Anxiety Therapy
“Health is the greatest possession. Contentment is the greatest treasure. ConFidence is the greatest friend.”
-Lao Tzu
Anxiety can wreak havoc on many aspects of life, negatively impacting our relationships, hindering our performance at work, limiting access to creativity, joy, and play. It can even impact our bodies, causing serious overall health degradation over time, like chronic pain, headaches, high blood pressure, breathing difficulties, and much more. Many people do not seek treatment, thinking it will dissipate naturally over time. Anxiety therapy can help.
Are you experiencing any of the following anxiety symptoms?
Feeling nervous, tense, or restless
Having a sense of impending danger, panic, or doom
Avoiding certain people or scenarios that trigger anxiety or stress
Fixating or obsessing over the stressor
Rapid or shallow breathing/tightness in chest
Trouble sleeping
Sweating and/or trembling
Panic Attacks
Feeling weak or tired
Chronic discomfort or pain in the body
Stomach or gastrointestinal problems
Many people struggle with anxiety symptoms
With all the stressors we experience day to day, many people struggle with anxiety symptoms. You are not alone. Anxiety can feel extreme because it impacts our functioning on so many levels; it impacts our relationships, our work, our health, and how we perceive the world and ourselves. It can increase feelings of shame within us because the nature of it can isolate us. It doesn’t have to be something you endure alone and it doesn’t have to be something you feel endless shame around. By seeking help for your anxiety symptoms through anxiety therapy, you can start to let go of the shame and isolation around it and come to a deeper place of compassion and understanding of it. It is actually through befriending your anxiety that you start to find true relief from it.
“Fear thrives in a place of inaction. Overcome your anxiety by taking one small step forward.” – Sarah Boyd
Anxiety therapy can help you get back to your true self
Lost yourself amidst your anxiety? Curious where your sense of joy, hope, and presence went? Anxiety therapy offers the chance to untangle the web of emotions and overwhelm covering your true, whole self at the core. In anxiety therapy, we will start by recognizing what stressors or triggers are currently present in your environment that could be cause for the anxiety. From a place of acceptance and compassion, we can acknowledge these people, places, or scenarios for what they are and validate your feelings of discomfort around them. From here, noticing how the body responds upon reflecting on these stressors, alongside other thoughts, feelings, and reactions that arise, is key to beginning to uncover what is needed to allow the anxiety to move through. Often times a desire to set boundaries, share a deeper truth, or coming to another conclusion within ourselves around the stressor helps to relieve some of the anxiety symptoms. Doing so with a supportive therapist further enhances and supports this process.
My approach to anxiety therapy is rooted in seeing and validating with compassion and care what is cause for some of your anxiety symptoms. Exploring your anxiety safely with attention and openness allows for deeper awareness of your relationship with the stressor to reveal itself. From there, we often find insights come to the surface around new ways we can relate to the stressor. The process of uncovering the layers of anxiety to come to a place of contentment with yourself around how you relate to the stressor is all done at a respected pace, with consistent tracking throughout to support emotional regulation and ease, and cultivating a sense of stability and grounding throughout. The process that unfolds in sessions allows for a greater awareness around how to better cope with your anxiety as it arises outside of session and a sense of courage and confidence moving forward in your life.
I often use evidence-based behavioral approaches like cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). These alongside mindfulness based stress reduction (MBSR) which offers clients concrete coping strategies to further their sense of control over the unwanted symptoms that arise, provides opportunity to handle their anxiety for the long term. We can look back into older wounds that may be root cause for some of the anxiety symptoms as well. Often I hold therapy within a transpersonal/psychospiritual framework for deeper healing, bringing in meditation and other experiential exercises for fuller integration.
Questions that often arise with anxiety and anxiety therapy:
“Why focus more on the anxiety? That seems to only make it worse.”
Yes, over-focusing or fixating on the anxiety can worsen the anxiety symptoms, especially when done alone. With the help of a therapist who specializes in anxiety, you can start to focus on the anxiety through a more objective lens, often lessening some of the anxiety symptoms that can cause overwhelm. It is in states of overwhelm that we are often guided to obsess or completely avoid what is cause for the anxiety.
“Is what I’m feeling actually anxiety?”
Anxiety can manifest in many ways. The description of anxiety symptoms listed at the top of this page are good indicators that you are experiencing anxiety, but sometimes it is just a deep knowing that something feels off. Anxiety symptoms appear different in each person. If you are unsure, going to a therapist and getting professional advice can be supportive to understanding if what you are experiencing is indeed anxiety or perhaps something else.
“If I focus on other things, my anxiety doesn’t bother me. Why should I go to anxiety therapy?”
Healthy distraction or intentional avoidance of anxiety can be useful to some extent, especially in the short term. But it is often the case that avoidance in the long term can cause detrimental effects on both yourself and those around you. Unconscious avoidance of feeling anxiety symptoms can take shape in the form of numbing through addiction or dependence on substances, projection through angry or aggressive outbursts, or through shaming and criticizing others. In severe cases, other forms of self-harm can occur through risky behavior, eating disorders, and other bodily harm to avoid feeling the uncomfortable emotions that anxiety often stirs up. Anxiety therapy can offer healthy coping strategies so that focusing on the anxiety doesn’t become so overwhelming.