Anxiety Social Network

The first Anxiety Social Network, Anxiety Social Net, has launched.

ASN is a meeting place for people afflicted with anxiety disorders, as well as those who have managed to overcome them. If you have helplessly watched a family member grapple anxiety disorders, you are encouraged to join too.As an ongoing sufferer, you may find explanations to some of the sensations you often feel, but cannot easily put into words. You may even get answers to questions you haven't been able to frame, because you don't understand your symptoms well enough. Here some things you an do in AnxietySocialNet:

• Write your own Diary and share your experiences
• share pictures, articles and video with the anxiety community
• ask /answer questions within our community using our anxiety Q&A system
• One on One anxiety chat with other members of the anxiety community
• Create/Join groups
• share your emotional state with the community using our emotion chart
• Learn about anxiety on our Anxiety Blog

AnxietySocialNet is the brainchild of a former sufferer, who has overcome his own struggles, and aims to help those who hope to unshackle themselves from the problems that hold them captive. Medication can lessen their symptoms, but the kindness and the presence of someone to talk to someone who understands, can ease their burdens.

It's free to join. And I'm giving it a try because I hope there will be others who understand my emotional state and perhaps I can help a few folks too.

If you do join, you can connect with me here. And I started a group for survivors of abuse and domestic violence.

Workbook: Start At The Beginning

Like I said before, you have to start somewhere. Too many times, however, we let the planning get in the way of starting.

We want to lose weight, so we list all the things we need... New workout shoes, a gym membership or workout DVD, a diet or weight-loss program membership -- heck we even need a scale! But all that, any part of that, costs money; so we'll just wait until we save that much money. We even put-off our plans waiting for a diet buddy or walking partner who has to settle a few things before they can commit.

We want to clear up the clutter in our house, the basement, or whatnot; so we make a checklist to organize ourselves. But then there's the cost of all those storage bins... Or we become overwhelmed by the sheer size of the project and aren't able to check a thing off the list -- other than "Make List."

We want to begin the process of healing, of addressing our depression, but how? Maybe we decide to start with losing weight or cleaning up the physical clutter to free our emotional clutter -- but, well, see above. *sigh* Or we decide to call about counseling or medication, but we never get around to making that call...

When you're anxious, depressed, &/or facing any undertaking, it can seem insurmountable; it's easy to become overcome with the emotions &/or the motions of so many tasks.

For some, breaking things down into steps is motivating -- if only so we can check things off -- and if it is for you, please do proceed that way! But for many of us, breaking things down into so many steps only makes us see how much work is involved and, feeling inferior to the tasks, it stupefies us. For those in the latter group, don't sweat-out the list making; just pick something to do and do it. Don't worry about The Big Picture in terms of all the many steps or hour or weeks; just focus on The Big Picture in terms of doing one little thing that could get you there.

It's important to remember that any change is a process, not a recipe. It doesn't matter so much whether we follow the steps or not; if we complete them in order or at all, in fact. It doesn't matter if we start multiple meals at the same time, biting off more than we can chew, leaving the rest to wait; it won't rot or be wasteful. It doesn't even matter if we start without all the ingredients available. It only matters that we start. Somewhere.

So your goal for today is to think of one little thing you believe you should be doing for yourself and do it.