Why is anxiety so challenging?

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If you struggle with anxiety, you know it's not just feeling a moment of fear or worrying a bit about something. It becomes a "mode" that you get stuck in. Anxiety is more feeling on edge and becoming focused on something that could go wrong.  It can feel very uncomfortable, and difficult to manage. At times one of the hardest parts is not knowing why you feel anxious or questioning whether you're reading a situation accurately or not. You may even find yourself wanting to get away from the anxious feeling.

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Anxiety happens for many of us when we feel threatened by something and our body's more basic survival instincts kick in, and then we have difficulty either recognizing we're anxious or we get stuck in it. If you notice feeling anxious and also feeling like it's controlling you, it may feel difficult to to figure out how to regain your balance and clarity in the moment. Luckily, although you may be feel stuck in this experience, there are plenty of ways to start working with it to manage anxiety and even befriend it and tame it so you feel like you're back in control again.

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What does therapy for anxiety look like?

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In therapy, we can develop tools to turn the volume down on more intense feelings of anxiety. This process can look like taking the time to develop effective tools that work for you personally, that you can use in the moment to manage your thoughts and feelings. Sometimes this looks like remembering and making sense of what's happening while telling yourself reassuring things. Other times this looks like working with your own body's capacity to calm down or reorganize tension.  Figuring out how to resource yourself is an effective way to take back some control. We may also explore what self-care habits may help support in a maintenance fashion and what current habits may be contributing to your anxiety too.

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Next, when it's feeling more manageable to do so, we may do more exploration on what triggered the anxiety, what you may be needing and how to contextualize a healthy response in action that will help to take care of yourself and meet those needs. We may explore the meaning, connect back and process other related experiences in your life and in a compassionate way, understand what your anxiety may be trying to tell you. Anxiety can be incredibly helpful in many circumstances, that's why we're capable of feeling anxious. But once it gets to be a mode you're stuck in or is coming up as an alarm and getting in the way of feeling your best, affecting your relationships or doing things you need to in your life, the best route is getting support and committing to some healing work. Doing this important work can help you get back to feeling more like yourself again.

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I feel ready to work on feeling better. How to start?

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Know that it's possible to get unstuck and regain your balance again. The first step is to find the willingness to work, choose to focus on feeling better and commit to that for yourself. Next is to ask for help. I welcome you to reach out if you'd like my support!

 

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