Conversation – 15

Getting Ourselves Worked Up

Often we get anxiety for no reason as we are almost always stronger and more capable than we believe ourselves to be.

Our capacity to cope successfully with life’s challenges far outstrips our capacity to feel nervousness. Yet in the weeks, days, and hours leading up to an event that we believe will test our limits, we can become nervous. While we may have previously regarded ourselves as equal to the trials that lie ahead, we reach a point at which they near and our anxiety begins to mount. We then become increasingly worked up, until the moment of truth arrives and we discover that our worry was all for nothing. We are almost always stronger and more capable than we believe ourselves to be. But anxiety is not rational in nature, which means that in most cases we cannot work through it using logic as our only tool. Reason can help us recognize the relative futility of unwarranted worry but, more often than not, we will find more comfort in patterns of thought and activity that redirect our attention to practical or engaging matters.

Most of us find it remarkably difficult to focus on two distinct thoughts or emotions at once, and we can use this natural human limitation to our advantage when trying to stay centered in the period leading up to a potentially tricky experience. When we concentrate on something unrelated to our worry–such as deep breathing, visualizations of success, pleasurable pursuits, or exercise–anxiety dissipates naturally. Meditation is also a useful coping mechanism as it provides us with a means to ground ourselves in the moment. Our guides can aid us by providing us with a focal point wholly outside of our own sphere.

The intense emotional flare-up you experience just before you are set to challenge yourself is often a mixture of both excitement and fear. When you take steps to eliminate the fear, you can more fully enjoy the excitement. Though you may find it difficult to avoid getting worked up, your awareness of the forces acting on your feelings will help you return to your center and accept that few hurdles you will face will be as high as they at first appear.

Enjoy this Halloween Weekend. ♥

This pumpkin are for kids who have gluten issues. If one is on your porch
then the kids know the snacks are safe for them. ♥

@loaf

I wonder what your grandchildren are going as for Halloween. 🙂

I am sure the party will be at your house. ♥

Visit Appleton’s Riverside Cemetery during a full moon and you might see one of its historic tombstones ooze blood. Located on an isolated wooded bluff, the grave is the final resting site of Kate (“Kitty”) Blood, the daughter of an influential 19th-century settler who has been the subject of many a bloody tale. According to one legend, Blood murdered her husband and children with an axe before killing herself—but that can’t be true, because her spouse, George W. Miller, outlived her by 42 years, as you can see right on her tombstone. Another account says that Blood’s husband murdered her, and yet other speculative accounts have her pegged as a witch. The real-life Blood died in 1874, reportedly from tuberculosis, at age 23, and Appleton’s community mourned her loss. Blood’s remote grave and evocative maiden name likely played a part in the formation of these spooky tales. Today, they play such a large part in Appleton’s historic lore that a local grocery store has even sold tombstone-shaped cookies with Blood’s name on them.

The Appalachian woods of West Virginia are stalked by the Tailypo, a strange, cat-like creature [PDF] with long claws, sharp teeth, and a thick, hairless pink tail. Legend has it that one winter night, a hermit living deep in the woods with his dogs was about to go to bed hungry when the Tailypo crawled into his cabin. The man lunged at the revolting creature with a hatchet, managing to lop off its tail before it scurried away. Overcome with hunger, he cooked the fleshy tail into a stew and ate it for dinner. Throughout the night (or over a couple of nights, depending on who’s telling the tale), the creature returned, calling in an inhuman voice, “Tailypo, Tailypo … where is my Tailypo?” The hermit sent his dogs after the creature; they didn’t return. Despite the unsettling voice outside his door, the man fell into an uneasy sleep just before dawn, only to wake up and find the creature, with its red eyes, staring at him from the edge of his bed—just before the Tailypo ripped him apart. Hunters and hikers say that on some nights, they can hear a strange refrain on the wind: “Tailypo! Tailypo! I got my Tailypo!”

Pookie,

I am so sorry I did not know that. I just posted it a couple days ago. I post a lot to people
and I never know if they see it.

Please take care of yourself and thank you for asking about my daughter I think she
will be fine.

Here is to better days. 🙂

@Bassettbabe,

If that happened to me I would feel the same way. I hope you enjoyed
birthday yesterday keep it going all weekend. ♥

@mcpoopoo,

Mcpoopoo,

I will have two of my fireplaces on. 🙂 Stay warm and please feel better.
How are your daughters?

Hi Sheba, thank you so much for the beautiful flower and butterfly. I hadn’t seen it before. I have a neurological disorder, a compressed cranial nerve that keeps me in constant pain 24/7 unless I am asleep. I have had to give up reading books completely because of it. I don’t do a lot of reading on the threads because it can set me up for additional pain. This glaring new Forum really did me in too. So, please forgive me if I am not always up on the latest posts. Love to you and your Daughter and all of your Family.♥♥♥

mcpoopoo,Hope you have a great weekend and hugs to you and all that you listed too.(((HUGS)))))

Still loving your haunting tales,Sheba…I copy and send them to my husband,like I think I posted before.He had his own little haunting tale from yrs ago.

Before we got married,he used to live in an old farmhouse out in the country.He woke up 1 morning to find his dining room table set for 6 with his best dishes and flatware…Noone else had a key and trust me,he is not the table setting kind of guy.(smile)..He said it sent chills down his back .

Thank you Sheba and I hope you slept well.