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What You Need to Understand About Spontaneous Panic Attacks and Secondary Panic

Spontaneous Panic Boiled Down to a Bouillon Sized Cube Spontaneous Panic – Part 1  Spontaneous panic attacks seem to hit right out of the clear blue sky. One second you are minding your own business, going about your day – chopping onion for your tuna sandwich or vacuuming up the ants that just got into the dog food, or whatever it is you do – and the next second fear explodes in your brain.  There is no precipitating factor, like, you are being chased by an axe-wielding maniac who you are pretty sure wants to wear your skin (which would…

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Recovering From Panic – Fear Highways and New Pathways

 Picture your anxiety… it’s like water – drip, drip, dripping – etching pathways into your brain. With every drop, the pathways carve deeper and become more fixed.  And when the floodwaters of panic come, the paths are cut quickly, deeply, and violently.  As with water, when the panic comes each subsequent time, it follows the easiest route, the paths it has already carved.  Your brain can become a map of fear highways.    Your brain is a creature of habit.  When your brain knows anxiety and panic, every time it encounters panic, it takes the same route, responds the same way.…

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Fear Memories Leave Deep Footprints – Why Panic is So Hard to Forget

Photo by Deny Abdurahman on Unsplash Extreme Negative Experiences Cut Deep Extreme negative experiences – being physically attacked by an axe-wielding psychopath, getting pulled underwater by a strong current, being chased by angry wild turkeys (which I swear has never happened to me), or… like a spontaneous panic attack – cut deeply into our psyche and leave heavy footprints across our memory.  That’s how fear works. It leaves its mark so that it will be remembered, so that next time, we will recognize this danger, and maybe, just maybe… we will live to tell the tale.  The problem with this…

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3 Basic Strategies for Writing to a Fast-Moving, Oversaturated Audience

Audience over-saturation is simply a reality of our times. Our readers have to spend more time than ever before filtering and sifting through vast quantities of content to get to what they need. Here are a few more basic strategies to grab and keep their attention.   1. Don’t Lose Your Reader with Your First Sentence Think about how many times you have clicked a link for information (very specific information) like: How to Write Better Headlines for Your Articles. And the article begins… “When I was seven, my grandfather took me fishing for the first…” Click. I’m out.  I…

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3 Simple Strategies for Writing to an Oversaturated Audience

Your Readers Are Wet Sponges Our readers today are saturated.  Think about what that word means.  What happens when you try to wipe up a spill with a soaked sponge?  You will actually leave more liquid behind.  It doesn’t absorb. It is already overflowing.  You audience is a bunch of soaked sponges.  It’s not that they don’t want to know, or that they don’t care. It’s that they literally are so full with information (so saturated) that they they struggle to absorb anything more.  And it’s not their fault. Information is coming at us all day, every day, from every…

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If You Want To Do More Than Just Dream About Being a Freelance Writer…

Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on UnsplashIf you want to indulge in the “fantasy” of becoming a freelance writer, go for it!!  No one is stopping you.  Dream away my friend. And the nice thing about dreams is – they’re FREE! (Can’t say that about too many things these days.) But if what you want is to build an actual freelance writing career – you know, one that generates actual income – you need to stop “dreaming.”  Dreams are too close to “fantasies.” Dreams happen in our sleep, when our brains wander freely where they want to, without regard for reality,…

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Building A Freelance Writing Career – Making the Dream Happen! 

Ok, so you’ve done the difficult task of defining your dream. You know what it is you are trying to achieve! Bravo! That’s not always an easy step.  Now… how are you going to get there? Because you DON’T get there by floundering along, bouncing from idea to idea, hoping you will eventually arrive at your goal.  And yet, this is so often what we do.  You might be feeling that you are a REALLY long way from achieving your goals, but rather than being daunted and overwhelmed by that feeling, start taking small steps to get there. And the…

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FIVE behaviors to avoid… Don’t give away the precious minutes of your life.   

Avoid Rabbit Holes The internet is one giant rabbit warren (and in case you didn’t know, a warren is a network of interconnected rabbit burrows), and it is sinfully easy to head down one and then just keep going and going and going and going.  I don’t know if we think we’re going to reach some end point or pop out in China.  But, if you keep going, you eventually reach a Blair Witch-type realization that you are actually going in circles – the same information keeps reappearing, over and over and over again.  I’m not suggesting you avoid the…

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Won’t Be Traveling This Summer? You Can Still Escape to an Exotic Location…

Even if you’re staying put this summer – that doesn’t mean you can’t visit some exotic locations and bake in the heat of a foreign summer sun.   During the lazy hot days of summer, I want to read books that let me feel summer in my bones and take me away to foreign places. Here are a few of my favorite summertime reads:  Please note that the post below contains affiliate links.By Gerald Durrell My Family and Other AnimalsThe Garden of the GodsBirds, Beasts, and Relatives I love this series!!! I think it might be my all-time-favorite poolside read.…

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The Weird Psychology Behind Changing Minds

Opening The Door The human brain is just plain weird.  We like to think that we are pragmatic creatures of logic and reason. But the truth is, an awful lot of what we do makes about as much sense as walking around in stilettos.  I mean… who thought that one up?  Walking around balanced on top of what is, essentially, a long nail?  Crazy.  Don’t get me wrong – I love the idea!  I love stilettos.  And that’s pretty freakin’ weird too. Right? Why does the human brain think silletos are sexy?   Who f**ing knows!!    Like I said……

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Yes, You Can Stop a Panic Attack

Photo by Radu Florin on UnsplashYes, you can stop spontaneous panic attacks. It takes practice. I’m not going to say it’s easy. But it is absolutely possible.  Being the Master of Managing Panic that I am, I am a pro when it comes to stopping panic attacks. There are three basic steps.  1. Stopping a spontaneous panic attack starts by understanding what the heck is happening within your body.  Your brain is malfunctioning.  This malfunction causes adrenaline to be released.  This adrenaline causes the feeling of fear to explode in your body and brain.  Naturally, you respond to that fear…

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The Day My Migraine Spoke To Me

Photo by Matteo Vistocco on Unsplash A Conversation With My Migraine Sunday. It is evening. Tonight my migraine crept back, late and unapologetic. It has never liked to be predictable. Unpredictability is a part of its power.  I am standing in the shower, letting the hot water drum against my back and neck while my thoughts slide loosely around inside my skull, the way they tend to do in the shower.  I think to myself, It’s sneaky, this migraine of mine. It doesn’t like to be thwarted or out-maneuvered. I had thought that it was gone. Three full days had passed since it had…

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If You Have a Child Who Goes Left When the Sign Says ‘Go Right’…

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash Raising a Non-Compliant Child If you have a non-compliant child, a child who goes left when the sign clearly says, Go Right, a child who is forever rocking the boat, a child who challenges every single GOD DAMN thing you say… I want you to keep this in mind: As a social species that relies on herd dynamics to survive, we humans have a natural affinity for compliance. It makes evolutionary sense. We like everyone to fall in line.  We like everyone to wait their turn. We like everyone to get along.  We like everyone…

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The Secret You Probably Don’t Know About Your Panic Disorder

Photo by Caseen Kyle Registos on Unsplash When I write about my experiences navigating a panic disorder, I usually cast panic as the bad guy. Panic is the enemy I’m battling. My nemesis. Mostly, that’s how I feel about it.  I want to hug it about as much as I want to hug a prickly pear plant.  BUT… Yes, there’s a but. (I didn’t know about the “but” in the beginning. I learned about it later.)  But, here’s the thing…  to become a Master of Managing Panic (which I am, by the way – and no you cannot see my…

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The Kiss of Death for a Successful Freelance Writing Career – Don’t Do This!

Photo by Florian Klauer on Unsplash Don’t Bounce Around When you are building something new (like a freelance writing career), especially when you don’t have a completely clear vision for what that ‘something new’ will look like, it’s easy to bounce around.  Like, SCARY easy.  You are researching and reading articles (like this one), and you get new ideas daily. Lots of new ideas. Like…  …maybe you should also be publishing on Substack, or wait… maybe Adsterra, or Hubpages, or Patreon  …and you should definitely be writing an ebook – about something – and selling it on Gumroad, and maybe…

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Landing the Leap from Salary to Freelance Requires a Different Way of Thinking

Photo by jana müller on Unsplash Don’t build something new on a foundation of old assumptions, beliefs, and perspectives You are building a freelance career, making the shift from working for someone else, to working for yourself. You are doing something completely new, and that requires a new way of looking at things! Soccer games are not won based on the speed with which the players run the length of the field. Applying the scoring system used in swimming to soccer doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t translate.   Well, it’s no different here. Holding a position in a company and…

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How do I know that life on planet earth is getting better? 

Photo by Bai Z on Unsplash Well, for one thing, we don’t ornament our roadways and bridges with the decapitated heads of our enemies, cause, you know, the smell of rotting flesh is downright revolting. And no one gets sacrificed, even when it doesn’t rain for a long long time.  And today, even if you lose your legs, you could, potentially, still climb mountains with superman-like robotic legs, which is totally AWESOME!  These days, it is generally understood that the best way to empty chamber pots is not to throw the contents out the window onto the street below.  And…

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How Audible Can Transform Your Life… and Make You a Better Writer

This post contains affiliate links.   I Am SO Converted! I was a late adopter of Audible. As a writer with a borderline unhealthy relationship with books, I fundamentally disliked the idea of digital books, e-readers, and audio books (unless we are talking about the ones that say, “You’ll know it’s time to turn the page, when Tinkerbell waves her magic wand, like this (sparkly sound).” Those were perfectly acceptable, but all other audio books  – thumbs down!  I despised having some stranger’s voice in my head, getting in between me and the story. It never sounded right. End of…

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For Those of You Who Are Just Surviving Parenthood, a Few Words…

Thriving and optimizing, or just surviving… I’ve been sitting here at my computer tonight reading parenting articles. There is a lot of wisdom out there. It’s impressive.  I was struck by something. We parents seem to fall into one of two categories. We are either thriving and optimizing… or, we are just surviving. The thriving and optimizing folks have parenting down, clearly. They’ve moved beyond the basics. Discipline Schmishipline. These folks have their shit figured out!  No one doubts who’s in charge in these households. Parent snaps fingers, kids get in line. They’ve got systems, and rules, and they WORK,…

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God Made Them Cute So We Won’t Kill Them

This is what my husband would say when our children were small — when we were at our wits end — which we were at a considerable amount of the time. “If they were ugly and had fangs, we’d just throw them outside, shut the door, and lock it. Problem solved.”

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