Every once in a while, I "catch" myself with a thought that shows me what secondary gains I am getting from staying anxious.

One of my challenges is that I am afraid to exercise or move because I am afraid it will give me a heart attack. (I don't have a heart problem.)

Today, I was riding my bike, went over a bump, and a little piece of the bike fell off. This piece is not important and didn't keep me from continuing to ride, but I heard myself thinking, "See, the more I do, the more stuff happens so that I have to do something else. If I just stayed still, I wouldn't have this extra work to do (fixing the bike).

What I said to myself was that if I decided not to move so that extra chores wouldn't come up, I would not have much of a life. I CHOOSE to move and can deal with the chores that come up.

Yay for me! I love it when I catch these things because for so long I could not understand when the program said that I was getting something from staying anxious.

thats great! Keep on keepin it on and you will get rid of this stuff!