Hi dude,
I too love Close Encounters, I've seen it with a lot of close friends and it has happy associations for me (not, I should add, with being abducted by aliens)  :  )

Tastes can change dramatically over time, yet some can stay remarkably stable. I used to love the band 'Yes'; but not so keen anymore. Beethoven's Pastoral symphony on the other hand seems to be a permanent fave.

...But hey, look; here we are; talking about cool stuff and learning a bit about ourselves and each other. And there is all this stuff out there that is so worth paying attention to, that we can learn about and play with, just like this; and if we do, we change our minds.

All the time we are concentrating on the good stuff, we are 'getting out of the way' and letting the brain & mind rebalance themselves. We know where we allow ourselves to go consciously will either help this process or hinder it, and dwelling on problems in non-productive ways (ie, worrying), hinders solutions. Keep concentrating on the good stuff!

Let's go food: For me, one of the most amazingly nice tastes in the universe is coconut& honey flapjacks with hot custard*. What would you vote for?

Anybody else reading these, feel free to join in! If everyone shares the stuff that inspires them most, some of us might discover something cool we'd never known about before.
Best,
AR
*For those living in areas deprived of custard, it's a sorta white sauce made with eggs & cream & vanilla & honey**
**If you make it properly (not, like, that replicated stuff).

Hi dudes,
Sakiro wrote: the stuff that didn't go very well in my life was for one of the three reasons cited above

Most of my prize cock-ups happened for another reason: -I didn't recognize there was a problem in the first place. This leaves us stuck until we figure it out, as often we won't believe it if someone else points it out (after all, we're IN here; we should know ourselves best!). But that's how I came to compare anxiety with hypothermia -we often don't know we've been affected and think we're being totally sensible. I think I finally got this one now. The interaction part is where I drag behind not really knowing what to do until I can get relaxed enough to remember.

The second reason I've often screwed up is (sorry Sakiro) -I took action.  LOL  :  )

I should of course have chosen interaction. There's little point provoking a reaction; that frames the situation as a war, and it should be framed as a missed opportunity for interaction. Out greatest weapon against anxiety is the power to ignore it. Interaction (getting on with the good stuff -exactly what we are doing here- reduces anxiety much faster than attacking it). It thrives on our attention. Take that away and it's screwed  :  )

Certainly sometimes action/reaction IS the necessary choice if the problem involves dealing with material issues. If you're desperately short of time and pass codes and need to get into your safe, by all means blow the fecker up. If your attempts to dissuade bacteria by dietary means fails, don't ignore them -nuke 'em with antibiotics. But generally when the problem is anxiety, interaction is safer and produces better resolutions with fewer side effects.

So here we are with this amazing power -all we dudes gotta do is get together and talk about our favorite things and already anxiety is screwed because we're paying attention to good stuff. :  )

I can imagine a few newbies viewing this and thinking, it can't be that easy...?  Well it is; at least this far. Now we get to the tenacity bit -can we still keep focusing on the good stuff when not writing these mails? That's staying power. This is the very point where it's likely we'll 'forget all this'. -And can we remember to use this trick when we next catch ourselves feeling dodgy?

Well the great thing is, if we can't, we can always come back here and get by with a little help from our friends...  :  )

Being 'responsible' for our own minds means being 'able to respond' to the needs of the moment. The best way to respond to anxiety is to promptly redirect our attention to something we know is beneficial. After doing that, we can view the problem without the anxiety or often, discover the anxiety WAS the problem and we've now solved it.
Best,
AR

Hey, alex,

You said: "Out greatest weapon against anxiety is the power to ignore it."

Could you elaborate? I've found that the greatest weapon against anxiety is to understand how it's generated in abstract and in real time, which requires awareness, and to change those patterns by conscious engagement and/or having "pure" awareness fix it unconsciously. If we ignore it, couldn't we have unconscious sentiment sneakily screwing up our decision making processes?

See ya.

Edit: Change and conscious engagement don't mean resistance/aversion/fighting it here.