Unwind without unraveling.
Online therapy for anxiety, serving adults throughout WA & IA
You’ve felt anxious for so long, it seems like it’s just part of your personality.
But it’s not a part that’s working for you anymore.
You often find that your brain is going non-stop, or you’re constantly fidgeting or moving around. You’re constantly replaying past interactions in your mind, over and over and over. Dissecting every word or decision, and convinced you screwed it all up.
Or maybe you’re imagining interactions that might happen in the future, anticipating how badly they’ll probably go and creating arguments in your mind that have very real and very negative effects on your mood, perspective and relationships.
It feels impossible to be present or stay in the moment.
People tell you to “just calm down” or “just try to relax,” as if that idea had never occurred to you. But healing anxiety isn’t just a matter of taking a deep breath.
When “just calm down” doesn’t work.
Anxiety can make it impossible to let go of the past, or let your guard down. It might feel unsafe to even try.
At work, you’re worried about what your colleagues think of you and second-guessing your own thoughts and ideas. At home, you’re convinced that your family and friends know that you don’t really know what you’re doing, that they’re just being nice when they give you compliments or express positive feelings about you.
You are constantly trying to fix every problem, even the ones that are not your responsibility. It feels like you have to worry about everything, because things won’t get done and it won’t be safe for anyone if you don’t.
You know you’re driving your co-workers, partner, friends, family members nuts, but that just makes you want to try even harder to fix it all.
What if you could really learn to “just be” and not hate it?
You could let others in your life be responsible for their own decisions and consequences, you could stop the constant mental replays and hypothetical arguments, and you could release some of the tension in your body. You could be present with the people you love, engaged in what’s happening right now.
Together, we’ll work on understanding your unique experiences, symptoms and their root causes. We’ll talk about what’s going on in both your body and your mind when anxiety is high. We’ll experiment to find calming, grounding, and mindfulness skills that work for you. We’ll explore past experiences that may have shaped some of your thoughts and beliefs, and we’ll work on resolving any that are making the anxiety worse.
Therapy for anxiety can help you…
Learn and understand what causes your anxiety and the role it might be playing in your life
Identify the thoughts, emotions, and experiences that are most likely to create anxiety for you
Gain new skills and tools to manage your day to day symptoms
Resolve the root issues creating and worsening your anxiety
Frequently asked questions about therapy for anxiety:
FAQs
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Sometimes anxiety is obvious: you might feel nervous or tense, your heart might be beating fast and your breaths are shallow and quick, and your thoughts are racing.
But it’s not always like that. Sometimes anxiety manifests in less obvious ways like perfectionism or a fear of failure, or feeling like you have to fix every problem you see. These are usually still rooted in anxiety-based thoughts and feelings, and can benefit from therapy.
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There are a few reasons that this sometimes happens.
If you’ve experienced trauma, trying to relax can feel unsafe, like you won’t be able to protect yourself if needed. In this case, the more you try to relax, the more your brain sends out threat signals and creates an opposite effect in your body. It will be important to address the trauma to create a new response in your brain and body.
This kind of opposite reaction can also happen when we’re trying to force relaxation, rather than allowing it to happen. This is fairly common with anxiety, especially if you’ve been living with it for a long time. Working on the causes of your anxiety can help with this.
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No, it can actually be extremely useful and is part of the typical range of normal human emotions. If you are in a dangerous situation, anxiety is what helps kick your mind and body into action to help you survive. Anxiety can also help motivate us to do necessary tasks and plays a part in the risks/benefits decisions we make every day.
Therapy for anxiety isn’t about trying to get rid of all anxiety, just the parts that are no longer serving us.