Wow, what an achievement to decrease medication at a time of so much stress and work pressure! Hope you're proud of yourself, even if it goes slowly. I totally agree with you that yoga, meditation or mindfulness practice are a very powerful way to manage milder symptoms of depression and anxiety, or to support medication, or just to keep yourself centered and slow down the pace of life for a moment and reflect
( ... )
Thank you, thank you!! I am definitely trying to remain very happy/proud about the (slow) progress. It's a challenge as I am an impatient little thing
( ... )
Yeah, I took classes. There's a group here runs weekend workshops and I started with one of those. For me it was the best way to learn--I always fall into the trap of reading things but not actually DOing them and that allowed me to experience some benefits from it, which motivated me to continue on my own. I just went to a second weekend workshop and there are now some classes nearer me that I go to.
It sometimes boggles me how someone so moral could be so unethical, how someone so rooted in justice still have such a jaded view of people.Yeah, it was fascinating! And felt very real. I was glad the writers felt comfortable making her so ambiguous and letting the viewer wrestle with some of these contradictions in her
( ... )
Hi there! I went off Effexor years ago and I remember it being an excruciating process, so *big hugs*
I've been trying to use meditation and breathing exercises to manage my anxiety recently, so I'm thinking I might have to look into this whole qigong business.
Oh, god, you've been through it too? Yeah, it's horrible! I get really impatient but if I try to rush it, I get totally crippled physically, and even slowly it's like being mildly sick constantly for months, with some days worse than others. Thanks for the sympathy
( ... )
My biggest challenge is similar to what you said, I think...I'm a big thought-judger so the idea of simply observing my thoughts is v.v. foreign to me. But that way of looking at the world (of judging everyone and everything, especially myself) is what feeds my anxiety so it only stands to reason that if I can learn to take a step back from my thoughts and feelings, my anxiety mightn't be as overwhelming.
Anyway, I'll have to look and see if there's a qigong class in my area. Thanks for the heads-up.
Yeah, that's absolutely the key I think--the mind being very active and judging yourself harshly, always measuring and comparing, is what feeds anxiety. I don't know if it's of any interest but I found reading 'The Power of Now' by Eckhart Tolle to be very helpful in gaining a clear, accessible but profound understanding of the way our mind creates these damaging illusions... and how detaching from the mind can be very freeing: we are NOT our minds, though we are used to thinking we are! Qigong has a lot in common with modern developments of mindfulness or 'focusing', learning to 'be present', rather than always worrying about the future or fretting over the past. It's very freeing!
Haunted by pigeons? You have trees full of lorrikeets outside your house, and yet it's pigeons that haunt your bathroom? It must be a message. While you were chasing the pigeons out, did you happen to notice if one of them seemed very intense and buttoned-down, while the other seemed to have serious commitment issues?
It sounds like you're doing really well with reducing your meds. Dropping by half sounds like a huge success to me, even if you never went any further - but dropping by half makes me think you'll go the whole way :)
Comments 31
Reply
Reply
Reply
It sometimes boggles me how someone so moral could be so unethical, how someone so rooted in justice still have such a jaded view of people.Yeah, it was fascinating! And felt very real. I was glad the writers felt comfortable making her so ambiguous and letting the viewer wrestle with some of these contradictions in her ( ... )
Reply
I've been trying to use meditation and breathing exercises to manage my anxiety recently, so I'm thinking I might have to look into this whole qigong business.
Reply
Reply
Anyway, I'll have to look and see if there's a qigong class in my area. Thanks for the heads-up.
Reply
Reply
It sounds like you're doing really well with reducing your meds. Dropping by half sounds like a huge success to me, even if you never went any further - but dropping by half makes me think you'll go the whole way :)
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment