Early warning signs and what they mean

Jelly legs when your nervous?

You probably get it when your nervous; your legs start to feel like jelly,your stomach is in a tight knot, you can't breath or maybe you just feel uneasy. For me everything brings up those nervous feelings, i suffer from anxiety and for some unknown reason i start to panic uncontrolably about little things, i even do when leaving the house, going to appointments or just talking to people. However not all panic, nervousness and emotions are meaningless these sort of emotions are called are Early Warning Signs ( EWS ). Your EWS is like a traffic light system when their not there your green, when you start to sense them your going amber and when you end up scared, frightened, panicky or nervous it's your warning system setting off red alarm bells!





draw a gingerbread man to get to grips with your felings



Now there's a great thing to these emotions there called EARLY warning signs, which means you have time to do something about them. But to harness the power of these amazing emotions you first have to recognise them. A great exersice to do is to draw a ginger bread man, to represent yourself, now write a list of all the scenarios you might find yourself nervous, panicky, frightened etc... Then on the ginger bread man draw the physical feelings associated with these emotions- by physical i mean do your feel sick? maybe you sweat more,  Do the hairs on your neck stick up? Does your mouth go dry?   These are the things you should be looking out for, and these are your early warning signs, and now for example if your walking along and you see a gang of people and you notice your palms are sweaty, it's your EWS telling you 'things are getting a little uncomfortable' . Noticing these emotions and feelings can be invaluable throughout life, helping everyone and anyone to recognise when they feel uncomfortable or scared.

But sometimes it can be 'fun to be afraid' things like rollercoasters and themepark rides,or sky diving, can be fun and so sometimes even if you do sense your early warning signs, it's good to just go and do it anyway, just make sure you havn't just eaten :)  So next time your feeling sick, or your palms are sweaty or your mouths dry, ask yourself  - Are these my early warning signs? Do i have a need to be uncomfortable? and am i in a situation in which it's 'fun to be afraid'? 
Have fun drawing ginger bread men, or maybe use this as an excuse to make some :P Lots Of Love Kxxx