Connectedness is the key to happiness and life

 
  The book "Worry" by Edward M Hallowell, M.D. says "Toxic worry is a disease of imagination.  It is insidious and invisible like a virus.  As worry infiltrates your mind, it diminishes your ability to enjoy your family, your friends, your physical being, and your achievements because you live in fear of what might go wrong.  It undermines your ability to work, to love, and to play.  It interferes with your starting a new task or even enjoying the completion of an old one.  Worry is a special form of fear.  "What if" leaves you paranoid and crazy.  Worry is rooted both in reality of today's world and in how you process reality."
   "It's very important to learn how to talk to yourself in a positive, helpful way.  Reassure yourself and offer yourself perspective and encouragement.  Stop listening to all the negative thoughts that follow you around.   Any medication is just a short-term relief and when treatment is starting typically.  Relaxation techniques include meditating, praying twice-a-day, start an exercise program, slow breathing, and therapy sessions can help some people if they do not acknowledge their past traumas.  People can retrain their brain to reduce the chances of sinking into worry again.  Learn to recognize a period of irrational worry the moment it begins and to intercept it before it could get started.  The sum of all our connections (with other people including institutions, work, hobbies, family, etc.) with a solid enough sense of being connected to something larger than yourself, an entity that could look out for you when you are in trouble. The connectedness is the key to emotional health and surest protection we have against the psychological ravages of worry.  Make dates with friends.  Make regular phone calls to members of extended family.  Seek out colleagues, church members, book clubs, exercise groups, etc."  Everyone needs someone to lean on, someone they can count on, and someone to help them.
   Working toward this end, I have been making lunch dates, calling to keep in touch, writing letters through snail mail, going to exercise in an open environment with others, emailing friends, and listening to others more than talking.  I feel that the busier I am with people that are positive and want to connect with me the better I feel.  Less Facebook, movies, TV etc., media in general, has helped tremendously.  More reading, exercise, hobbies, and going to meals with friends.  I, myself, will be looking into a job with a flow of new and different people mixed in with familiar ones to make my days full and fly by through time.  I am excited to see what will come and am the happiest I have been in 6 years.  Good times following Dr. Hallowell's advice.  We create our own happiness.  I am busy building mine every minute of every day.  Ah, the journey is where its at, that curve ball of life.