I decided to go back and do a more thorough job of Session One. I wrote down my typical anxious thoughts using the 4 categories. I did my own panic cycle. But the one that was really tough to pin down was my own personal anxiety scale.
I figured, since it looks like I'll be recording that every day of this program, I should at least know what those numbers stand for, right? The hard part was making it stretch to 10. At first it was only going from 0 to 5. I really had to look carefully to break it down further. What I determined was that there are signs of anxiety at play before I even have a fully conscious worried thought. So my level one is now 'feeling tense physically' and level two is 'feeling quite tense with vague worried thoughts'. Level three is 'very tense, concrete worried thoughts, distraction working well'. And it goes on from there.
I now see I have been 'lowballing' my score during the first week of recording in my diary. This suggests to me that I have work to do to get my base line down a few notches because I am never truly relaxed in mind and body, even on what I consider my good days. :)
Has any one else tried to do this?
