Something I realized about anxiety, it’s the god of small things. When we think about each little, minute detail, and of course in our anxious state, we invariably think every single thing is going to result in disaster, that is anxiety. It is fueled by an anxious mind, reinforced by our anxious, negative thoughts, and so goes the circle, round and round. What I have found gets you out of this anxious spiral is to look at the bigger picture, and then we realize these minute, little details don’t really matter. They are just what our mind is clinging to in our anxious state and it’s a snowball effect. In fact, in the big picture, everything is fine and will be fine. The big picture pulls us out of this anxiety ridden, panic stricken state. For example, my anxiety is ALL about my son. We’ve been through very difficult times with him, as we have generally because of my illness, and the resulting circumstances in my (nuclear) family. But we all made it, my little family is still intact. Of course my son has flown the coop now and I miss him terribly. That’s why I am in Buffalo every month 🙂 He is doing very well, knock on wood. Of course, as is sometimes the case, he is messy, and of course my anxious mind takes it to: He is dysfunctional, that means he is mentally ill (he is not) and all kinds of disasters are going to happen because of this. It doesn’t mean anything of the sort. It just means he is messy, and if that is the worst of it then it’s really nothing to worry about! That’s just one example, and now that I have written it down, I know why it is called catastrophizing!!! I do this with hundreds of things everyday. But if I look at the bigger picture, all’s well.

All’s well.