Is anxiety disrupting your ability to enjoy Life?
Do you experience frequent worry or dread?
Are ruminations and racing thoughts making it difficult to concentrate?
Is a sense of panic causing uncomfortable physical symptoms, including chest tightness and heart palpitations?
Anxiety perpetuates intrusive, disruptive thoughts that, if left untreated, can significantly compromise our quality of life.
What is Your Experience?
Symptoms of anxiety often manifest in the body. Feelings of worry and panic lead to muscle tension, difficulty breathing, and an inability to escape a worst-case-scenario mindset. The more anxiety is internalized within, the more our brains are conditioned to perceive a threat that does not currently exist.
Yet, anxiety does not affect the body alone—anxious, self-critical thinking is also likely to impact our work/academic performance, relationships, and overall mental attitude. Without a relaxed and balanced outlook, feelings of stress and burnout can begin to accumulate, worsening the cycle of anxiety. As a result, many individuals struggling with anxiety might look to substances or other means of escape to cope with the fear and anguish caused by their symptoms.
If you or your child have developed disruptive, distracting ruminations, you are not alone. Though anxiety is widely common, it is also very treatable. In treatment with the Create Wellbeing Therapy Collective, you are guided to explore the ways that anxiety is impacting your mind, body, and spirit as you develop lasting skills for managing stress and worry.
Why Does Anxiety Occur?
Despite the setbacks it can pose in our lives, there are actually some evolutionary benefits to anxiety. By keeping the body in a hyper-aroused state, anxiety protects us from both real and perceived dangers. Whether we are genetically predisposed to symptoms or suffer a trauma that puts us on high alert, symptoms of anxiety indicate the brain and body’s attempts to keep us safe.
Unfortunately, the more we engage in the cycle of anxiety, the more our symptoms keep us from being fully present and able to enjoy life. If left untreated, these symptoms can become debilitating—ultimately hindering our goals, relationships, and daily routine.
Types of Anxiety Disorders
Most of us will experience intrusive, fear-based thoughts at some point in our lives. However, the more entrenched these thoughts become, the more likely it is that symptoms signal a deeper issue. Some examples of anxiety disorders include:
- Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) – characterized by excessive and persistent worry about everyday stressors, including professional, academic, financial, and relational concerns.
- Panic Disorder – panic attacks that are acute episodes of intense fear that trigger physical symptoms like a racing heart, shortness of breath, dizziness, sweating, and muscle tightness.
- Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) – a specific form of anxiety disorder in which uncontrollable, obsessive thoughts lead to rituals that are designed to reduce fear and worry but ultimately continue the cycle of anxiety (i.e., a fear of germs (obsession) that leads to excessive hand-washing (compulsion), etc.)
Anxiety disorders can be present in individuals of all ages and backgrounds, but therapeutic treatment is a meaningful way to help those who struggle to get a handle on their stress. Working together with our therapists, clients can learn effective strategies for calming the nervous system and reducing the effects of anxiety on their lives.
A Body-Based, Whole-Person Approach to Anxiety Therapy
At Create Wellbeing Therapy, our unique, integrative therapy model guides clients of all ages in meaningfully reducing both short- and long-term anxiety symptoms. Our goal is to help:
Calm your distress.
Engage your whole self.
Integrate healing into your life.
This process begins with using integrative psychotherapy strategies to relieve distress and habituate to self-care practices that will interrupt the anxiety loops and stress in your body. Working together, we will engage your story to learn the deeper reasons behind why parts of you remain in a state of high alert and what these parts need to feel settled and nurtured.
Then, using individualized counseling, we will figure out how best to integrate your healing in your relationships so that you can maintain your growth and face the relational issues that might be connected to anxiety.
Integrative Therapy Approach
Our therapeutic approach is informed by effective body-based interventions—including integrative body therapy, acupuncture, breathwork, and stress-reduction techniques—that ultimately support our clients’ mental and emotional wellbeing.
Depending on the symptoms present, we will also incorporate behavioral methods and other approaches that have been proven to reduce anxiety. For example, elements of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) may be used alongside Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) to gently build tolerance and uncover the root cause of anxiety. Furthermore, as a spiritually informed practice, we are happy to incorporate faith-based perspectives upon request.
Relief from anxiety is possible. By receiving tailored, integrative care that addresses symptoms from the inside out, you can learn to respond to intrusive thoughts and feelings in a lasting, effective way.
Common Questions about Anxiety
I have struggled with anxiety my whole life—how can therapy help me now?
It is common for anxiety to be longstanding. As such, our goal as therapists is to support you in developing the necessary skills for moving through the cycle of anxiety in a lasting way. Using the body-based perspectives we offer, you can create a new, healthier, and more manageable relationship with your fears and worries.
Will anxiety treatment actually work?
Learning to calm the nervous system takes practice and the support of a trained therapist who specializes in anxiety. We are uniquely suited to help you engage in body-based self-care practices that will reduce surface-level symptoms, as well as address underlying causes of your stress and panic.
Is therapy worth the cost?
Therapy is an investment in your wellbeing. If you are concerned about the cost of counseling, we encourage you to be honest about whether you are really prioritizing yourself and your healing process. Your mental health and wellbeing are invaluable!
There are Answers. There are Solutions. There is Hope.
At Create Wellbeing Therapy Collective, we work with children, teens, and adults in counseling who struggle with intrusive thinking, ruminations, panic attacks, and other forms of anxiety. To find out more about how we can help, contact us.