Anxious?
If you are tormented by anxiety, you are not alone. Anxiety is one of the most common struggles. It is also incredibly treatable. Whether you suffer from panic attacks, stress, chronic tension, OCD, phobias, social anxiety, fear of public speaking, agoraphobia, or chronic butterflies, anxiety can be crippling and pervasively affect your life experience and quality of life. Resolving one’s anxious feelings not only brings peace and clarity, but frees up wasted energy that can then be put toward creating the life you want. Our therapists help people reduce their anxious feelings using an array of powerful tools, such as mindfulness, breathing and relaxation techniques, and emotional processing to understand and heal the root of the anxious feelings–why they were there in the first place.
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Because nervous energy is experienced in the body, many of the tools to turn around anxiousness center around helping the body and nervous system feel more “settled.” When we feel our bodies become activated by anxious feelings, the experience can be so unpleasant that it makes us even more anxious! When we try to decrease the symptoms, we only become more aware of our inability to control our feelings, leading to more anxiety and a cycle that can spin out of control. One key skill, then, is to learn how to tolerate the physical sensation of anxiety so that it can pass naturally, rather than feed on itself. Paradoxically, when we can embrace our inner experience, rather than fight against it, this makes us feel calmer inside! How we treat ourselves within our experience of anxiety becomes a key skill that takes training and practice.
In healing the underlying issue behind anxious symptoms, it is important to understand that anxiety often emerges when other difficult feelings are not being addressed. It is hard to feel settled inside when we haven’t “listened” to our emotions and moved through them successfully. In this way anxiety acts as a blanket that covers up the difficult, seemingly frightening, emotions under the surface. Mindfulness empowers us to move through all our emotions–even our sadness and anger–in a grounded, healthy way. When our brain sees that our emotions are adaptive and manageable, it stops sending alarm signals (in the form of nervous energy) every time we have a feeling! Discovering and unpacking the complex feelings of your true self often requires teamwork with a therapist who can help you access and explore your deeper experience without judgment. As you reclaim parts of yourself and feelings that were defended against, anxious feelings resolve naturally and easily.
Conclusion
When we learn to approach emotion in a welcoming and centered manner, we not only reduce our anxiety, but also find greater strength, passion, and joy! If you are anxious in any of its many manifestations, from stress to panic attacks, please reach out. Life doesn’t have to be this way.
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