There are three obsessive behaviors that you are likely to be engaging in that impede your healing process and stop you from enjoying a stress-free life. Recognizing these barriers is an excellent step towards ridding yourself of the problems associated with being over-stressed. If you have hobbies already, such as creative writing these might have staved off your anxiety in the past, but might not be working now because of the blocking behaviours.
Obsessive negativity is the first one, and when you are obsessively negative you can be down on places, situations, people and things in your everyday life, and it becomes a habit.
Perhaps you find yourself saying things to yourself like "I never do this right" or "No one understands!" or "People always do things to deliberately annoy me", for example. You may be doing this unconsciously, but essentially you have what's known as a "sour grapes" attitude, and it inhibits you knowing what it's like to view life through a positive lens and enjoy the beauty in yourself and people around you! The same world looks much different with a more positive attitude.
Obsessive perfectionism is the second challenge, and can be a deep source of anxiety. When you engage in obsessive perfectionism, everything must be done "right" - your way, to either your standards, or some standards that you perceive have been set for you. You may find yourself making statements such as, "I have to do this right, or I'll be a failure!" or "If I am not precise, people will be mad at me!" This behaviour might be totally under the threshold of your awareness, but it interferes greatly with your ability to enjoy things without feeling stress.
Finally there is obsessive analysis. When analysis becomes your obsession you find yourself wanting to re-hash a task or an issue over and over again. For instance, you might find yourself making statements such as, "I need to know this like the back of my hand or things might go wrong" or "If I relax and let things go without looking them over repeatedly, things go wrong".
An excess of analysis robs you of time to enjoy your life. You're caught up in a loop and you need to break free by reassuring yourself that all is well and undertaking activities that take your mind off it. Understand that not doing the analysis will not compromise your life.
Don't go rushing off to find a psychologist. If you have already identified blocking behaviours, the first step is to consult your friends and family to get any feedback from them. It will help them if you explain what the blocking behaviour types are so that they can give you a critique based specifically on those things (as opposed to trivialities such as your dress sense!
The truth may hurt, so be prepared for this. You will gain valuable insights into your personality, and your friends and family may be extremely supportive of your efforts to change and improve your life.
Secondly, keeping a diary of what you do and how it makes you feel can help identify the activities that cause blocking behaviours. Once you start to see patterns you can make changes to break those destructive activities down and replace them with positive activities.
Obsessive negativity is the first one, and when you are obsessively negative you can be down on places, situations, people and things in your everyday life, and it becomes a habit.
Perhaps you find yourself saying things to yourself like "I never do this right" or "No one understands!" or "People always do things to deliberately annoy me", for example. You may be doing this unconsciously, but essentially you have what's known as a "sour grapes" attitude, and it inhibits you knowing what it's like to view life through a positive lens and enjoy the beauty in yourself and people around you! The same world looks much different with a more positive attitude.
Obsessive perfectionism is the second challenge, and can be a deep source of anxiety. When you engage in obsessive perfectionism, everything must be done "right" - your way, to either your standards, or some standards that you perceive have been set for you. You may find yourself making statements such as, "I have to do this right, or I'll be a failure!" or "If I am not precise, people will be mad at me!" This behaviour might be totally under the threshold of your awareness, but it interferes greatly with your ability to enjoy things without feeling stress.
Finally there is obsessive analysis. When analysis becomes your obsession you find yourself wanting to re-hash a task or an issue over and over again. For instance, you might find yourself making statements such as, "I need to know this like the back of my hand or things might go wrong" or "If I relax and let things go without looking them over repeatedly, things go wrong".
An excess of analysis robs you of time to enjoy your life. You're caught up in a loop and you need to break free by reassuring yourself that all is well and undertaking activities that take your mind off it. Understand that not doing the analysis will not compromise your life.
Don't go rushing off to find a psychologist. If you have already identified blocking behaviours, the first step is to consult your friends and family to get any feedback from them. It will help them if you explain what the blocking behaviour types are so that they can give you a critique based specifically on those things (as opposed to trivialities such as your dress sense!
The truth may hurt, so be prepared for this. You will gain valuable insights into your personality, and your friends and family may be extremely supportive of your efforts to change and improve your life.
Secondly, keeping a diary of what you do and how it makes you feel can help identify the activities that cause blocking behaviours. Once you start to see patterns you can make changes to break those destructive activities down and replace them with positive activities.
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Other activities that can alleviate stress include playing online racing games and watching motor racing - whatever distracts you from your current situation is good. It doesn't necessarily have to be 'relaxing', but should be enjoyable.