Truth Heals, What you hide can hurt you

I was sent a book to read by someone who thought it could help me in my struggles with anxiety. Its called "Truth Heals" by Deborah King. Its all about her journey of recovering from abuse as a child. Her belief is that by hiding truths we are physically hurting our bodies. She developed alcoholism, sexual promiscuity, and eventually was diagnosed with cancer by the age of 25. She got into the practice of healing and the book describes the 7 chakras of the body and how you can hurt yourself with disease by not keeping the energy flowing through these areas.

I go back and forth about how much I believe in her notion of actual physical harm being done to yourself due to repressing feelings. I do think that stress can do damage, and I often wonder about the long term effects that my body will have due to all the stress from my anxiety. And I do believe that my anxiety itself is a direct result of repressed feelings when I was younger. But do you will diseases like cancer upon yourself? It's interesting to think about.

I do believe that damage is done to your soul by withholding the truth. Your soul can be broken and lost and by coming forward and facing the facts and working through traumas we can eventually heal our souls.

I can relate with this author in the fact that I grew up with some things kept secret deep inside. And overtime they took their tole on me. My soul was heavy. In my early 20's every once in awhile I would burst out sobbing and become very sad that I had these things in my life. It wasn't until I faced them head on and brought all the truth to the surface that I started to feel better about all of it. My soul found peace.

Whatever you believe, the book offers a lot of great insight and advice and its a good, quick read.
One of my favorite parts is where she talks about how journaling is a great way to get the truth out. She says to get a journal (or laptop) and write.

"Be completely truthful in your journal. Say it like it is. If you're angry, be angry. Write it out uncensored. Be who you are. ... The point is to be authentic. When you can trust yourself and be truthful on the pages of your journal, you can trust yourself to be truthful in the world. Just watch how your whole body relaxes as you express your truth. You've given yourself permission to be you- to speak your mind, to give voice to the truth of who you are. If not now, when?"

Journaling is so therapeutic. As I have said before, thats what this blog is all about. Its my journal, my therapeutic outlet. And when things were really bad, this was the only thing holding me together.

And I really like this part:

"Trust Life, Trust God
In this moment, do you trust life? Do you trust that you are loved, protected, and supported? Do you trust that everything is working out for your higher good? If you don't, ask for more trust. Speak it: "Show me how to trust more!" Then watch for signs that your life (and God) is listening."

With anxiety, you are always worrying about the worst happening. We are so fearful. And fear does not come from God. If we can have more trust that our Heavenly Father will protect us, maybe that would help our anxiety. I've thought this before but never really knew how to have more trust. And here she says it so simply, just ask him for it.

Overall, I think its worth taking a look at. I still think that the Anxiety and Phobia Workbook by Edmund J. Bourne (you can see it on my sidebar) is the best life changing book for dealing directy with anxiety and how to work on managing it, but this book is a nice side read with a different perspective on the topic. If interested you can find it on my sidebar as well.

Enjoy!

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Reality of Anxiety Made the Top 40!

I just wanted to mention that The Reality of Anxiety slipped its way onto the "40 Superb Psychology Blogs" on PSYBlog- Understand Your Mind.

Hooray! Even though I just barely made the list, its still an honor and I am thrilled!

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Miami Travel Followup

A reader asked me to do a follow up post on my trip to Miami. I have gotten this request in the past so here I go:

I am really glad that I went even though it wasn't the easiest thing in the world.

To be honest, the worst my anxiety got was before we even went on the trip. The anticipatory anxiety, or dreading what was to come, had me so nervous about all the "what ifs" that could happen. For about a week I could tell my anxiety was heightened and I did some extra things to try to keep things in perspective. I did some yoga and I prepared for the trip in my last post to help me work all those "what ifs" out. I also made sure I had plenty of medication just in case.

I was really worried about the 4+ hour plane ride. We read up on the airline's website what to expect when traveling with a baby so the extra security to check her bottles wasn't a suprise and the security was extremely quick and smooth. We still went in expecting the worst to happen, which comes second nature to a habitual worrier. However, we were pleasantly surprised at how well the whole airport and flight experience went. And any rocky parts that occured were manageable. It could have been much worse. I would much rather be pleasantly surprised then constantly disappointed from high expectations.

During the week we made a point to keep things low key. My husband's brother was showing us around and he wanted to jam pack every day with lots of stuff. But I knew that overscheduling the days wasn't a good idea for me. We made sure that we had plenty of time to just hang out at the pool and beach and relax with a few fun activities each day.

My anniversary gift was to swim with dolphins at the Aquarium

My husband went on some scuba dives with his brother, we went to the Aquarium, we toured the Everglades

and walked around the South Beach area shops. But we didn't overplan it because the more I am expected to do on a trip, the more nervous I get about ruining the trip.

It helped that we had to go back to our hotel anyway so the Little could take a nap. When she napped I went and lounged at the pool and beach area. It was really nice and relaxing.

I am learning that just because I have had really bad anxiety on trips in the past, that doesn't mean that I am bound to have it on all trips. But I know that preparing anyways is important.

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