Sit back & RELAX
One of my earliest memories is, aged five, worrying I might lose my favourite toy, a plastic Bambi deer. I’d wake at night imagining I’d left it outside and that it was lying all alone in the rain, gone for ever. Of course, I’d then find it tucked beside me in bed and the worry would be over, but, to this day, I remember how that thought stirred me. And so, my worries grew as I did: fretting over schoolwork, exams, relationships, first job… By the time I’d become a mum, I was firing on all cylinders; were my babies too hot, cold, hungry? You see, that’s the nature of being a worrier, things escalate. I know anxiety strikes people in many different ways and I am not comparing my feelings with those of someone suffering more seriously, but I still really valued reading Paul Mckenna’s feature on page 46 about learning to let go. Paul believes our imagination is the key to overcoming our fears and I liked his idea of daydreaming as a way of giving your mind a healing and restorative break. The act of daydreaming can be criticised – you can be seen as something of a time-waster or a bit lazy. And yet daydreaming can be an incredibly powerful way of relaxing and letting go of stress. Paul suggests, twice a day, allowing your mind to wander and I’ve been giving it a go, sitting back from my desk and just looking out of the window, not constantly filling quiet moments with a quick check of my phone. And it does help. I’ve found my shoulders dropping, my mind’s focus shifting from whatever nonsensical worry I was currently fretting over. Paul offers lots of other techniques, too, and I’m going to really try to work through them to see if I can change. I’d love to know if they work for you, too.