Anxiety Sucks. Point Blank.

It feels like the annoying little mosquito circling your head asking “What if?” over and over and over and over—well you get the idea. When your brain gets fixated on what could possibly be or maybe what can occur, the instinct may be to smack that little bugger down, but it isn’t always that simple.

Anxiety is like an overly helpful friend, they mean well, but all of a sudden they are calling out to you to be careful taking out the garbage, going for a walk, interrupting your conversation with your best friend to suggest maybe you’re taking up too much space, and oh goodness what if they hate you? what if you’re being a burden? to the point where you feel frozen and unable to go forward, backward, or sideways, and the truth of it is…

…you just want your Anxiety to shut up.

Anxiety can gnaw at your sense of self, your self-confidence, and self-love, your relationships, and your career, and prevent you from moving forward towards the goals you’d like to achieve. And when you move through life with an overly helpful insistent friend pointing out everything that could possibly go wrong, that place feels pretty hard to get to. Like an overly helpful friend, however, you do care for them, despite their nearly constant nagging because they’ve become a companion over the years, and while yes, sometimes their…um..perspective may seem a bit irrational, your pal Anxiety has protected you from certain pains in the past. You may hear them now: “See! I told you this would happen!” or “I’m glad I packed that umbrella” or even when things go wrong, with a wagging finger, “I knew it!”

So how do we get this helping hand to be more helpful and less of a hindrance?

Anxiety, The Feeling™

Anxiety was designed and trademarked by your brain to help you navigate your life, to notice dangers as they arise, be aware of your surroundings, and notice when things are not right so you can act on them. However, we’re human beings experiencing a human experience, and unfortunately, that can include some not-so-good experiences. Over time this can weigh on our bodies and minds and in an effort to keep you safe your body puts Anxiety on overdrive.

So what can you do about it?

In Anxiety Therapy together we will work to rework your relationship with Anxiety, to get them to cool down their responses, and learn to dialogue with your anxiety to see what is helpful at the moment and what is not. The goal is to get Anxiety working for you and with you, instead of against you.

What is Anxiety?

Anxiety is a universal feeling we have all experienced from time to time. However, for some of us, it affects us in ways that can be debilitating. Anxiety takes on many forms including, panic attacks, obsessive and fixated thinking, compulsive behaviors, fears and phobias, excessive worry, social difficulties, and can be triggered by traumatic events.

In therapy, we work to learn new ways to deal with your anxious thoughts and the anxiety-provoking situations that may accompany them. By learning tools and skills to change the ways you think and act, we can reduce the impact that anxiety may have on you. Just as each person’s anxious worries are different, so is the approach we take on tackling your anxious feelings and lived experience. We will work to create new skills based on your individual needs and comfortability. All at your pace, with the sensitivity and care you deserve.

How Do I Know I Have Anxiety and When to Seek Help?

Problematic anxiety that indicates its time to seek help, is just that, problematic. If your anxiety is negatively impacting your ability to enjoy or move through daily life, impacts your friendships and relationships, harms your career, and impairs you from making choices towards the life you desire, it’s time to seek assistance.

Some common symptoms of anxiety include body and mind expressions such as:

• Shortness of breath

• Heart palpitation or chest pain

• Sweating

• Trembling or shaking

• Obsessive or fixated thoughts

• Muscle tensions

• Fatigue or weakness

• Excessive Worrying

• Debiliating feelings, or body experiences

What Do I Do if I have Anxiety About Getting Help for My Anxiety?

As someone who has expereinced debilitating anxiety myself, I understand how difficult stepping out of your comfort zone and being vulnerable can be. Seeking and contacting therapists can be a very anxiety inducing thing. It also can feel very frustrating, as you want to seek help but the anxiety is getting in the way. It is perfectly normal to feel anxious when seeking out therapy. You may feel concerned about what the process is and how to go about it.

Take it slowly and break it down step by step.

You can find more helpful information at:

What Do I Do if I have Anxiety About Getting Help for My Anxiety?

New to Therapy? and What to Ask Yourself Before Starting Therapy

Anxiety Can Take on Many Forms

Anxiety manifests itself in a variety of ways. The most common types are: 

• Chonic Stress or Generalized Anxiety Disorder

  • This type of anxiety is experienced as highly frequent and intense anxieties combined with exaggerated worry and tension. These are usually called anxiety attacks. This includes our realistic but excessive worry about everyday things like work, family, health, money or school. The worry is out of proportion to the stressor, causing you to feel consistently and chronically stressed to the point of fatigue.

• Panic Attacks or Panic Disorder

  • Panic attacks are sudden and targeted experience of intense fear or panic. A panic attack is different from an anxiety attack as it comes on unexpectedly as a bodily response and disproportionate sense of fear. It triggers severe phsyical reactions when there is no imminent danger. Think of it as a misfiring of your fight or flight instinct. Panic attacks usually last about ten minutes, while anxiety is chronic and can underly daily life.

• Social Anxiety

  • Social Anxiety is characterized by emotional discomfort in group settings, often accompanied by the fear of being embarrassed or judged by others. 

    Social Anxiety can show up in situations such as:

    • Speaking in front of others

    • Interacting with strangers

    • Starting conversations

    • Going to work

    • Dating

• Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

  • PTSD results from experiencing a traumatic or life-threatening event. Symptoms include flashbacks or nightmares about the traumatic event, overactive startle response, hypervigilance and avoiding people or situations that might remind you of the event.

• Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

  • OCD is characterized by uncontrollable intrusive thoughts that are alleviated by a certain behavior. The thoughts are the obsessions and the behaviors are the compulsions. The compulsion is meant to reduce the anxiety caused by obsessive thoughts.

• Phobia

  • Phobias are unrealistic and exaggerated fears of specific things, places or people. Phobic individuals usually know how unrealistic their fears are but cannot help their reactions.

How Can Therapy Help Improve My Anxiety?

In therapy, we will work to confront the root causes of anxiety in your life. We will work together to help you understand why certain fears, places, or situations induce anxiety and how to overcome them. You can then examine the situation with a renewed perspective and consciously design life with your own dreams and desires in mind.

As Part of Anxiety Therapy We will Work On:

• Identify your triggers and learn how to calm yourself and detach from negative thoughts and behaviors.

• Apply strategies for minimizing stress and anxiety

• Learn to step into your anxiety as a bodily response, dialogue with it, and move through it

• Develop preventative coping skills for stress and anxiety

• Practice mindfulness and making choices from a place of empowerment

Therapeutic approaches that have been found to be effective for the treatment of anxiety are Art Therapy, Gestalt Therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy, and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.