Curing Mental Anxiety through Zen Medicine

Repeat this process for every season. HIGH: Go ahead and hire a personal stylist to help edit your closet every season. This is not as extravagant as it seems. For less than what it costs to buy one new designer outfit, a savvy stylist can help you shop in your closet and create twenty or more outfits you never knew you had. This is a smart way to get more mileage out of what you already own. I do this every season. My friend Susan Sommers, the fashion coach, takes digital photos of the new outfits we've created and sends them to me. On the other hand, if you have taken control of your mind and negative thoughts before expressing it in words, you could have said: That is not my thoughts! It is my decision to keep my cool despite what happened. There must be a good reason for it. Perhaps the lady has a family member in hospital dying and wants to be with that person in their last moments or she has a child in the car choking trying to get to hospital for help. I bless her and pray that everything will be fine. Inhale and exhale deeply a few times, smile and sit up straight like someone having won some prize. When you think, say and act positively you will override and throw out the negative thoughts and generate positive results that help you to succeed in what you want to achieve. You will drop the children at school unharmed and spared from abusive language while at the same time prevent frustration, anger and stress getting the better of you. The problem is that when you choose to use the model, pattern or information stored in the files of your subconscious mind that make you behave in a specific way it might not be in your own best interest. When your behavior causes a negative state of mind and emotions of fear, depression, anxiety, frustration, worry, rejection, etc in your life and the lives of others, beware, something is wrong. This isn't the sort of more literal or severe fragmentation seen in psychosis or schizophrenia, where the self is torn into different fragments. Rather fragmentation describes how the self feels shaky or wobbly when attacked or doesn't get the emotional sustenance it needs. When self-structure is strong, the self coheres into an integrated whole.

But when a weakened self fragments, it fragments along its fault lines--wounds, defensive structures, underdeveloped areas. The self then falls into shame, fear, anxiety, depression, guilt, and it loses capacity for emotion regulation. So further shame, fear, anxiety, depression overwhelm the self due to poor emotion regulation and reduced ability to recover from painful feeling states. Stability and cohesion exist along a continuum. At one end is a high degree of coherence, integration, and cohesion. At the other end lies a fragmented, shame-filled self that feels bad and deficient. Minor interpersonal insults or fights may result in a small amount of fragmentation that leaves the person feeling bad and shaky but not demolished. You may find attending a support group for Alzheimer's in addition to one for Parkinson's helpful. If getting out of the house is difficult, there are online communities and support groups (see the appendix for a list) that can help you cope with your daily challenges without having to leave your loved one's side. Remember, the more help and support you can get, the longer you'll be able to care for your loved one and the better caregiver you'll be. If you're concerned about placing your loved one in a long-term care facility, you may find it comforting to know that there are steps you can take to increase their quality of life while they're living in one, resulting in more peace of mind for you. You can find these in the resource section at AllAboutParkinsons. Grieving While Your Loved One Is Still Alive Never underestimate how much of a difference you are making in your loved one's life. I cared for my mom with Parkinson's dementia for many years, and even in the late stages of her illness when she barely spoke, she would surprise me by saying `I love you' out of the blue. Those three words meant the world to me. I don't talk a lot about Mom's last years of her life, mostly because I don't want to worry those who have loved ones with PD into thinking the one they care for will develop dementia as she did. Sports are great! They are an amazing part of growing up--they allow you to tap into healthy competition, to train your body and mind to take on new skills and abilities, and to foster a sense of community through practices and games. But stop-and-go sports--any kind of competitive sport from volleyball to pole vaulting--are not substitutes for your personal workouts, even if they include some conditioning exercises.

School sports usually don't require you to maintain a workout regimen outside of practice sessions, although professional athletes work out pretty much every day of the week that they are not playing a game or traveling, often more than once a day. They must work out consistently so the game itself is not about strength or endurance, but about the strategy and agility of the sport. Can you imagine if a tennis pro got winded running across the court or if an Olympic gymnast didn't have the strength to pull herself onto the uneven bars? A professional athlete has to work out every day so she can maintain the fundamental physical requirements that will allow her to keep her brain entirely in the game. If you play sports, you know the benefits of rigorously attending all the extra practice sessions. You can feel the difference on the field. But even if you've never played a sport in your life, you can taste the joy that comes from moving your body regularly with focus. I make it a habit to read at least one article a week, buy a new course every two months, and sign up for at least two seminars or workshops a year. What are you going to do? Often, life would be so much better and so much easier if people just changed the way they act and be more like us, right? Or, even better if they would see the world just like us. That would be nice. It also won't happen. You can't change other people. This is one of the main reasons many of our relationships go downhill. We meet someone, we think They will change or even worse I will change him or her and after wasting precious time and energy we notice: They didn't change. They will not change just because we want them to, no matter if we cry, constantly complain or even punish them. Mercury is exalted in Virgo. It's where it's the most precise, hands-on, and instructive. Virgo Mercurys are drawn to practice.

You don't practice to make perfect (who wants a one-hit wonder? You like consistency. It's true that your formula for success can become formulaic, but that's when you know it's time to reinvent. A Virgo Mercury isn't afraid to go back to the drawing board. It's where you're free to tinker and fuss. Virgo Mercury/Leo Sun: This is an artistic combination. I print them out and staple them in a small article that I keep in my closet. Whenever I'm stumped for what to wear, I find the answer in my article. There is nothing like a pair of professional eyes to advise you on what to keep, what to store, and what to donate. A professional is less likely to care about hurting your feelings than a friend and will be more inclined to lay down the law if something is terribly unflattering. Believe me, I know how emotionally attached one can get to clothes. Parting with longtime friends can be painful, but it's absolutely necessary to keep you looking Y&H. If you have designer clothes that don't look good on you anymore, the newer way to get rid of them is on eBay. But you really have to keep on top of this. It's your responsibility to check to see if the things you dropped off were sold. MEDIUM: Ask a friend to come over and have her weigh in as you try on everything in your closet. It is crucial that you become conscious of the results of your behavior if you want to change your life. It will indicate whether your way of handling people, situations or problem produce the best results or not. The behavioral models that currently determine your behavior may have been dumped on you by other people and might not be serving you well making your life hell.

Tell Tale Signs If your thoughts are creating negative emotions and lead to behavior that influences your life negatively or prevents you from being successful, it is a sign that you should do something about it. Look at these scenarios and compare it to how true or false it is of you. Economic growth has slowed down negatively affecting businesses in general. Big companies are laying off employees and you ask yourself: When will I be retrenched? And what will happen to me and my family? Will I ever find a new job again? Major blows to self-esteem result in a greater degree of fragmentation and shame. The fragmentation-prone self that emerges from an average childhood is the neurotic personality of our time. Such a self has poorly developed self-structures that are brittle and shatter easily. Knowing at an unconscious level that the self can readily fragment into shame and feeling bad, the person tries to avoid situations that might produce this. Anxiety is the signal that warns the person of impending threat to the self. In this case, anxiety is the fear of feeling ashamed, of falling into a pit of badness or feeling not okay. Since almost any interpersonal encounter could lead to this, when the self is so fragile, fragmentation can happen anytime. Marissa had been raised by a critical mother who always wanted Marissa to be better. She was never quite good enough. However she looked, however well she did in school, it could always be better. As I mentioned in the previous article, not everyone with Parkinson's gets dementia. For those whose loved ones do experience dementia, however, I want to talk a bit about the grieving process that accompanies it. For decades my mom and our family adjusted to the growing challenges of Parkinson's, and Mom did so like a champ.