anxiety doesn’t have to run your life.
Life throws curve balls at us. Work and personal life can feel overwhelming, and when this happens you catch yourself fearing the worst about your health, well-being, and future. You toss and turn and night, spend hours scrolling your phone looking for tips to manage anxiety, and have trouble concentrating on things that need your full attention. You drag through the day, noticing a pit in your stomach, the tension in your head, and feeling like a weight sits on your chest. You felt so overwhelmed in your body, couldn’t breathe, felt panicked and agitated, but your doctor told you it was a panic attack. You tried medications, and they help, but you still struggle with sleep, and worry about things that pop into your mind out of nowhere.
Symptoms of anxiety include:
Excessive anxiety or worry
Failure to control anxiety
Restlessness
Fatigue
Difficulty concentrating
Blanking out, forgetting what you wanted to say or what you needed to do
Muscle tension, body aches, and pain
Sleep problems, including falling or staying asleep, restlessness, and feeling fatigued upon waking up in the morning
These symptoms likely cause problems at work, at home, and with friendships. You might avoid social events, ignore text messages, and fail to return phone calls. You crave connection, but the thought of talking to anyone brings up so much anxiety that you opt to binge tv and might even numb your feelings with food or alcohol.
At work, you might focus on projects to a point of perfection and miss deadlines, and feeling keyed up and on edge makes it difficult to focus. You worry about fitting in at work and wonder what your colleagues think about you, and dread meetings with your boss. You couldn’t handle another ounce of criticism, no matter how constructive it is.
Can you relate?
Did you know that many people who have anxiety experience these feelings throughout their whole life? You might remember these feelings surfacing as early as elementary school when you felt worried about being picked up from school, getting sick, making good grades, or keeping up with your peers. In high school, you might have experienced intense social anxiety, had trouble fitting in, studied for long hours, and had trouble falling asleep and staying asleep.
You’ve spent more nights than you can count laying in bed worrying about tomorrow, today, and yesterday, regretting your past and feeling guilty and ashamed. These thoughts cycle over and over again, and the longer you lay awake the more anxious you feel about tomorrow.
there’s a better way.
You’ve heard people explain the analogy and value of being flexible like a Willow Tree that can bend during a storm without breaking, and how the Oak Tree, strong and too rigid breaks under intense winds. The Willow Tree bends but doesn’t break. You want more than anything in this world to be able to bend, be flexible, and ride the waves of life with joy and curiosity. You feel stuck and trapped by the crippling anxiety, and feel ashamed that you can’t enjoy life like other people.
You’ve listened to podcasts, and tried to practice mindfulness (but get frustrated when those anxious thoughts show up—hey, we get it!! Meditation and mindfulness are hard when anxiety is high). You watch YouTube videos but have trouble finding the time to regularly practice the skills and techniques you are learning. You’ve tried taking vacations, and though they help for a short term, the anxiety and burnout return almost immediately when you resume your normal life again.
You know that if you don’t learn to manage this anxiety, your marriage might fail, and you fear that you’ll lose your job. You try to hide your anxiety, but your friends and family act worried and angry that you seem so agitated and on edge.
we’re here to guide you.
We help adults, teens, and couples learn to manage anxiety using compassion, targeted interventions, and EMDR. We develop a plan to address every trigger for anxiety, teach you skills to manage panic attacks, and body and emotional awareness so you feel more in control of your mind and body. We work at a somatic and neural level, helping you rewire your brain to feel calmer and more relaxed. The Safe and Sound Protocol helps people feel grounded and they often experience an almost immediate sense of calm. This intervention is appropriate for teens and adults and can even be used with couples to help reduce conflict that stems from anxiety.
counseling for couples
Couples where one or both partners have anxiety, experience more conflict and fights become unmanageable and partners withdraw and distance themselves from each other. These couples complain of a lack of connection, feel misunderstood by their partner, and worry that the marriage or relationship might fail. We help couples learn tools to regulate their nervous systems, help them develop communication skills to manage conflict, and facilitate difficult conversations about conflict topics to help them create a compromise and better understanding of their differences. Each partner will learn to identify symptoms of anxiety and learn to express their needs to each other when anxiety is high and impacting the relationship. The connection created during these sessions can significantly reduce the anxiety being experienced by either partner, and we help you understand the biological, neural, and endocrine benefits of connection and healthy communication. Some partners struggle with empathy and validation and teach these skills to help foster safety, security, and closeness in the relationship. Couples therapy is an amazing way to address anxiety symptoms and we can even provide EMDR and Safe and Sound Protocol to both partners to foster the best environment for healthy nervous system functioning.