I am a senior in college and this fall I'm moving to Los Angeles from NY to get an awesome internship. I have better than average grades. My family is wonderful--maybe a little too wonderful because I'm terribly homesick without them right now (I'm in Boston for the summer). I know I'm smart, talented and driven, yet all I can think about is how terrified I am. I KNOW that if I don't convert this fear into excitement then there is a good chance that I will make my experience in LA so much worse than it should be. I'm always anxious, depressed and unmotivated to do ANYTHING. I get panic attacks at the gym and I cry almost every day wanting to go home, and I hate that I can't be strong. This ISN'T ME!

is it normal to be this frustrated during this point in the program?

Anna Karina,

First, congratulations on your scholastic accomplishments It takes dedication, persistance, commitment, drive, lots of energy, desire, love for self and so much more to do what you have done...Wow what a bunch of very positive qualities you already have

It is natural to feel some discomfort while facing difficult behaviors and beliefs about ourselves. Something I read a while back really put things in perspective for me and I like to think back about this little analogy when things are getting rough. I'll share it with you. Changing behaviors and facing our fears/anxiety/depression is kind of like organizing a messy closet. In order to get that closet tidy you first have to pull everything out one by one and in the process make a huge mess on your floor causing disarray. But once you pull everything out and look at it you can decide what you want to hang onto and throw out what isn't useful anymore Then and only then can you go ahead and put order back into your closet. Just like the closet mess, so is our mind mess...we have to look at it, throw out what isn't useful to us anymore or dust off the good stuff and repair the stuff we do want to keep --then we can put back organization into our closet. Does that make sense? It is hard to face our fears and our negative beliefs. Challenging these things causes more fear sometimes but with persistence there will be a payoff. It's a natural part of healing. Another anology that helps me is this. When you break a bone the process of healing is not overnight. First it hurts like heck and then over the next few days it kindof hurts like heck during periods throughout the day along with some aches, then you will have moments where there is no pain but once in a while there will be a throbbing sensation and sometimes it hurts like heck, maybe the second week the bone will feel fine for most the day but there will be some itching and just when you think the bone is almost healed more throbbing and aching..until eventually the bone is healed. There is a process. Just like there is a processes to healing ourselves. Keep working on the program. You are doing great! This stuff isn't easy to face. Practice Practice Practice. I am only on lesson 4 but I wanted to try and reassure you that what you are expressing here are things I have heard others say and that it is normal. It's ok to be unsure and scared about your future but don't let it overcome you. Accept that you are terrified and then do the work to become unterrified. What could you say to yourself to make yourself feel better? You have the right idea about converting it to exciting..you're a few steps ahead of the rest right there...you know you don't have to be terrired and you know you can change that feeling to another...knowledge is the first step...now what's the next..could you find an autobiography about a successful person in your field of work that could inspirte you and excite you? Could you make a call to an organization and speak with a couple employees about your field of choice to help ease your mind...maybe you can tell them you are in college and writing a paper and see if they'd like to help you..then ask them their experience. Sometimes our imagination scares us. What are you imagining that is terrifying you? Are they based in truth? Or are they catastrophizing thoughts?

Change can be hard on us. We tend to think negatively about change because there are so many unknowns. I would suggest finding motivational tapes about success. Right now I'm listening to one by Jack Canfield called How to get where you want from where you are now...I think that's the title. It's great and gives me a lot of ways to look at situations differently, more positively.

You will find your way out of this. Some lessons do bring on more anxiety. Keep doing the work, things will start to come together.

Best wishes.

Hope,
Very well explained, couldnt of done it better myself. We all need to take that advice, and remember even with a clean organized closet, small things get out of place, we just have to be patient and continue replacing the things back where they need to be..Love ya Nelly

Thank you so much Hope and Mellow. I think the majority of my anxiety comes from my loneliness and uncertainty of the future. I know this feeling is normal, but that makes it harder for me to accept. I'm afraid of never finding certainty! I suppose I just need patience and positivity.

Thank you again. Good luck and I love the closet analogy (I'm a neat freak ).