Anxiety
It’s controlling your life!
Every day, you’re plagued with constant what-ifs and worries about what might happen, and it feels completely out of your control.
Problem-solving turns into ruminating…
… which turns into irritability…
… which turns into extreme fatigue.
The constant striving for perfection is exhausting…
… as is that judgmental voice in your head that keeps telling you what you did wrong or how you’re not enough.
The ever-present stress is affecting all areas of your life. You feel irritable around your loved ones and panicked in front of those you don’t know well.
Your body also feels the effects with its tense muscles, clenched jaws, tight stomach, and racing heart.
Can you even remember the last time you had a full night’s sleep?
I would be lying if I said you could get rid of all your anxiety.
We can’t completely eradicate it. After all, it’s an extremely helpful emotion that has allowed humans to survive and problem-solve for millennia. I know that’s probably not what you want to hear – especially when nothing about your anxiety feels helpful. You just want to get rid of it!
But this desire to get rid of anxiety leads to avoidance, making our anxiety worse! Avoidance seems like a great short-term strategy, but in the long term, it makes us a prisoner to the worries and the stress. It also leads to unhealthy coping patterns like overusing substances, overindulging in technology, and procrastination. Any of these can throw you into a tailspin of shame and self-loathing.
What if… instead of trying to get rid of anxiety… you learned how to interact with it differently so that it didn’t have total control over you?
Changing this relationship won’t happen overnight.
After all, you and anxiety have been together for quite some time.
It requires regular practice (and practice and practice!), but YOU CAN DO IT! All of the latest neuroscience research says so!
You can rewire your brain, and I can help!
Here’s what we’ll do…
One of my first questions to you will be this:
Do you feel like you just came out like this… or are there specific events or circumstances that have produced your anxiety? Or both?
Our exploration of these questions will create the roadmap for our work together.
If your anxiety feels like certain life events caused it, we might first use Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) to process past experiences that have locked you into a pattern of anxious thinking and behavior. Once these events are processed, people often find that a lot of their anxiety symptoms naturally fall away.
If it feels more like “you came out this way,” we will use mindfulness practices to help retrain your responses. Mindfulness is the practice of coming back to the present moment. Anxiety is the opposite of this. You will learn different strategies you can utilize throughout your day to help retrain your anxious responses.
We will also use “parts” work to identify your anxious “parts,” befriend them, understand them, and slowly allow them to relax a bit.
The aim is to retrain your responses to anxiety, help you better tolerate emotional distress, and rewire your brain for joy!
It is time to break free and start living the life you deserve!
Anxiety doesn’t have to control your life, and I can show you how.
It won’t happen overnight, but I have helped many clients shift their relationships with anxiety, and I can help you too.
Email me today to set up a free 15-minute consultation to start the process: agarrattcounseling@gmail.com.