Cheeney Member Profile

My thoughts on finding inner peace and changing our reality

Anxiety Support / by Cheeney

July 21st, 2016

...See more Greetings, fellow humans. *does a robotic like wave* I'm posting this in the anxiety forum because I can't help but feel that anxiety is the exact opposite of inner peace. Living in a state of anxiety is wholly different from living in a state of peace and harmony, and as someone who's had to deal with anxiety many times before, I can honestly say it's one of the worst feelings in the world. Ofcourse anxiety is pivotal to our survival on this planet and it is therefore one of our most important emotions, yet when we are deeply affected by it in a negative way, it becomes a problem. I think one of the best ways to battle anxiety is simply with peace. Below I will type out some of my thoughts and (hopefully) helpful tips - some might seem incredibly simple, and well.. they are. Do you ever look all over for something you've lost, then, after hours of hopeless searching, you decide to give up - and you find that the object you were looking for was in your pocket all along. Finding your inner peace is very similar to that, because it resides in all of us. We just have to find it. How far below the surface it is hidden varies from person to person but trust me: it is there. Everyone needs quiet time. How can you expect your inner system to be peaceful when you're surrounded by loud, chaotic noises? Although silence is preferred, it is not a requirement. I find that often, when the sounds around me are equal in volume and type, I can zone them out. When you've got the outside covered, it's time to take a look at the inside. How loud is your mind? What volume are your thoughts, are they soft whispers, gentle and harmless, or are they violent screams of terror? Calming down your mind always starts with breathing and relaxing the body. Try focusing on something outside of you, like the plant your mother got you for your birthday, and examine it thoroughly, without making a judgment or labelling it. View it as you would a painting, let your eyes see, really see, and admire. So often we look, but we don't see. We're too busy thinking about the events of the day, worrying about the future or reliving the past. All the while we miss the only thing we're ever really going to have: the now. The past only exists as a memory in our brain and the future is merely a concept of our imagination. We project our expectations, wishes and anxieties on an image of the future that only exists inside of our heads, and we cling to it desperately as we completely ignore the now. Worrying about the future is pointless by all means. We can't possibly know what's going to happen, and what we imagine will happen(the image mentioned above) rarely turns out to become a reality. We spend all this time living and reliving a moment that hasn't even happened yet, and will probably never happen exactly the way we think, worry or hope it will. So why do we continue to do this, when all we get is a lot of unnecessary anxiety? I think it is our ego's way of staying in control, or atleast feeling like it is in control. Our mind doesn't like uncertainties by nature, and will always fill in the blanks. Depending on our personal thought patterns, past experiences, personalities, emotions and so on, it will construct an image of what the future might look like. Understand that this image, though it may seem very convincing, is heavily influenced by your own personality traits and past experiences. If you have a tendency to worry and expect the worst, your brain is likely to construct the image by those measures. Now, more often than not, this image we have of the future only causes us to worry. Or, on the flip side of things, it gets us really excited and sets us up for failure when it turns out to be different than we had hoped. Wouldn't it be simpler to just not think about the future at all? I'll give you an example. Normally when I have to go out, I plan it several days ahead. I think about it carefully, imagine myself in various situations, weigh all the pros and cons, all the things that could go wrong and all the things that might go right, and eventually think: 'alright, I think I'm ready!'. Without this 'mental preparation', I freak out, because I honestly feel like I need enough time to think and prepare myself for the future. Yet, those thoughts only make the anticipation grow larger, and cause a lot of panic in general. The other day, I got a call about a job I applied to. They asked me if I could come in the day after, and in a moment of character-breaking excitement I said yes. Immediately I regretted it and started freaking out, I didn't have enough time to prepare myself and think about everything. I went into a state of panic and was very close to a panic attack. Then I thought, well, obviously 'mentally preparing' doesn't work! The thoughts about the interview were giving me anxiety, not calming me down! Even when I looked back at other appointments, meeting and other things I had to do that I found scary, mentally preparing didn't do much. Sure, it made me feel prepared and in some cases even more sure of myself, but the actual meeting always went differently than I expected. Plus, the days I spent preparing myself were wasted by having so many anxiety inducing thoughts. This time, I decided to not think about it at all. Since it had never really gotten me anywhere, I decided to stop imagining what the future would look like, and went on with my day. Aside from a little route-planning I had to do the night before, not thinking about the appointment worked surprisingly well. I looked at it as if it were an experiment, and everytime I caught myself thinking (and worrying), I'd correct myself and point out that the point of this is simple: to see the effects of not thinking at all. Morning came, and I still felt great. Once the interview came closer, my body was feeling a little stressed, which stressed me out in turn, but I calmed myself down remembering that my body was only doing what I normally do when I have to go out. I noticed that I was mentally very much relaxed, it was just my body that was stressed and felt anxiety. I felt relatively relaxed through out the interview, and ended up getting the job! Not only did the not-thinking experiment work, it got me a job and a new perspective! Suddenly I feel very silly about myself when I think about all of the hours spent 'mentally preparing' myself for the future. How we perceive the world is how we live our lives. It impacts not only the things that happen to us, but the things that will happen to us as well. After all, if you keep on perceiving life as a terrible, punishing experience, it will be. Your perception of reality affects your reality, which is a scary yet exciting thing. Think about this: you leave for work in the morning, feeling depressed and unlucky. It rains outside and already you feel like the world is out to get you. The bus is late, as it always is, damn me, and you arrive to work already feeling like leaving. Now, let's change your emotions. You wake up and feel great. You start your day with a nice cup of coffee and leave your house. Outside you notice that it's raining, and you glance to see the plants in your garden, which you forgot to water that weekend. You think to yourself, thanks nature!, and get on the bus. It's a little late, but that's alright, as it gives you some time to enjoy the book you've been wanting to read. You get to work feeling happy and full of energy, which not only impacts your experience, but the experience of everyone around you. What does this mean? It means that we have the power to change our reality! Our perception of reality affects our reality, and we can (with hard work) change our perception, therefore changing reality itself! The purpose of meditation is not to completely stop thinking and numb our minds, it is to discover our true selves and get more in touch with everything around us. It is observing and reserving yourself from judgment, it's critically looking into the depths of who you are and always looking for new ways to improve. It is accepting and letting go, growing and connecting with others and the earth, and to feel compassion towards all living things. Meditation is key to finding inner peace, because it teaches you to look beyond the thoughts, emotions and fantasies of every day life. Being your own observer and taking distance from things that are susceptible to change teaches us that nothing stays the same, and that humans have limited power. We can't possibly fulfill all of our dreams and we can't avoid suffering, so we must accept the things we can not change. Resisting will only serve to keep your mind unbalanced and disorganised. I've been rambling for quite some time now, I hope this will be helpful to some. If it is, please let me know, perhaps I'll write more of these in the future. Much love.

A Simple Little Trick!

Anxiety Support / by Cheeney

October 29th, 2016

Mindfulness: A Short Guide

Mindfulness Center / by Cheeney

January 28th, 2016

...See more I'm sure most of you know of mindfulness. With the recordings on this site, a group support room and a forum section dedicated to mindfulness, it's hard not to. But what does mindfulness really entail? And how do you practice it? My interpretation of mindfulness is: Non-Judgemental Awareness. To be mindful is to be aware of anything going on in and outside of you, without labeling or judging it. What we commonly practice when doing mindfulness is observing our mind. We observe our thoughts and emotions, we watch them come and go, without judging or wishing they weren't there. Mindfulness is strongly connected to the Now, the present. You can't be mindful of the Now if you're living in the past or worrying about the future. To quote Eckhart Tolle: ''People don't realize that now is all there ever is; there is no past or future except as memory or anticipation in your mind.'' With mindfulness comes acceptance. Acceptance of your thoughts is important because if you resist them, you're only giving them more power. Often the struggle against painful emotions or thoughts becomes more painful than the original source. When you notice you're resisting pain in any way, seeking a distraction or cursing it and trying to make it go away, congratulate yourself. The first step in waking up is noticing you're asleep. Once you notice you're doing this, you can try and practice mindful accepting of whatever is bothering you. You may find it helpful to keep a journal and write down your thoughts in there. Check out a post I wrote on ACT [http://www.7cups.com/forum/DepressionSupportCommunity_52/Depression_30/ACTAcceptanceCommitmentTherapy_35225/] for more on this. Another aspect of acceptance is accepting the Now; accepting whatever situation you're in at a certain point without judging or wishing it were different. Truth is, usually you can't really do much about a lot of situations life throws at you, what you can do is changing your attitude about them. This is strongly intertwined with the struggle against painful emotions, for when you struggle against a situation you can't change you're only giving it more power over you. Make the Now your friend and ally, not your enemy. So, how can you practice mindfulness? The mindfulness tapes on this website are absolutely wonderful and will help you get better at meditation and mindfulness. But there is also lots you can do outside of meditation. You can practice being mindful of your thoughts at any given time of the day, and it's a great way to make it a habit. You can also extend mindfulness practice to everyday things, like eating. A common mindfulness practice is mindful eating. Take the time to really enjoy your food, chew slowly, breathe deeply, and taste everything thoroughly. If you do this with a food that you can easily hold in your hands, like an apple, you can ''examine'' it. Feel it's texture, whether it's soft or hard, moist or dry. Smell it. Think about where it came from. Other everyday things you can do mindfully: washing the dishes, vacuum cleaning, walking, listening and talking, driving. And that's just to name a few. I challenge you to find an activity that you can not do mindfully! That concludes my not so short guide on mindfulness, thank you for reading. Resources: ''The Power of Now'' by Eckhart Tolle ''Mindfulness for dummies'' by Shamash Alidina

ACT - Acceptance Commitment Therapy

Depression Support / by Cheeney

January 19th, 2016

...See more Hi! I wanted to share some info on a very interesting, very unknown topic. ACT is a form of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and is fairly new. I actually borrowed a book from my therapist about ACT, written by a dutch psychologist. Sadly it is not translated into English so I can't share any links, so I'm just going to tell you some of the basics. As you may have guessed from the title, ACT is all about acceptance. It works on the understanding that there are 2 forms of emotional pain. The first is ''Pure Pain''. Pure pain is part of human life. This pain is unavoidable and everyone will experience it in one way or another. The second form of pain is ''Tainted Pain''. This comes from resisting and struggling against pure pain. For example, let's say one afternoon you get incredibly anxious. You fight it with all your energy, you try to make it go away, you try to distract yourself from your anxiety, but nothing works. The anxiety is still there, and it's even worse than before. What's even worse than all this is you feel completely defeated and emotionally and physically drained. You feel like you failed because you're still experiencing anxiety. In most cases the struggle against pain is actually more painful than the pain itself. Now, instead of dealing with pure pain that's part of human life, you have to deal with the pain you created by resisting as well. ACT works on the premise of accepting your pain. Instead of fighting or cursing your pain, accept it for what it is. A part of life, and something that will pass in time. By not accepting pain you're only making it worse. If you regularly take steps on the growth path, chances are you've seen the ''Unwanted house guest'' video. Try and consider the same perspective here. The guy in the video was upset because his neighbour, who he didn't like, was at his house, messing up his party. So he kicked him out and spent all his energy making sure he wouldn't be able to get in again. Doing this, he completely missed out on his own party. When his neighbour returned again and instead of fighting it he just let him stay, he noticed that his neighbour wasn't actually a bad guy. Once he accepted and welcomed him, they had fun together and he could enjoy his party again. (I'm not sure I've got the entire video right, it's been a while since I've watched it) (''I had a black dog, his name was depression'' is also a good video, eg accepting the black dog instead of fighting it) Ofcourse this is all easier said than done. Pain, in any form, is unpleasant and it's a natural reaction to want to get rid of it. The point I want to get across is: fighting your pain only makes it worse. Even if you do manage to get a temporary relief from your pain by fighting it, in the long run it's going to come back to you even stronger. By accepting your pain you regain power over it because you change your perspective. Thank you taking the time to read this. I didn't really have the time to fully go in depth on this but if you have any questions I'll gladly answer them.

Tips for people that are suffering from social anxiety

Anxiety Support / by Cheeney

January 19th, 2016

...See more Hey there! Those of you who know me may know I have social anxiety. If you do not know me, hi I'm Cheeney! Like I said, I have social anxiety and I want to share some tips with you. I am currently in treatment with a psychologist for my social anxiety and depression, so what I want to share with you guys is partially things he said and partially things I realised through experience. Alright, so I want to talk about 3 things; the root of your anxiety, what you do/do not do with your anxiety and acceptance of your anxiety. First let's talk about the root of your anxiety. I think one of the most important things in overcoming your anxiety is understanding where it comes from. Only when you fully understand why you feel anxious in certain situations can you work on improving. Understand what you are feeling in those situations and dive deeper into those feelings. When you are feeling anxious, don't try to ignore that feeling (that doesn't work anyway) but rather face the feeling head on.This will be hard at first but it's key in understanding why you feel that way. For example, I often feel very anxious when I'm walking down the street. I get very conscious of the way I walk, and because of that I tend to stumble when walking sometimes, which makes me even more anxious. When I notice I feel that way, I ask myself questions. ''Why am I so anxious about the way I walk?'' - because I'm afraid people will think I walk weirdly and start staring at me or make fun of me for it. ''Why am I so scared to be made fun of or stared at?'' - because then I'll feel embarassed and more people will judge me. ''What are the chances people will make fun of me?'' - chances aren't that big, there is nothing to gain for people if they make fun of me. ''Will it really impact my life that much if I feel embarassed?'' - no, it will hurt for some time but eventually I'll move on with my life and stop obsessing over it. By asking myself these questions I realised a couple of things: - My social anxiety mainly stems from my fear of being made fun of for being weird. - Chances aren't that big people will actually make fun of me, there is nothing to gain for them. - Even if they do make fun of me, I'll feel embarassed, it will hurt, but then I will move on. Let's move on to what you do/do not do with your anxiety. There are probably a lot of social situations you avoid because of your anxiety. That's completely understandable. Anxiety is unpleasant so we try to avoid it as much as possible. When I started therapy I was in a bad place. I didn't leave my house much at all, I'd stay inside there for weeks and even basic things like going to the supermarket gave me panic attacks and severe anxiety. Here's the hard part: anxiety doesn't leave on it's own. The more you avoid a situation because of your anxiety, the stronger the anxiety becomes. The best thing to do is to put yourself in difficult situations that give you anxiety, to use the questions I listed above and to realise there is often nothing to be anxious about. My psychologist and I made an ''exposure list''. Basically, I had to list activities that I used to do before my social anxiety got this bad and activies that I would do if I didn't suffer from social anxiety. A couple of things on my exposure list are: going to the supermarket, asking a random person for directions, going for a walk, and drinking coffee by myself in a cafe. And guess what: I've done all of them! Going to the supermarket gave me panic attacks in the past because I was so scared of being judged and made fun of, so I avoided going. I thought if I went there people would instantly make fun of me and I tell me I didn't belong. It was when I actually did go to the supermarket that I realised my anxiety had all been for nothing. In the past 2 months I reckon I've been to the supermarket atleast 15 times, and not once has someone made fun of me or judged me in any way. One other thing I noticed when doing things on my list was that people generally are too busy with themselves to even notice you, let alone judge you or make fun of you. People are usually either busy with their smartphones, talking to the people they're with, listening to music or just lost in their own thoughts. They don't pay much attention to you because they're too involved in their own lifes, their own problems. This doesn't mean you're not important or that people don't care about you: people just tend to think about themselves more than others. One thing I always struggle with is the feeling of being looked at. Like when I'm walking down the street or are sitting in a bus, I feel like everyone is staring at me and judging me. So I avoid looking at the people and stare at my feet instead. When you look down, you can't see the world around you and you tend to feel even more anxious. It's easier to look at your feet because you don't have to look at the people around you, but it doesn't help your anxiety. Here's a tip my psychologist gave me: when you're feeling anxious because there are people around, look at the people around you and count how many are looking back. Just gently scan the room, street or bus you're in and look at the eyes of everyone in there. You'll notice that there aren't as many people looking at you as you think. Let's talk about accepting your anxiety. This is very important. I used to think that there was something wrong with me. When I start feeling anxious in a social situation, I curse my anxiety and myself and desperately start searching for an escape. I think, why can't I just be normal? Why do I have to be so anxious about this? The crucial part here is knowing it's okay to feel anxious. When anxiety arises, don't look for a way out, accept your anxiety. Simply let it exist. Know that it will pass. Know that your anxiety does not define you and that it is like an emotion. Think about all the times you've felt anxious, all the times you felt afraid of being judged and made fun of. All those times you fought through it. You're still alive, you're still breathing, you're still fighting. Overcoming social anxiety does not mean not feeling anxious at all anymore. It does not mean being comfortable in every social situation. It means taking control of your anxiety, living your life and doing the things you love even though you feel socially anxious and are not comfortable in social situations. It means not letting your social anxiety define you or hold you back. These are my thoughts, tips and views on social anxiety. Thank you for reading, if you have any questions I'll gladly answer them.

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