Welcome to the Dreamcatcher, where I share the best things I read or listened to this week. This one is all posts and no podcasts. Not that I didn’t listen to podcasts, but there just wasn’t anything that sparked inspiration this week.

My struggle with anxiety disorder – Tub of Cash

 Tim bares his soul in this post. He’s had anxiety take hold as physical symptoms over the years, and it’s hard to deal with. Tim shares a lot about what he worries about, what might be at play with his anxiety, and what he’s done to ease the situation. I especially appreciate how he thinks of himself as a rational person and that “symptoms of the mind” shouldn’t be so powerful for someone like that. I have the same sort of thing. Five or six years ago I thought I handled stress like a champ. Then I started to realize that I handle external stresses like a champ, but internal ones are far more difficult. I’ve had several health things come up, and worry about those becomes a cyclical beast, where you start to think about symptoms and what their underlying cause could be so much that they get worse, feeding the cycle. It’s helpful to read from someone else who seems to have his crap together but still has these very typical human issues. We all have issues. It’s awesome to see them shared in such a positive way.

An ideal day – Gracefully Expat

 There have been a few days in the past couple of months that really sort of brought it all together for me. Grace sums up what her perfect day would involve here. We definitely share a few elements: waking up naturally, having a leisurely breakfast, creating something (or doing something productive, to me). That’s as far as I’ve gotten on making a blueprint for an ideal day for myself. I need to think about that more, because it would certainly help with living more intentionally.

How I visualize my money – The Military Dollar

 I love me some data viz, and apparently so does The Military Dollar. These are some snazzy visualizations for evaluating financial things. I especially like the “how much of my house do I own” graphic. I think I need to add a few new graphics to my repertoire. Along those same lines, I was one of 25 (!) personal finance bloggers who created a money map showing how our money flows between various accounts.  My favorite, by far, was The Lady in the Black’s financial garden. Beauteous!