| THERAPY SERVICES |
Anxiety Therapy & Stress Management
Stressed out
You are up early and still tired, getting ready for your day. Sometimes your commute is into the city, sometimes it is to your home office. You are in back-to-back meetings, with text messages from family asking you for rides, to find their keys, and to coordinate everyone's lives. It's like you have your full-time job and you have to be an unpaid, full-time family project manager, too. You want to get to the gym, take a walk, or meet a friend for coffee but only rarely does it happen.
For some of us, the day-to-day stresses only add to the constant worry we already have - maybe it’s actually anxiety. Difficulty sleeping, mind racing, difficulty shutting it down, even when we know it is not helping. Sometimes, it even escalates into a panic attack.
Something's got to give.
Focus on Perfectionism
Does it take you way too long to prepare for an important meeting at work? Do you feel that you have to be the best in all of your social activities—to the point that socializing becomes unpleasant for you and others around you? Sometimes you KNOW that making the best cookies for the holiday party is not really critical, yet there is something deep inside you that really pushes you to spend an enormous amount of time and money to be the best.
It can be good to have standards but when you always set yourself an unreasonably high bar, it can suck the time and joy out of you. Perhaps you are ready to investigate what makes you feel the need to be perfect at everything.
Anxiety stresses
me out.
Let's look into the ways you cope with anxiety and stress - many of us make poor choices here, opting to have an extra glass of wine, eat to self-soothe, or do some late-night online shopping. None of these things is inherently a bad thing but sometimes they cause bigger problems such as spending more than you can really afford, poor sleep, or raising your cholesterol levels. I am not a specialist on eating disorders or substance use but I have had success helping clients evaluate their choices and make deliberate changes that really work and are healthier in the long-term.
We will find practical stress management techniques that work for you and investigate other ways to reduce your stress, anxiety and panic attacks and identify potential roadblocks to making these important changes.
It may also be useful to dig a little deeper to better understand our constant, debilitating worry. Stress is bad enough but anxiety can really make it hard to engage at home, at work, and in relationships. Taking steps to manage this condition can help you be present and enjoy the good things in life.
Are you a people pleaser?
So many of my clients really struggle with this! Many women learn to please others as children and it becomes a pretty entrenched way of thinking. Even though my client are strong, accomplished and independent, they nonetheless really wrestle with the possibility of disappointing someone else-sometimes even when that person is a mere acquaintance. Does this sounds like you?
Many people in your life probably think of you as “nice” and may not even realize how their expectations make you feel about yourself. HINT: When you begin to implement these changes in your life, expect a lot of push back, especially from those close to you.
Acknowledging this tendency can be uncomfortable and even downright painful but it can feel incredibly freeing to let go of this exhausting habit.