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Austin Macauley Publishers - Ken Knight

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71 pages

English

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Fresh on the heels of his first book of common-sense life tips, Lefty Loosey Righty Tighty, the author returns with a personal account of a life filled with fear and anxiety - and dozens more tips on how to overcome and carry on with a happy life. The light-hearted advice will leave you nodding your head in recognition and not feeling more anxious about reading about anxiety! Enjoy the short chapters at the bus stop, on your coffee break or before you turn out the light.

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Popular psychology

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Publié par	Austin Macauley Publishers
Date de parution	31 mai 2019
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781528963220
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0175€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Thru the Blue and Happy Too
Ken Knight
Austin Macauley Publishers
2019-05-31
Thru the Blue and Happy Too About the Author About the Book Dedication Copyright Information Introduction The Ills Those Bothersome Things 1 In the Beginning 2 The Big Push 3 Gym Jitters 4 It Got Worse 5 A Fresh Start 6 People Power 7 Clutter Confuses 8 Disastrous Dates 9 Pressure Cooker 10 Flight of Fear 11 Airport Anxiety 12 Get Away 13 Sick and Tired 14 Cocktail Catastrophes 15 Fear of Falling 16 Your Brain on Drugs 17 Superstition Ain’t the Way 18 Reading the Post 19 Pee Pain 20 Dining Dashingly 21 Read the Signs 22 Get Your Poop in a Group 23 Seasons 24 On the Job 25 The Imposter 26 Money-Makers 27 Over Puts You Under The Pills Those Things We Can Change 28 Just Breathe 29 Water the Crops 30 Gratitude Is Good 31 Know Your ABCs 32 Food 33 The Grass Is Always Greener 34 Get Cultured 35 Healthy Fat? 36 Be Free 37 Sugar Scares 38 Visualize 39 Be Still, Be Quiet 40 Run for Your Life 41 Grandma Knows Best 42 Read 43 Ground Is Good 44 Forest Freshness 45 Comfort Cures 46 Just Go Play 47 There’s Only One You 48 Don’t Fail to Share 49 Boredom is Bad 50 Sleep It Off 51 Keep It Moving 52 First Place 53 The Roller Coaster 54 Love, Love, Love Conclusion
About the Author
Ken Knight has been writing since his desk was pushed across the hall from Grade 3 to 4 and as part of various careers since then. A life-long resident of Calgary, Knight enjoys writing more than any other thing and creates a poem, story or song every year for his family Christmas card, which includes all the year’s news in rhyme.
About the Book
Fresh on the heels of his first book of common-sense life tips, Lefty Loosey Righty Tighty, the author returns with a personal account of a life filled with fear and anxiety – and dozens more tips on how to overcome and carry on with a happy life. The light-hearted advice will leave you nodding your head in recognition and not feeling more anxious about reading about anxiety! Enjoy the short chapters at the bus stop, on your coffee break or before you turn out the light.
Dedication
For Les, my partner in this anxious life. May we continue to dream together and never stop believing it ‘will’ get better.
Copyright Information
Copyright © Ken Knight (2019)
The right of Ken Knight to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781528920858 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781528920865 (Hardback)
ISBN 9781528963220 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2019)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LQ
One man’s journey through an anxious life
Introduction
My first book, Lefty Loosey Righty Tighty, was written as a bit of a guide book to my daughters as they left the nest and went out into this big crazy world on their own. As I started to interact with my girls as adults, I realized they had developed a lot of the same anxieties as I had. But let’s be clear – I am the king of anxiety and my kingdom will not be overthrown!
I don’t profess to be a professional, a doctor, a psychologist or a therapist. I certainly have had no formal training in these fields unless you count one university child psychology class I took in the early 1980s to fill a gap in my schedule!
What I have had is some personal experience. Experience with living a pretty great life but with extreme anxiety and fear following me around with every step for a whole lot of years. Have I been cured? Absolutely not. Will this book cure you? Likely not. My hope is this book will make you realize that many of us have anxiety and fears and we can still carry on with a pretty fantastic life experience.
My hope is that by providing anecdotal examples and stories from my own life, you can relate and realize we are all on the same basic path. I am no guru. I’m just a guy, a son, a dad and a husband that suffers and has found a few helpful tips along the way. I find many books on this subject have lost me in their pages and I give up. But if you can read this on your coffee break, at the bus stop, before you turn out the light or, my favourite, in the bathroom, I have been successful.
I will share some tips and tricks I learned along the way to minimize my anxiety – or at least make light of it. I don’t want this to be another stress for you. Some books I pick up, I have to put down because I start getting anxious about reading about anxiety!
A few years ago, there were many books and videos surrounding the concept of ‘it gets better’. The intent was generally for older more experienced people to tell younger people that they should be patient for that time of life when it does, in fact, get better. And the bigger message was to encourage them – maybe even beg them – to not try to end their lives prematurely.
I am a walking and talking example of how it gets better. So read on and let’s get started.
The Ills

Those Bothersome Things
1

In the Beginning
As early in my life as I can remember, I was convinced I was a retard. I’m sorry, but they did actually call people retards back then, you know – in the 1960s. Kids said unkind things and there was no such thing as political correctness in those days. And so, I thought I was a retard, mentally challenged or slow – whatever you want to call it.
I thought my parents were just too kind – or afraid – to tell me, that everyone was playing along and was operating under some kind of promise that I was not to find out. My mom would tell those cute stories at family gatherings about how I always fell out of my crib as a baby and landed on my head. This added fuel to the verdict. I obviously had a severe head injury.
So on one hand, I had clearly developed the lowest possible self-image at a very young age and, on the other, my entire universe was apparently executing a finely-managed plan to avoid bringing to light my mental incapacities. Complicated!
As the years passed, I gradually realized that I was perhaps not mentally challenged and there was no grand plan to hide it from me. I started to do extremely well at my school work and couldn’t keep believing that it too was a charade for my benefit.
But fear and anxiety of imaginary problems have been my companions for most of my life. It seems as though as one chapter ended and another started, I brought along a fresh new fear.
2

The Big Push
In fact, because I was perceived by the education system to be somewhat gifted, on a cold snowy day in November of the third grade, my desk was pushed across the hallway of our elementary school and I was instantly in the fourth grade. The new class was learning how to write capital Gs in script that day. My friends Debbie and Jeffrey had been ‘accelerated’ along with me and we all settled into our G-writing tasks quickly.
Jumping ahead a grade is not without its consequences, however, and no doubt one of the reasons it rarely occurs in the present day, especially without ever asking or advising one’s parents! You can imagine my mother’s surprise when I came home from school that afternoon with the news of my new grade status.
I instantly became the youngest and smallest grade-four boy in the school and this of course carried on throughout my school days to follow. Many years later, I was one of the youngest kids at university, taking my entire first year of studies as a seventeen-year-old.
And so, while my retard days were behind me – and no one had ever actually called me that to my face – the days were now filled with childhood taunts of being called a fairy, wimp and later, a faggot. That was the popular terminology of the day in the mid-1970s.
Looking back, it is very weird that calling someone a fag even had any meaning. Some people in the United Kingdom still refer to cigarettes as fags. But back then, there were no television or movie personalities that were known to be gay and certainly the subject matter was not popular. In fact, in the place I grew up, it was still illegal to be gay.
So I guess using the term fag was somehow construed to be a perfectly horrible thing to say and a good choice when you were bullying a kid smaller and younger than yourself.
Horrible it was and it worked. I was afraid to go to school, afraid to go to the playground at recess and especially afraid to participate in sports or activities in gym class.
3

Gym Jitters
Ah yes, gym class, or physical education as it is now called, unless they have come up with a new moniker. That special part of one’s schooling that is absolutely designed to separate the weak from the strong, the introverts from the extroverts and the bullies from the bullied. And the perfect chance to put everyone in a locker room to disrobe and show off their adolescent muscles or, in my case, skinny arms and ribs that would not stay hidden inside my skin.
Once adorned in our fashionable gym strip, as it was called, it was then time to line up and be chosen for one side or the other of opposing teams for everything from soccer to dodge ball. And of course, to make it absolutely perfect, only the strongest and best and at each sport were assigned to do the choosing in order to guarantee the skinny, scared runts like me were chosen last and with a fair degree of disappointment on the part of the chooser.
Then it was time for the gym teacher to step back and let the chaos ensue. There is no need to actually explain how the sport was played or take any ti