This may seem super obvious to some, but I had a huge epiphany just now. So my 10 year old cat likes to hang out outdoors for parts of the day. Tried to make him an indoor cat, but he was not having it. He got out last night while we were on our way to a concert so I kept the door propped open a few inches. He never showed up last night or this morning. I live in an area rife with predators – hawks, owls, coyotes and mountain lions. At this point, chances are pretty good something pretty bad happened to him. I just took my dogs out in the neighborhood that I’ve already scoured to see if they picked up a scent or anything, and I was feeling massive anxiety. I started to think about coming home and doing a model to somehow make that negative feeling in my body go away. I suddenly realized that the point is not to somehow feel positive or good so much as it is to allow the anxiety to be there. I must sound like I’m parroting the entire model, but while I’ve understood this intellectually, it was completely different when I applied it to my situation. I was able to tell myself, “It’s okay to feel sucky about this. It’s part of my 50% today.” The REAL point is to not immediately start buffering to attempt to numb that feeling. It feels SO crappy – my brain really seems to believe I will die if I feel like this for long. But I can observe it and name it and not have to eat and/or drink to change it. Amazing stuff!