Anxiety

"Anxiety is your mind and body's built-in alarm system."
It's the part of you designed to keep you safe. When your brain senses a threat—real or imagined—it tries to prepare you by releasing chemicals that make your heart beat faster, your breathing change, your muscles tense, and your thoughts speed up.

This response isn't a sign that something is wrong with you. It's a sign that your system is doing what it was designed to do—just a little too intensely or too often.

What Anxiety Feels Like

Clients often describe anxiety as:

• Physical sensations: tight chest, racing heart, stomach knots, sweating, shakiness.

• Mental patterns: overthinking, catastrophizing, "what-ifs," difficulty concentrating.

• Emotional experiences: dread, irritability, feeling overwhelmed or out of control.

• Behavioral urges: avoiding situations, over-preparing, seeking reassurance, or withdrawing.

It can feel confusing because the sensations are very real, even when the danger isn't. Think of it as a fire alarm that goes off not just during fires—but sometimes when someone burns toast.

Why Anxiety Shows Up

Anxiety often shows up for understandable reasons:

• Past experiences or trauma that taught your nervous system to stay on alert

• Chronic stress that keeps your system activated

• Uncertainty or change

• Family patterns (sometimes we learn anxious responses from the environment we grew up in)

• Biology—some people naturally have more sensitive nervous systems

No single cause is to blame; it's usually a combination.

How We Work With Anxiety in Therapy

1. Understanding the Anxiety

We explore:

• What triggers it

• What the sensations and thoughts look like

• What your patterns are

• How it affects your daily life

Simply naming what's happening often reduces fear and increases control.

2. Regulating the Nervous System

We practice skills to help your body settle:

• Slow, diaphragmatic breathing

• Grounding techniques

• Muscle relaxation

• Mindfulness and body awareness

These techniques retrain your alarm system to see that you're safe.

3. Working With Thoughts

Anxiety loves "catastrophe thinking." We don't force positivity; instead we:

• Notice and label unhelpful thoughts

• Question the accuracy of those thoughts

• Replace them with more balanced, realistic ones

It's about shifting from "something terrible will happen" to "I can handle this."

4. Changing Avoidance Patterns

Avoidance makes anxiety grow, because it teaches the brain that the situation is dangerous.
In therapy we practice gradual, safe exposure—taking small steps toward what you've been avoiding. Over time, your nervous system learns that the situation is survivable.

5. Compassion and Relationship With Anxiety

Instead of fighting anxiety, we practice:

• Accepting it as a part of you

• Understanding its intention (usually protection)

• Learning to soothe it rather than battle it

Sometimes we even give anxiety a "name" or "character," which helps create distance and reduces shame.

What It's Like to Work With Anxiety

Working through anxiety doesn't mean eliminating it entirely—everyone experiences anxiety.
But therapy helps you:

• Feel less controlled by it

• Understand your triggers

• Trust your body again

• Build confidence and resilience

• Respond to anxiety instead of reacting automatically

• Live more fully, even when anxiety is present

Think of it as learning to drive with anxiety in the back seat—not letting it take the wheel.