Hi everyone
Ive been done with the program for over a year now and have been feeling great although i feel like its has never completly went away I have been able to manage it and was not afraid of my thoughts anymore(I always had a problem with the thought of losing my mind)i would actually luagh about it till now. For the past week i have been experiencing extreme scary thought and body symptoms and I cant seem to get myself out of it im am so scared that I am going to be back to square one i feel like all i want to do is cry i am clueless as to what is triigering it. i havent felt this way in soo long has this ever happened to anyone?? please
help.

Is it near the time you started having anxiety a year ago? anything going on at home/work/school that is stressful? It could be many reasons for feeling some anxiety but don't allow it to control you. You know what it is and can stop it before it goes back to the lowest point you were at before the program. Continue to think positive, allow yourself a few days to feel this way and move on. I never thought it would come back , I suffered 8 years ago, then in Sept it came back. I am doing much better now.... but I know that it may come but I have the tools to not allow it to control me again

Dear Rachel,
Hi! I know it's difficult to feel your heading down the same path again. But I too have been thru the program and felt setbacks. Don't let this scare you. You have the program, get right back with it. Start it again. I review the program often. I know sometimes we don't even know what triggers anxiety in our lives, but don't worry just dig back in to the program.
We need to review it always helps and it will help you again. Someone said we make a choice whether to be happy or not. Choose to be Happy.
I know too that is easier said than done when you have anxiety and depression. But tell yourself everyday I WILL CHOOSE TO BE HAPPY.
Say it several times a day. I am reading a great book called BECOME A BETTER YOU BY JOEL OSTEEN. I'm reccommending it to everyone. It is so positive and I have written some of the positives in a spiral notebook and read them everyday. This has really helped me. Have you been writing your scary thoughts down and replacing them with comforting more positive thoughts. You really need to do this it will help. I wish you the Best of Luck and you will be fine we all have setbacks at times. It will be ok.
Your Friend
Angla

Diggy Thank you so much for ur quick reply it means so much to know that I am not alone and that others have gone through it. it so strange cause i know tha to am doing it to myself like I wake up in the morning and the first thing that I think is "am I going to have anxiety today and that just starts me off" I just want it to go away I dont really like growth spurts too much

Hi, I can totally relate, I have been battling w/anxiety and panic attacks for about 20 yrs. started in my early teens. I can go years w/no episodes then out of the blue somthing triggers it (I too do not know what triggers it)and I will be in full force anxiety and panic attack mode. It happened most recently this dec. at work, each time there are different symptoms I go through this time it was scary thoughts, shakiness, not feeling connected to myself, nauseous and heart palpitations all new feelings to me but very real, I have not yet started the entire program but pieces of it, I don't want to be let down if it does'nt work for me ( stupid I know) I do find journaling, relaxation tapes and prayer to work and definitely keeeping busy! I hope you know you are not alone and what I keep telling myself is this too shall pass! Be positive and keep your spirits up.

vegas girl you sound just like me your symptoms and everything the best part is thats all i have been saying to myself that this too shall pass.

I think it may be that I don't find the time to devote to the program every day, but I am at the end of it and am having such a relapse. I still believe that I am less or weaker than others due to this anxiety and the bad choices I have made in my life because of it. Not to mention the big life moments that were grayed due to this condition. Why do other people go through life always doing the right thing and being content? And in my profession, being less than perfect, which I am of course, is a sin. That's hard. What do you do to finally feel at peace and forgive yourself?

Rachellook,

I think the answer lies in your words.....what is the first thing you say to yourself when you wake up? "Am I going to have anxiety today?" You are asking yourself a question that gives you the option to be anxious and you set yourself up to be anxious by asking yourself that. One thing we learn in this program is to take control of our thoughts and empower them with our words. If you must, put a notebook with positive phrases right next to your bed and when you wake up...read them outloud to yourself...let them be phrases like...I am in control of what I think. I am strong and I have the skills to overcome anxiety. I get to choose what I think. I am calm. I am relaxed. I will have a good day today. I am my own safe person. I am the lock and I am the key. The strength I need for today is inside me. I have been down this road before and I am not frightened of it...I know the path....etc. Put some more of those phrases on your bathroom mirror, the fridge, by the tv, by the door...places you go by often and say them outloud to yourself. I think it is a very good idea to review the program.

Somewhere before a week ago you were entertaining thoughts that have brought you here. The truth still remains the truth....it cannot hurt you and you control it. You let it run your daily life and thoughts or you take control of it. You get to decide how you respond. You said that it never completely went away but you were able to control it....I see that like a splinter in your hand.....you got most of it out, the big part that was hurting and bothersome, but left just a little tiny piece in your hand...nothing big. It didn't bother you nearly as much as the big splinter so you lived with it most days comfortably. But still even the little bit will fester and come up eventually and demand to be dealt with. This is an opportunity to use your skills learned and take control completely. You can be totally free from it.

I have had this anxiety for 30 years....since I was 17. I got the program almost four years ago and really just kinda skimmed through it and didn't put much effort into it. It sat in the box and was hardly touched for almost two years. I listened to a tape or two, looked through the homework, viewed a video lesson or two. Somehow it made me feel better just to have it in the house. It wasn't until I got serious and decided to do the program daily and be committed to finishing it that it did any good for me. Kinda like being hungry and having a plate placed in front of you full of good food but never raising your hand to feed it to yourself. The answers and skills are attainable through this program but you have to feed it to yourself like the instructions say. You have it all right inside yourself waiting to be tapped into and used. Be committed and do the work.....everyday you will find new strength and your skills will become automatic and the fear and anxiety will stop. It takes some time and lots of practice but it does work if you will do the work. View it like weight lifting....everytime you push that weight out you strengthen that muscle but it takes time to see the results....and it takes work and there is pain involved....you have to push all the way through. Your freedom waits for you.

I am free and I will never let anxiety rule over me again. My life is sweet and full of peace and calm.....something I really believed I could never have. Don't settle for less. Work hard. Be free.

I wish you lots of encouragement and great success Rachellook.....may you find the beginning of your path to freedom and may you walk on it daily!!!! And then I pray your path would be an encouragement to those who walk behind you.

Godspeed.

Thanks you guys for this encouragement--I needed it. I started the program almost a year ago. Finished last September and was doing really great. BUT within the past two months I'm hearing/feeling whispers of panic thoughts again. It's not like it was before and I've been using my skills and tools which makes me feel good. BUT it still rears it's ugly head.

Dianelynn's post is a good one. It's the daily reminders (and sometimes hourly/minute reminders) that help us and I've got to get back to that. I'm relistening to tapes and journaling . Those both work great for me. Diggy, you also said something that struck me-it has been a year since I started THINKING about ordering the program. I feel better already! : )

Thanks again! Peace to everyone on this day.

This program was an actual miracle answer to prayer for me. I went through the program about two years ago. I have had a personal coach for the past year. After going through the program with a coach and a group I had hoped to become a coach. Then my life went through a major change. I now am helping my son raise his girls 7 and 9. My 35 year old daughter who was a crack addict, has had a beautiful baby girl(four weeks old), and we are celebrating life.

Yes, the panic attacks continue for me. The beautiful thing that I have learned is that you make it through them.
It's like the parable of when Jesus was in the boat with the disciples, the wind came up, they thought they were going to capsize. He was asleep in the back of the boat. ((No worries there!) They woke him up. He said, "It'll be OK." (My paraphrase.) And suddenly they were at the other shore.
Panic attacks are like that. You have them. You sail through them (or grind your way through them) and then you are on the other side. In my case, they haven't gone away. But I am no longer traumatized my them. I know it is a condition over which I have little control. I leave my life in God's hands and do the best I can.
Good luck to you as you learn to deal with yours. I have found that having them has made me a much more compassionate person. I am able to help others not to be so scared of them. Just knowing they are there, and we aren't going crazy has been a terrific help.
Carol S.

Where am I now?
Whenever someone would come up to me to ask a question concerning some issue. I believe I would run the Ol' Abbott and Costello comedy routine inside my head, "Who's on First, What's on Second, and I don't know is on Third." This would cause me to Snicker a bit as this would play out in my mind. But the sad part was that I thought I really didn't know Who, What, or the other thing.

You see before I started to engage in the program, I thought deeeeep down inside, unconsciously of course, that I was dumber than DIRT! Then slowly I started listening to the video/tapes/and books only to convince myself that by the time I reached Week 6/8, (I can't remember which) I had no idea what it was that I was trying to get. So I stopped studying 'cause I had bought into the "LIE" that I've choosen to be my truth that I would never get "IT!" The main idea of what Lucinda and the others wanted to pound inside me.

Then a MIRACLE OCCURRED! I had recieved a phone call from the Midwest Center asking me if I was working on the program and getting "IT!?"
I responded that I wasn't to which she replied I could get back on track if I was to get a Coach. Now once it was explained to me how much cash "IT" would cost me, and knowing that this would put me in a Financial Hole, I chose to take up her offer.

Within a few weeks my coach had hooked up with me over the phone and we where off to the "RACES!" Of 'course I felt deep down inside that I was picking a LOOSER! of a horse, me ,to bet on. But of 'course my Coach, I feel, knew better. And since having over 9 months in the program already, I wanted to start on the week I last tackled. But my Coach, Bob Bassett, told me I had to start all over with week 1.

Grumbling with discontent I decided to give in and swallow my pride. Still I was allowing my Perfectionistic and Low Self-Esteem attitude to run "THE BUS!" I had to do it all again and it didn't matter that I had done this week over and over again 6 times. OH WELL...Bob wanted me to do it, so I did. But by the time I WORKED the following lessions. I started to become more comfortable with the program as easily as I sank into this huge Beanbag chair that my sister, Annie owned when we were kids in her room.

AHHHHH....I can remember the coolness of that bag on the exposed parts of my arms and the back of my neck. And so as I began to see my side of a dirty street compared to all the other persons I had PEGGED as my personal ESCAPEGOATS! I was beginning to unearth a series of dead feelings that I deemed unnessary to come to terms with. My life had begun to shift, as well as my mind, to a better and healthier attitude that I never would of thought possible.

The Horrible deeds I had pinned on me like peeing my pants in Grade school,being a klutz everytime I came into a room with my dad present or why I chose to live my life like a patentic looser by becoming a hermit. I was beginning to understand why I had thought these things about me.

And so as I began to resurrect my steamer trunk of my Pandora's, The Ark, and all my Skeletons in the Closet, I started to climb out of the Mental Tarpit from Hell I had chosen to be stuck in. Once I realized that this knowledge would become my B.S. remover that would allow myself to start making a new direction and purpose on where I wanted my life to go.

Suddenly I was making plans. Cold Calling other businesses on the phone to convince them that they should invest in my Cartooning business to hire me to work their parties creating Personalized Comic Strips of the party goers (Birthdays, Anniversaries,Retirements, ect. And guess what? I was having "FUN!"

Before this program I was full of self-doubt and worried constantly that I could never sell my products (Pick-A-Toons or TASTY TOONS). But by the time I had reached Week 6 a major shift had begun to occur in myself towards my abilities, beliefs, and direction I wanted my life to take on.

Now I had begun to see "THE LIGHT!" And once I had pugged into my Higher Power, I felt the word had taken on a new "GLOW!" Now I'm sure that those of you reading this are probably saying, Yeah... but he's not as bad off as I am! ----WRONG!!!!!
I suffer with both Manic Depression and Schizophrenia and have been on over a dozen or so medications to control it, too. So if you're trying to discount everything I've said. That's you're choice.

Because I would've done the same thing, too. Until up to this point, I thought all I had to do was read Self-Help books to find the answers to my life. And even after filling my bookshelves up with all of these books and allowing me to get a "GLIMPS" of what they were offered me.

It just wasn't enough, because I'd just sink back down into my personal pit from Hell. I really had no hope for a decent existance until now. The AA&D program has allowed me to grom new "SEALEGS!" And to get back out there and use them as I continue, now to grow my business, making networking contacts, and just enjoying my life, like I have never done beforer, until now.

Thanx to all my Angels at the Midwest Center.
James B. A happy campier, now!

WOW James - you are such an expresive writer!!

Well, I have hit my first growth spurt after finishing and I guess it is a good thing I have tied myself down to the financial committment of college, cuz I have to finish the semister since there is no way to not pay for it!

What a week of stretches. We have had devestating emotional/relationship peaks and death valleys this week, But I am still conscious and on my feet. trying my best to remember all the tools in my moments of absolute panic or disaster. So far only one really major oops.

I too am grateful for having a coach. I know I would never have made it through the program and thus I would not have found my future life.

Lucinda and her team are angles!
Scrappymom and future Muscle Therapist

When Lucinda said after you complete this course that you would be changing things in your life. And boy was she right. Below is a proposal I wrote to start my transformation. If anyone out there knows any way I can better it. Please speak up. I'm willing to make any necessary changes. Thanx.
James B.

A Cartooning Class Proposal To The Tucson Parks and Recreation Department

The propose of this proposal is to introduce a dynamic method of cartoon graphic illustration for ages 8 and up in a 1 hour classroom period each week for a 12 week period by gifted illustrator, James B.

History

At the very early age of 8, I created my first drawing of a Stickman Superman. It wasn’t much to look at, but in my mind I was amazed by this feat, so much so that I wanted to draw some more. So through out my school age years I continued to partake in every art class I could. This enthusiasm stayed with me as I propelled myself through High School and College. Afterwards I moved up to Tempe and enrolled into Advertising Art at The Al Collins Graphic Design School where I earned my “Visual Communication” degree. Having now mastered the drawn image I decided to become an Entrepreneur by starting up a Small Business using the power of comic strips as my main product. And so “TOONS4U” was born, some 42 years later. During this time I often volunteered my services and skills to various handicap centers within the Tucson area. Willing to work on their newsletters as well as starting up art classes to teach their clients some art skills.
While working a freelancing business with a number of local businesses to produce various art designs for their needs. For Steve O’Choa at Channel 13 News I created a number of visual art pieces that he uses in his Power Point Presentations. For Guyton Chiropractic I created fliers and visual diagrams for his clients to be use in their treatments with him. The Caliber Group I created a Political cartoon for their champagne on Propos ion 100 on last years ballet. And then an Editorial cartoon for R.I.S.E. An agency that deals with helping the handicap to return to the job market by teaching them new skills to cope with stress and emotional problems.

Project Plan and Description

My process involves a mental/physical process to which I plan to teach students the basic “4” shapes I learned to draw over and over again with, until these objects became second nature to me through mastering both hand and eye coordination. The amount of study time I would like to have would be 12 weeks to which I would break the individual classes/subjects down as follows:
1. Learning Basic Design. A. Circle, B.) A Square, C.) A Triangle, and D.) A Cylinder. Allotted class time 2 weeks.
2. The Technical Side of Drawing Cartoon Shapes. ( 2. weeks)
3. The Process of Breaking Down / Rebuilding Drawn Images. (2. weeks)
4.Development of Students Characters. ( 2. weeks)
5. Development of Plot and Substance of Comic Strips (A History of Comics) (2. weeks)
6. Brainstorming / Group Participation In Final Project. (2 weeks)

Area and Population Served

I would like to offer this course to all city wide participants, but would prefer to conduct my class on the East Side of town at the Randolf Park Center.

Expected Project Outcome

My goal is more than to teach students how to draw cute little images. I plan to teach them Creative Critical Thinking Skills as well as Problem Solving, Visual/ Verbal Communication, and Team Working Skills that they’ll be able to use through out their lives. Images to be applied to all forms of art.

Total Projected Cost

I am asking for $26.00 an hour for my time teaching students in a 1 hour time slot. This is my usual freelancing fee that I charge my clients. The total charge to you, my employer comes to $312.00 (For a 12 week X 1 hour classroom setting.) I am requesting that the Tucson Parks and Recreation supply my class (10 to 12 students to start off with) white paper, pencils, pencil sharpeners, and erasers. If however you are unable to do this, then I will provide the necessary tools at a cost to you at $60.00. Bringing my entire rate to $372.00. per 12 week class period.

In Conclusion

This would be a Golden Opportunity for the Tucson Parks and Recreation Department to offer a beginning course in drawing (Figures/ Characters) for individuals or anyone who would be interested in enhancing their abilities to draw for profit or pleasure. Thank you for your consideration.

WOW! What a powerful testimonial...and then a followup of Action! Good job! You are Living the program and that's what it takes to sustain your skills...living it necessitates Practicing what you learn. That's the way we get good at anything.

I love your proposal. I would take it one step further. I would look for any organization that has an after school program-I bet the children attending would be great students. Often a government funded program has monies set asside to pay motivated instructors such as yourself.

Fabulous! Happy for you, Carolyn