Blast From The Past (after the fact)

Here’s an interesting little fact. Taking a video of yourself while dealing with anxiety helps to get rid of anxiety. So, yes, I have anxiety issues. You’re all well aware of that fact now. It pops up at random times, and I was getting frustrated that it was popping up as I get on the elliptical. I’m fine when I get on and once I get going, but it hits me as I’m getting situated. Ok, I get on the elliptical by holding onto the side rails. Then I move my hand to the pulse bar thingamajig. Then I push the button for the fan with my left thumb and put my left hand on the arm pole. No problem.

Problem starts happening when I move my right hand from the pulse bar to the arm pole. Why? No idea. I kind of do this funky “hesitate and jerk move” as I put my right hand on the bar. Once my hand is on the bar, I’m good to go. All sorts of anxiety shows up and it’s frustrating. So, I decided to take video of myself one day with my iPod (I’ll spare you the video) to show myself what happens.

Nothing happens. It feels like I’m going to fall, but there’s nothing there that’s pulling me, pushing me, or making me off balance. Nothing at all. So, by watching the video, it’s helped me gain more confidence. I still hesitate and do the “jerk move”, but the anxiety is going away. It’s not nearly as bad as it was. And, I do not, absolutely do not let the anxiety stop me from exercising. I want to stop when I have those moments of panic, sure, but I still do it.

Now, where does the “blast from the past” from the blog title fit it. I remembered that a long long long time ago, when I was in physical therapy as a little kid, my therapist had my mom take pictures of me as I did my exercises. I’m not sure why he had her do it. I think it was to demonstrate how certain exercises were done, so my parents could replicate them at home. But that thought popped into my head the other day. I remember the photo album those pictures were in also. Embarrassing, but they were taken for a purpose. Just like the video I took. Embarrassing, but it was taken for a reason.

And than reason proved to work. I’ll have to remind myself to take another video if I have more issues. I don’t like watching myself in a full body video (my avoidance of my cerebral palsy), but it must happen for things to get straightened out.

So if you’re having any sort of problem, physical, mental, or whatever, record yourself as it’s happening, so you can tell what exactly is going on, and how you can correct whatever it is that needs to be corrected.

Doing well today. My workout for the day was the full 5 miles of my Leslie Sansone DVD. Legs are tired, but in a good way. She’s got a 21 day challenge going on, and I’m going to see how I do. It started yesterday, so I missed that start. Yesterday we were supposed to walk 3 miles. Today was a 2 mile walk. So, I figured I’d catch up by doing 5 miles today. Tomorrow is supposed to be a 4 mile walk. We’ll see how my legs are, but I plan on doing 3 miles of the DVD and then the last mile on the elliptical. You can record your mileage on her FaceBook page.

Keep movin’!