Stress

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Fluffin is feeling better :-)


  
Yesterday I took Fluffin to the vet to have her nails trimmed. While at the vet, I asked them to do a blood test just to make sure she was doing well, just like we’d done every time she went for a checkup. Well… She is 20 years old! And it was not a good idea, considering her age. She got so stressed from having her blood drawn that she stopped eating or drinking water for a day and a half. All 8 lbs of her. I got tuna fish and tried to make her eat that. I put some tuna juice in her water to get her to drink. I put some baby food on my fingers and she licked it off, she had half a jar of baby food like that. I bought all her favorite foods and catnip. She’s finally getting over the stress I stupidly, unwittingly caused her. She is so precious to me, and I am so upset with myself. If you’ve never had pets, you won’t understand. If you have, this post will make the utmost sense to you. One thing’s for sure, never, ever again any blood tests. Never.

She’s doing well today, she ate some cat food, and drank water and is sleeping in her fall residence today.

Gosh, the road to hell really is paved with good intentions. People, be careful of what you do with your senior cats, and dogs for that matter. They are a lot more fragile and cannot stand what they could when they were young. Just please take care of these precious beings. I’m so glad my Fluff is getting better, and I will not expose her to any more unnecessary stress.

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Feelings are just visitors

feelings

This post is inspired by the graphic above that I saw on my Facebook newsfeed from a site called Recovery 4 All: https://www.facebook.com/recov4all?pnref=story

This seems to be quite genius advice. Feelings come and feelings go. How simple! But… yes there is a but, can people with mood disorders do this? I know I can hang on to feelings for days. It wouldn’t be so bad if the feelings were good ones, but they usually are not. The feelings that hang on to me or to which I hang on are usually negative ones, like anger, fear, anxiety, unease, just bad feelings. I wish I could say to them “You have overstayed your welcome. Please go now.” And sometimes I can. But the majority of times they ARE me, so I cannot ask them to leave. Finally, when I realize that they really are NOT me, then I can ask them to leave. Then they lose their power over me and I gain myself and my life back. I wonder, if I had this made into a bracelet or something very visible to me, if I could stop being the captive of these negative feelings?

I recently learned how negatively stress affects you depends wholly on how you view stress. Link: http://www.ted.com/talks/kelly_mcgonigal_how_to_make_stress_your_friend?language=en  This is a quote from the TED lecture: “When you choose to view your stress response as helpful you create the biology of courage. stress gives us access to our hearts, the compassionate heart that finds joy and meaning in connecting with others and yes your pounding physical heart working so hard to give you strength and energy. And when you choose to view stress this way, you’re not just getting better at stress, you’re actually making a pretty profound statement, you’re saying that you can trust yourself to handle life’s challenges and you’re remembering that you don’t have to face them alone.” This is incredible! Your outlook on stress can affect whether you die of a heart attack or thrive and live healthily on. If this can be done with stress, why can we not think our way out of feelings? If we can, then we can have more control over our lives, and we can live the lives we want to live, without anger, fear, anxiety, worry, and unease. I mean, stress is no small thing, and if we can mitigate its effects upon us, then it is possible that we can control our emotions and mitigate their effects upon us. Gives me hope! Hope and resilience, my two best life fellows.