Angst | The Savvy Senorita

My mind can take a swim in the anxious soup, but I now know it is self defeating nonsense.

Sometimes I feel we push ourselves to our limits, to the point of physical and mental overload. We should all permit our brain and body ‘time out’ on occasions by letting go of those pressurising and punishing ‘interjects’. ‘Interjects’ are all too familiar in out lives, they dictate to us; ‘I must’, ‘I should’ or ‘I have to’!! ‘Interjects’ can drive people to feel anxious and unworthy.

I have learnt to see the pressure building whenever ‘interjects’ are included in the equation. For me it is then important to step away and question what is so important about these interjects. Will the world end tomorrow if all of my ‘to do’ list isn’t completed or the impossibly high targets I have set myself cannot be attained? No, it won’t! Whether I am an emotional wreck melted into a pool in the corner of the room or not, the world will still continue to turn on its axis! Bex’s issues not important to the world’s continuum!

My problem is I take too much on at once, which is fine, but I also need to remember I am not infallible, invincible or a super woman!

Another significant issue for me is social anxiety; interacting and feeling confident with others. Though the anxiety surrounding this has declined somewhat over the years, it has taken hard work on my part to tame the nonsense.

Since I was in school I have been blighted with anxiety, surrounded by insecurities and feelings of extremely low self esteem. I always hated how all of this impacted on me, my life and interactions with others. I therefore worked on changing it as soon as I felt able.

I actually did the reverse of running away and hiding from the world, I took on college courses and employment that would force me to interact, and pushed me constantly to be confident and social. This ethos worked; to a degree, though I am not ‘cured’. Note to add: ‘cured’ or what we perceive denotes ‘normal’ for everyone else and their lives. How do we know what normal is exactly? We don’t, it differs from person to person. So ‘cured’, no I am not, and don’t want to be as this is me.
It is not about curing, but managing what is part of you, and accepting it to a point.

Anyway, now I am here in Madrid, and I have had to make a new life for myself, yet again. This life now includes learning a new language, which anyone who has read
nosotros-no-hablamos-ingles-well-i-only-speak-spanglish-as-english-is-my-comfort-blanket
And
Brain Plasticity
Will know from these posts that I am struggling with it!

You see, there are still times where I don’t always take well to being deprived of my ‘comfort blanket’!
I get anxious and this anxiety can prevent me from being the best I can be. I manage it, but if I let it, it will run riot through my life.

Anxiety for me is like something else taking over how you feel and think; it’s debilitating, something deep within is blocking you, preventing you from living a full life and being a happy person.

Regardless of how anxious or under confident I might feel, I endeavour not to submit to that inner voice, and I won’t let it win, control and dictate me, my life and how I see myself. It won’t ruin my quality of life basically. Though, it isn’t easy; I know that and you know that.

Some days it’s like being in Hell, stuck in my own mind which is running a hate campaign against me. Just feeling comfortable enough in my own skin to be able to go out and face the world, seems like a miracle. Yet, being in unknown or daunting situations has helped boost my confidence, and changed how I have perceived myself, my capabilities and other people. So, it doesn’t mean that having anxiety will prevent you from living a life.

You see the reality is; things are never as bad as we imagine them to be. In our minds we have the tendencies of building mountains out of mole hills and Demons out of Angel’s. Only we have the power to stop doing that!

Now I know, and see that my thinking patterns can be irrational. So I query myself; what am I being afraid of? People are just like me and full of their own insecurities, and no-one really pays that much attention anyway (too busy with their own shit)! Am I going to even give a damn about what ‘fools’ think about me? Am I going to relinquish power over myself and my life to them? And the answer is; Hell no!

I can really empathise, and not in a patronising way, with how crippling anxiety can be to the ordinary and everyday life. I only hope you can take something from my experience, and what I have written here. I hate seeing people going through this shit for nothing, and then watching their life being taken over by it all.

The best thing to do is talk; tell it to someone else you can trust. Once the bad is released from the secret darkness of your mind none of the anxieties will look so powerful and overwhelming. It is keeping the anxieties a secret that maintains their power over you. Let them go, and question those inner doubts whenever they speak.

You can do it, step by step!

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© Bex Houghagen and The Savvy Senorita, 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Bex Houghagen and The Savvy Senorita with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

’50 Shades of Grey’, the new representation of ‘sexual liberation’. Am I the only one sick to death of this unoriginal and regurgitated story, that wouldn’t go amiss among the pages of the ‘Romantic’ Mills & Boons and Harlequin novels?

I am surrounded by adult women who have raved about the books as though they are better than life itself! They relate how enthralling they believe the content to be, so much so that I had to read this book, the first of the 50 Shades series, for myself.

I was duly misinformed. Erotic and highly graphic? Where was that then? I read it cover to cover looking for such ‘enthralling’ content only to be disappointed! I was not ‘thrilled’, and left with the distinct impression that Miss Steele was in fact ‘Bella’ from Twilight, and Mr Grey was an ‘Edward’ caricature. The only opposing difference is that Twilight is written for female teens, and 50 Shades in written for adult women.

What then has caused this run of mill romance novel, full of contradictions to become such an international phenomenon? I can only question the quality of sex lives these women lead, if such a book stimulates them. That might sound offensive, but it is my opinion!

The plot revolves around a naïve and subdued girl who can’t believe her luck that she has met a handsome, wealthy and dominant man who will save her, as without him she would wither and die an ‘old maid’. What is so sexy and stimulating about identifying with a character who feels inferior in comparison to such an ‘amazing’ male specimen? What is so erotic about that subjugation? What does that say about the women swooning off their sofas for such sad state of affairs?

Have women become so subdued in the bedroom that they don’t want to ensure they have a fulfilling sex life? Are they happy to merely make do with a second-rate novel about sex instead of the real deal?

What do you think?

See below article from Robert Weiss for consideration. Very interesting debate:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-weiss/women-and-pornography_b_1878449.html?utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false