Therapy for Anxiety
Do you find yourself lost in your thoughts for hours on end?
Maybe you said something you regret. Maybe you have a trip coming up or a work project due and you just can’t stop thinking about all the things that need to get done. Maybe you really want to tell someone something that bothered you but you can’t figure out which of the many scenarios you’ve thought through to actually use.
Anxiety is exhausting. It takes you away from the present and lands you in your head. But it feels like if you’re not thinking about all these things, something is going to get dropped or something will go really wrong.
This doesn’t have to be your reality. Living in the present and out of your head is achievable!
Anxiety has probably done a lot of good things for you, like motivate you to be an amazing planner or do really well at work. And, the flip side of it is how hard it can be to turn off when you just want to relax. It can be confusing to decide whether or not to get rid of it. The good news is, therapy can help you reduce the negative impacts of anxiety so you can more fully enjoy the sides that are enhancing your life.
In therapy, you no longer have to hold all the anxiety, stress, and worry by yourself. We’re a team. With support in skill building to increase your sense of calm and ability to stay in the present, it’s more than possible to build a fulfilling life and relationships.
Together, we’ll focus on:
Exploring your past to help understand why the anxiety is so high in the present
Increasing your ability to bring down the volume when the anxiety starts to feel too much
Learning coping skills to challenge negative thoughts when they start to take over
Building your assertiveness skills and boundary practice
FAQs
-
Anxiety starts within us with an intention to be helpful. For example, it may have helped us be the “good kid” and not get in trouble by predicting others’ needs ahead of time. Maybe we just got loads of praise for how well we’d perform so it felt necessary to push and push ourselves in all we do to keep getting that praise.
What helped us survive and thrive at some point is not always what helps us survive and thrive now. The body and mind do not always know that a change is needed on their own, and so they keep the habits they’ve learned. The good news is, we can create this change through therapy!
-
Some anxiety is essential, with a big caveat.
We don’t want to get rid of all of it, but we want to make some adjustments. The parts of it that overwhelm you, stop you from living how you want to live, those are things we can turn down the volume on in anxiety therapy. By doing that, we will make space for the helpful parts of anxiety that motivate you to meet you goals.
-
In therapy, something is defined as a problem when it feels like it’s disrupting you from living the life you want.
When anxiety starts to more often than not negatively affect your life, stopping you from saying or doing things you really want to, impacting your relationships, and just being around more than you’d like it to, that’s when it goes from being helpful to something to start to look at.
-
Anxiety is sneaky; it doesn’t show up for everyone the same way, and it’s not always about being in your head.
Anxiety shows up in the body a few different ways, including:
Chest tightness
Shallow breathing
Tense shoulders
Clenched jaws or night teeth grinding
Hands balled into fists
Sitting with crossed legs and arms
Shutting down when asked a question