Where do I go from here, pt. 3

[Avanti]

Having a lot of anxiety today. I think I'm cycling back to a little bit of shock and grief. And fear of the future. Probably triggered by H's texts this weekend and waiting for him to respond to my settlement proposal.

I need to focus back on one day-at-a-time thinking.

It is natural and OK to sometimes find yourself back in the grief cycle, the key to getting yourself moving forward is to gently acknowledge your thinking (as you have done already) and then move the focus of your mind to something else, something in the here and now.

For instance, concentrate on any noises you can hear, do not judge them simply acknowledge them, Shift your mind to think inside your body, what can you feel going on in there, aches and pains, tingles, pulsing, anything, maybe nothing? You aren't trying to find anything in particular you are just distracting your mind from wandering off onto uncomfortable topics. If your mind starts to wander back to the painful thoughts, when you become aware of it, acknowledge it and gently lead your mind back to what it was in the present that you thinking about.

Remember, as we've discussed before, if you keep thinking about something dark, each time it goes around in your head, you'll embellish it until it becomes something that's very hard to handle. If you find it happening, break the cycle by choosing to focus on something in the present and you'll find your mind calming itself really quickly.

I do this type of thing many times in a day and it is such a fantastic relief, when you've had a small amount of practise, to be able to intercept and diffuse a train of thought that not so long ago would have taken you over and made you feel wretched.

What have you got planned for the next few days beckyb? Do you have any thing special planned for the weekend? If not, maybe now's the time to getting your thinking cap on and arrange something...