Hi anerol,

 

Be sure to journal about your exposure work, to enable yourself to be reminded of moments where you feel at peace and happy. I am glad that the book you are reading is helping you tackle your thinking, write down specific quotes from the book that resonate with you so you can refer to them in the future. Keep us posted, it sounds like you are making some progress here. As Davit said, you are doing great!

 

 

 

 

Yes it does build with the tiny steps. There will be more as you progress and they will just show on there own without any help or coaxing. Enjoy them, the more you enjoy them the more they will show up. Watch for the rebound. ( bad day after a good one because you just can't believe you could have two good ones in a row) This too lessens with time. You will have ups and downs but they get flatter with time. Just keep doing what you are doing, you are doing great.

Davit

I haven't been on for a while.

 

Davit, unfortunately, I had problems with both small and wide spaces!! But I think I'm better with the wide spaces now. I didn't get to read this post until now but I did another exposure yesterday. I was really really nervous this time and I was about to give up but I kept giving my mind some positive reassurance (with much much difficulty this time!!) and somehow made it through. These days, I notice that I get some good excitement for a few seconds before I do the exposure and that is often the time I imagine my visualizations like you have mentioned. I never used to get this good excitement before... I don't know where it came from, but maybe it built up with the teeny steps. Although, yesterday, I had a lot of difficulty... my negative thoughts just run in circles and my postitive thoughts just get bumped out. Right now, I was anxious again so I came into my room and I looked out the window. The sun was setting and the wind was blowing into my face and the contrast of the orange sky against my neighbor's green tree was so serene. I felt so much at peace and happy and I'd like to remember this every time I do exposure.

 

Sunny, Thanks for the tips on breathing. It's funny, I never thought of it as sighing! Sighing always feels good, so I will try it as a sigh. I also tried that shoulder thing right now and it felt relieving. I will keep practicing.  

I thought I might loose my post if I didn't send it. 

About breathing. You have to learn how to do this before you need it. You have to practice it when you are fine so it will be automatic when you do need it. What I do is breath in through my nose to a count of three and out to a count of four through my mouth. In really tough spots I will add a mantra.  "I am fine" on the in and "I am really fine" on the out. Remember I said few people can think more than one thing at a time. Here you have two. Thinking breathing and thinking the Mantra. You can add to this if need be. You can think about being on your lawn in the sun with birds singing while you think your breathing and your mantra. This should be enough to bury any negative, (bad) thought you are having. The last option is to use medication as a crutch while you do this. Best not to unless you absolutely have too, but if you do don't beat yourself up for doing it because this would be negative. I hope this is of help but if there is any of this that doesn't make sense, point it out to me and I will see if I can explain it better.

Davit.

Anerol:  When you find you are holding your breath see if you can take a big breath and let it out gently without forcing.  Sort of like a big sigh.  Do it about three times.  Use that when you're in a bit of a panic.  I used that just the other day when I was shopping because I was starting to get tired and overwhelmed with all the commotion around me.
When you do the exercise at home, say for 5 min. a.m. and 5 min. p.m., it's more like three deep breaths as above, but then continue with about 30-40 normal breaths.  A suggestion:  lie down and place hands a bit below ribcage.  When you breathe in the stomach goes up and when you breathe out the stomach goes down .  When I am really anxious, I take a 1-2 pause when I breathe in, count the 1-2, then let out gently through the mouth.  When you start to relax, then you can breathe in and out just through the nose.  Then after this exercise I do the relax. or visualization one.  I do both faithfully for a few days when I am going through a lot of stress.  When the stress subsides, I might just do some breathing ex. for awhile.

When I first started, I too used to get more anxious.  I often thought I'd never get it right.  It's funny now because they are the two things I use the most.  So praticing did the trick. I think it took me about three months of just about every day to get it right.  I was desparate!  hope this helps you.

Oh another I just remembered:  when stressed lift your shoulders up towards your ears as high as they can go, hold it and feel the tension for a count of about 3, then quickly release and let them go down quickly.  Do that three times or so.

Some people have trouble with Doctors offices, or driving, not because of what they are but because of there size. If a person is claustrophobic then being in a car or doctors office will crowd them. But if they visualize it before going as a bigger space then they can replace this claustrophobic thought with the more pleasant one of a larger space. You just close your eyes and think you are in the bigger room as you visualized it. Very few people can think more than one thing at a time so thinking of the pleasant thing will cover the unpleasant. The reason to do it before hand is so you can keep it pure. You don't want the unpleasant thought to be intruding while you build this safe thought. Now just the opposite would be the person who has trouble in large open spaces. Their safe thought might be being hugged and held tight by someone important to them. Just as you can build fear from a thought you can also build pleasure. The best thoughts are ones that are close to what you are doing or secondly what you wish you were doing. If you would like to be walking through a field of flowers instead of being in the dentists office, then that is what to use. Add as much detail as you can, don't leave it flat. Make the sun shine and the flowers sway. Add bird song and think of how they smell. It is a form of mental distraction for when there is nothing available for physical distraction. Like day dreaming. I'm sure you have seen some one in a restaurant leaning there chin on there hand and looking off into space or out a window while they wait for some one who is late. This is what they are doing, replacing the unpleasant thought of how they are waiting by their-self with a more pleasant one. ( not of how to kill them when they do show unless this would be considered a pleasant thought) This can be used anywhere and anytime but the key is to have the safe thought built ahead of time so it won't attract the unpleasant one. It helps to have more than one for really bad times so you can play them like a photo album. This is different than writing something down so you can see there is no basis for fear. This is for the times when you can't do that. Driving ,flying, long grocery lines or long waits. It is a tool and before you are done here you will have a whole box of these tools to use. They are also temporary because by the time you are done here you should not need them any more but you will still have them if you need them. Don't forget to breath, your mind needs oxygen.

Davit

Hi Sunny, thanks for the tips. I need to find a good breathing exercise for myself. I'm still having trouble with this, well, it's gotten a little better but I still have times when I concentrate on my breathing I get more anxious. I've noticed that I do hold my breath a lot and I'm attempting to tackle this by just letting myself breathe. I'm so scared to let go during those episodes... and those times I just keep breathing shallow. Maybe I need to change my first exposure session to "breathing".

 

Hi Davit, do you mean if the space is bigger it will seem more positive or negative? I sometimes don't know which is better to visiualize because if I expect the worse and realize that it's not so bad, then in that sense, it will be a relief and a little easier to tackle. But if I visualize something too scary, my mind may get obsessed with it and I'd get anxious. But now that I've written this out, I think seeing an enclosed space as big (tricking my mind) would work, because that's not scary.. I should pretend I'm in the fields when I'm inside... somehow.

I would do just like sunny because when you get something that works you want to use it. I have one tiny addition.  sunny may have just missed it. Before you go try to visualize what this space will be like but make it bigger. Then if you find being in it is bothering you you can compare how you saw it to how it is with the emphasis on how you saw it before.(as bigger). It works as a distraction and is also another form of positive over negative. If you concentrate hard enough on making it bigger you actually can convince yourself that it is.  Henry Ford said some thing like this.  Whether you think you can or whether you can't you are still right. In other words what you want it to be is what it will be. It is all up to how you look at it.

If you want to you could practice this in your own back yard.

Davit