Shannon's OF 5.75G Experience

[Omni3]

Last night, I was running OF.  It's supposed to be part of the normal ASRB cycle, but I have noticed that between what we are doing for vacation and OF I am extremely tired.  Unusually tired for things that never made me this tired before.  So I know OF is making me really tired for some reason.  GF has been asking me not to run it because I need to be resting during vacation and she's not thinking I'm getting rest between what we do on vacation and running OF.  So I have been trying to take some days off, but last night I was noticing that GF was unusually anxious.  

She didn't like the hotel we chose for this part of the vacation.  We both got the vibe when we walked in that someone was raped and murdered in this room - a very uncomfortable feeling.  I played OF last night, and she calmed down enough to go to sleep.  When we woke up she was okay, but that quickly went back to frustrated and when we arrived where we were doing our vacation activities an hour later, she began showing increasing signs of anxiety.  We paid our $20 each to get in and then by the time we had found a spot to enjoy, she was literally in tears having an anxiety attack because she's afraid of bugs, and we were outdoors.  Her fear is really of being stung, but as fear will do, it was being triggered even by the grasshoppers we were encountering.

So basically ten minutes after paying to get in, she was in tears begging me to let her go back to the car and stay there while I had a good time because she was so afraid of the bugs.  This fear of hers has ruined many outdoors activities in the past, but we haven't been outdoors in long enough that I forgot about it.  So I found a shady spot (the sun was brutal) and had her sit down and relax where there were no bugs.  But she was still in tears, terrified.  I explained to her that this was her inner child associating all bugs with a single scary insect encounter that she had long ago with a wasp, and that there were no wasps here, just harmless grasshoppers.  And of course, fear being irrational, she was still terrified and in tears.

So I turned on OF and distracted her with the activity we went there to do, and within 5 minutes she stopped crying and started doing what we were there for.  And within 20 minutes, she had completely forgotten about the bugs and was having a full blast grand ol' time.  Later when we walked back to the car to get more water (because the sun was brutal), she encountered many grasshoppers, but she just kicked them out of the way.  During the day, she encountered some flies and some beetles and even a bee or two, all of which she just swatted away.  Instead of fear, she was annoyed that they were distracting her from what we were doing.

When we left, she pointed out to me that she's always been afraid of bugs as long as she can remember, and she was never able to be so calm around them before.  She was astonished at the fact that she was just able to shoo them away and be completely okay with the encounter.  And when I thought back to how scared I have seen her be in the past at times when we tried to take walks in the woods (something I really enjoy, and find rejuvenating), I realized just how big a deal this was!

She's obviously not over this fear just yet, but running it in the moment she was able to have a great day.  I don't know if running it in the moment while facing what scared her in the past will more quickly get her over that fear, but I suspect it might.  I am mighty impressed, and I wanted to suggest that it can and should be used in the moment when you are experiencing fear or anxiety.

Two thumbs up!  This thing continues to impress me!

Hey @Shannon This really should be added into the testimonials section - even though it may be considered as not a third party testimonial