mcl: I'm really sorry I didn't catch this post of yours until now. I apologize. I knew the anxiety was starting off by my feeling the need for either dissociation or oral satisfaction. That immediately put me on my guard and started me looking for what was wrong. Because that's what I always do when anxiety strikes at any level: seek some way of being somewhere else in my head or feeling the excessive need to eat, drink or smoke something.

In a sense, I'm lucky because I always follow the exact same patterns. Even if the anxiety hasn't yet come to my attention, I know it's there if certain other things are happening or I'm feeling certain ways. And also, I've been through all these pre-work situations literally thousands of times before. These things don't catch me by surprise. My life is reasonably repetitive (as most people's are, I'd guess). So, I had literally talked these things over with T at 10-11 o'clock in the morning. This was the first time she'd given me these instructions. (Look behind the anxiety). And within an hour I had a chance to put it into practice. My mediation was at 1 P.M. Everything went very well.
Take care!