So I’m feeling a little better. I ended up talking to my spouse about things anyway, and he’s agreed to take the pressure off me a little bit. Obviously I’m still held up to my promise to work 40 hours a week, which is fine, but I don’t have to worry about the world crashing down on my head if something happens, ya know? That’s helped a lot.
Now I just need to do two things for myself. One is to let go of yesterday. I’ve been trying to get over what I feel was a major failure by reading uplifting articles on nerdfitness.com (Here are the two best ones I’ve read today, if you want to read them. http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2012/12/03/who-you-were-who-you-are/ and http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2012/08/13/productivity/ ) I’m trying to remember that I didn’t fail yesterday. I learned how to not be as productive as I want to be. The whole Thomas Edison thing. I also keep telling myself that today is a fresh new day with no mistakes in it yet. I can make today to beginning of the rest of my life, and all that jazz. It’s helping a little bit.
The other thing I need to do is a more long term goal. I need to figure out how to productively manage my stress. Crochet doesn’t work, counting or mantras or meditation doesn’t work. My partner suggested I work out, which I haven’t really tried. I’m going to test that theory today if I need it. I’ve also found ten hours of white noise on youtube that I plan to play while I’m working ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNqERBWaJeM ) to see if that’ll help reduce the stress from the get go. I’ll also be talking to my therapist about the entire situation on Friday to see if he has any suggestions on what I can do to quickly lower my stress levels so I can get back to being productive.
Interesting…I started the white noise thing and it seems to be pretty calming already. Obviously I haven’t started working yet, but we shall see if it continues to do it’s job. Kind of sounds like sitting in an airplane…
Carmen's Corner 
YOU GO, GURL!
Let me say, yay!!! Everyone has those days when you feel that nothing work. Last week I spent almost 2 days stuck in an spreadsheet trying to figure out why something did not work, I was about to give everything up and by applying some of the recommendations that you showed us (great ideas by the way), I was able to find out the problem.
I’m glad that you are taking things one at a time, and starting from zero. And I hope that soon you can also enjoy some hookah time to relax and think about, well anything that’s relaxing.
You rock.
That nerdfitness has some good ideas. The best way to reduce stress is to avoid putting yourself in situations that will cause stress. Easier said then done. But realistic goals are probably something you will need to consider. How to relieve stress is an interesting problem. There are many ways, but everyone does have their own special ways. What works for one person may not work for others. Some people have squeeze ball things. Some people use boxing bags. I have heard Of some people running special fine sands through their hands. A client once rang me for advice where they can get that special sand. What are my personal techniques? Well they are kind of embarrassing and amusing. When stressed I like to dig holes and hand auger holes in the ground. I take out my stress on the ground. For people who know my profession then they would understand digging holes is not so unusual for me. And a binky or baby bottle also really works.