a series on healing health anxiety. You can read the first post here: https://fallingpetalsuk.blogspot.com/2016/10/healing-health-anxiety-part-1.html


In that post I spoke about what health anxiety (HA) is and looked at methods for healing it, concentrating on therapy and self help techniques. This time I'm looking at it from more of a spiritual perspective. So here we go. :)

Disclaimer: I'm not a doctor, just someone who has health anxiety, so please seek medical help in addition to reading this. :)
 
Update 14/11/23: I've removed and replaced some links to make the post look neater.

Understanding thoughts  

When you're worrying you can feel trapped by your thoughts, so it might help to read about thoughts themselves. Here's a good post and video by Kajal Pandey on understanding them: https://www.kajalpandey.com/blog/how-to-understand-your-thoughts/

 

Update 26/11/25: Kajal's original site is now gone but her YouTube channel is still there, so I'll link to her videos where possible because I really have found her work helpful. :)

How to Understand Your Thoughts (video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uo115FLkb1o

 

Healing Health Anxiety- Part 1

This is part of a series of posts on healing health anxiety. This is something I've been trying to do for a while, it's an ongoing process for me. I was originally planning to do just one post but it was turning into a really long one, so I decided to do a series instead. :)

Disclaimer: I'm not a doctor, just someone who has health anxiety, so please seek medical help in addition to reading this. :)



What is health anxiety?

As I've mentioned before I have health anxiety. If you're not familiar with it, it's anxiety centred specifically on your health. Another name for it is hypochondria but they may not be exactly the same thing, because with health anxiety (HA) you often experience physical symptoms. For more on the subject you can read this article: https://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/articles/healthanxiety

Healing Mind and Body

 Last updated: February 2019


I'm currently working on a blog page of articles that I've been finding helpful on my self help/personal development journey so far. (Similar to my Resources page). I intend for it to have quite a few categories and links, so while I'm still working on it, I thought I'd also do a post about healing your mind and body. I'm including Law of Attraction (LOA) links. For more on the Law of Attraction you can read my post about it:  https://fallingpetalsuk.blogspot.com/2013/08/law-of-attraction.html

Healing is something I've been working on for years in relation to my mental health, due to having depression, OCD and anxiety since I was a teenager. In recent years I've been trying to eat more healthily and have lost some weight. In books and articles I've read they mention how the mind and body are linked, so I think it's good to take care of both your mind and body.


There are some things I like to do which help with my mental wellbeing:

Reading and re-reading LOA books
Reading blogs/sites
Writing exercises (eg. "body journalling", see below)
Writing stories- I've been writing since I was little and sometimes I find it relaxing just sitting there and writing.

Also check out a post I did a couple of years ago on my healing tools: https://fallingpetalsuk.blogspot.com/2014/04/my-healing-tools.html


Now here are some useful links. I've divided them into categories.



Wellbeing

A couple of links on general wellbeing.

http://jianiteo.com/four-dimensions-wellbeing

http://enlightenyourlovelife.com/keeping-it-simple-universal-law/

http://kriscarr.com/blog/kris-carr-self-care-planner/

http://www.eltscott.com/a-guide-to-mindfulness/**

http://www.wellandgood.com/good-advice/5-mini-mindfulness-methods-that-you-can-do-anywhere/slide/7/

https://melissaambrosini.com/health/my-8-daily-non-negotiables-for-supercharged-productivity/*

Anxiety Resources

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

As well as depression I also have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and anxiety, in particular health anxiety. I know that many people have similar problems and it can be hard to deal with. Sometimes I feel better than others but the anxiety is pretty much constant. I've been interested in self help techniques for years and have been looking more up lately, so I thought I'd share some resources here. :)


General help for anxiety and related disorders


No More Panic

No More Panic is a website that has articles, a forum and chat room for people who have anxiety, depression, OCD, panic disorders and phobias and their carers as well. I've often used this when I've been in a panic about something.

IMPORTANT: If you have health anxiety and you are panicked about a symptom, try not to Google it because you can put a symptom in and it can come up with all sorts of diseases associated with it that you probably don't have. If you're really worried about something try doing a search on No More Panic or a similar forum rather than just doing a random search because you're more likely to get helpful advice. :)

Update 14/10/18: Just want to add that your first port of call should be a doctor if you're worried about any symptoms/medical conditions. :)