Make friends with your anxiety - how does that work?!

Our instincts tell us to push away, or get rid of our anxiety in order to get past it. That decision will actually help your anxiety grow and control you.

People who struggle the most with anxiety use avoidance as a short-term solution, making their anxiety grow and grow. Avoidance is like watering that new tree planted in the back yard -- it's guaranteed to make it grow and flourish.

Not what you want, you say?

The key to reducing anxiety and gaining control is through acceptance.

Notice how your anxiety loses its power when you accept it, notice it, make friends with it and stop fighting or avoiding it. With my help, I'll work with you to learn new skills to help you understand what a healthy relationship with anxiety feels like.

Thoughts come in like clouds...

We all have a private conversation with our thoughts and we believe every one of them. Should we?

Thoughts come in waves, all day, every day. We each have thousands of them. We are wired to produce negative thoughts (about 80% of our thoughts are negative ones). Given that information, is believing every thought we produce in our heads a good idea? Of course not. Thoughts are just thoughts. When we believe them, they change our emotions, mess with our mood, and cause us to act as if they are true. That's a recipe for a self-fulfilling prophecy: have a thought, believe it is true, feel a certain way based upon that thought, act a certain way based upon that "truth." If we actively or passively participate in that cycle, we then become controlled by our thoughts -- they decide what is true, how we feel given that "truth", and how we act given our "truth." Our day-to-day experiences are then all programed by our thoughts and not by what is really happening in that moment.

Change you can believe in

Changing our relationship with our anxious thoughts is hard work. It requires the client's full participation and dedication, and willingness to work towards that change. It's not a linear experience to change: it is a series of ups and downs, all the while growing and repeating successes and letting go of failures (knowing they are a part of the process of growth).

If you would like my help to start this journey, please reach out. I love working with adults and teenagers who struggle with anxiety, helping them understand the benefits of accepting versus struggling with their anxious thoughts.