The Other 167 Hours

life outside the session

Archive for the category “Fear and Anxiety”

14 Feb 2012
6 Comments

Everyday Fears

in walking through a whitened winter gallery, so new over so old
in sitting ensconced in the customary, unnoticed, surroundings of each day
in the colliding with another, whose mission is held as secretly as your own
in the enactments of this incarnation, so firmly joined to the knowledge of me-ness
in being swept along the mind’s currents and eddies from somewhere to somewhere
in allowing the other to partake of, for some small moment, our concentrate undiluted
in the tentative, but hopeful, reconnaissance of another’s currents and eddies
in the longing we expose our hearts to, the loosening of vacuous boundary markers
Read more…
Posted by David Hamilton in Fear and Anxiety and tagged , , , , , ,
03 Feb 2012
8 Comments

and then I fell apart

and then I lost it!
and then it was crash and burn!
and I just couldn’t do it anymore!
and I broke!
and that was the last straw!
and I snapped!
and I just completely shut down!
and then I just gave up!

You know that part of the story, right? One of those phrases might even be a part of your script right now. You might feel like it’s your next line.

Read more…

Posted by David Hamilton in Fear and Anxiety and tagged , , , , , , ,
28 Sep 2011
5 Comments

A note to men about walking through the woods in the dark

dark forest night image 31002 Images
When, by chance, your car breaks down, your cell is out of range and you are walking through the woods to find help on a moonless, starless night, with the woman you love beside you…

When neither of you can see a hand in front of your face and she calls out, “Are you there?” because she can’t feel you next to her…

When, for a split second, it crosses your mind to be silent, just for a moment, and then you realize she would NOT think it was funny…

Read more…

Posted by David Hamilton in Communication, Fear and Anxiety, Marriage, Relationships and tagged
24 Aug 2010
26 Comments

Alone?

Port-42
Image via Wikipedia

It’s possible that being alone is not just our greatest fear but our only fear.

It could be the active ingredient in our fear of death. It could be the element we empathically resonate with when we fear something happening to our children. Even our fear of rejection seems not so much about the rejection as it is about the imagined result of the rejection – being alone.

Our fear of harm, pain, suffering, damage… these may all be connected to the imagined end product – being alone.

I understand that aloneness is the active ingredient in Hell. Hell is the only place where our fear of being alone can finally come true, making it terrifying beyond anything we have ever felt.

I’ve often told people, “First relax. First don’t be afraid.” But that may not go far enough up stream. Must we deal first with the fear of being alone before we can deal with any fear or anxiety in the general sense?

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Posted by David Hamilton in Fear and Anxiety and tagged , , , ,
10 Feb 2010
10 Comments

Pieces of Hurt in High School

teen-age-fan-club
Image by bass_nroll via Flickr

There is hurt all around us.

Yes, there are things to be done, things that might help. But first we need to be willing to just hear about it and be sad. We can’t skip that step.

From the Facebook of a High School student, re-posted here with her permission:

Dear Reader,

As much as I probably shouldn’t say a lot of the following, I’m not hesitating to do so anyway.
I attend a high school like any other high school, really. And just as any other “normal” teenager, I’m surrounded by an environment where the people and teachers are so used to judgment and criticism in the past that they don’t even bother to correct these flaws now. It saddens me to see that my peers think it’s considered weird or stupid to be intelligent. Or do they?

It’s disappointing when you work hard on your school work in classes and at home and end up getting a deathly grade with no encouragement for the next try, nothing at all. Maybe you’ll hear, “Study next time,” or “Pay more attention in class”. Some people are really trying hard in school, but the need their life too. It never made sense to me why most students always seemed to be a little cocky. Now I know why. I’ve noticed I’m slowly starting to become one of those students. That’s not what I want at all.

Read more…

Posted by Guest Author in Depression, Fear and Anxiety, Parenting and tagged , , , , , , , , , ,
02 Feb 2010
13 Comments

Social Anxiety: Monsters Under the Bed

Scared child
Image via Wikipedia

Fear and anxiety get in the way of relationships. We want to feel safe. We like it when we can relax.

We all know certain people who are easy to be around. We  know others whom we would rather not run into. I think most of us would rather be in the first group. So how does that work? Does it have anything to do with monsters under the bed?

Read more…

Posted by David Hamilton in Fear and Anxiety and tagged , , , , , , , ,
01 Dec 2009
6 Comments

Life by the Slice

Biting off more than you can chew can be messy and embarrassing and certainly takes some of the joy out of eating. There is one built-in limit that partially protects us from taking a bite too big:  we can only open our mouths so wide. I wouldn’t advise letting that be your only guide, but for the sake of children everywhere I’m glad we at least have that. And, since almost all of us have learned the lesson early in life we should feel free to apply it wherever it may be helpful… figuratively, I mean.

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Posted by David Hamilton in Depression, Fear and Anxiety and tagged , , , , , , , ,
22 Sep 2009
4 Comments

I let my emotions get the best of me.

If you have ever said to yourself, “I let my emotions get the best of me” or, even worse, had to say it out loud, you know that your emotions can be very persuasive.  They seem to demand our attention with urgency.

One way to define emotion is “an increased probability of taking certain actions.” Sadness increases the chance of crying. Anger increases the chance of yelling, or doing something violent, anxiety increases the chance of vigilance, or unproductive pacing.

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Posted by David Hamilton in Anger, Depression, Fear and Anxiety, personal growth and tagged ,
03 Aug 2009
2 Comments

Finding Hope Through Humility

I think I’ve learned something about depression, something that surprises me.  When we are depressed, although we may report low self-confidence, there is one area in which we all are very confident. We are very confident that our depressive view of the world, self, and future is The Truth.

Yes, we may depress ourselves more by telling ourselves we have no reason to be depressed, but our mood indicates otherwise. On some level, somewhere, among all those lightening fast interpretations our brain is making from the data around us, we have a strongly held belief that feeling depressed is the right conclusion given all that we know (a key phrase I’ll come back to.) It seems so true that to not believe it and feel happy would be kind of… crazy. Who would deny reality that much?

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Posted by David Hamilton in Depression, Fear and Anxiety and tagged , , ,
13 Jul 2009
2 Comments

Does it help to expect the worst?

“If I expect the worst then I won’t be disappointed.” I’ve heard that theory expressed at least a hundred times. You probably have too. (By the way, do you expect to enjoy reading this article?) I’ve flirted with the theory many times myself. You too? I like to call it the Eeyore Theory.

I probably won’t get that job.

It’s just a matter of time until she breaks up with me.

I know the medical tests are going to come back positive.

I doubt that I’ll like this movie.

It seems to make sound logical sense. Right? Brace yourself. Prepare yourself. When the bad news arrives you’ll be ready. On the other hand, if it turns out to be good news then it’s icing on the cake. Surprise, it’s good news!

Some psychologists*at CUNY, Harvard, and University of Virginia decided to test this theory. As you may expect, they were primarily interested in the emotional benefits of the theory. Us too, right?

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Posted by David Hamilton in Depression, Fear and Anxiety and tagged , , , , ,

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