Anxiety Station Break

Step out of the anxiety spiral. Discover how mindful pauses—and creative expression—can restore presence, soothe your system, and support self-care.

It’s not all about work and striving

It's really not at all about work and striving. It's not all about work and progress, even in regards to personal growth. Especially in regards to personal growth and your healing journey. You're not going to be able to will yourself into the next iteration of your life or yourself. Or push past anxiety in any meaningful and helpful way. Your anxious experience is here as your teacher, in my opinion, and it is a very patient task masker. Anxiety will wait for you to catch on to the changes that need to be made.

When we’re mired in stress, anxiety, and overproducing, we lose track of ourselves

A lot of us anxious folks have forgotten who we are. We've forgotten what gives us pleasure beyond the pleasure of finishing the job or making the next deadline. We've forgotten our old passions, forgotten what gives us joy, lost track of our playfulness, and mistaken productivity for the source of our happiness. Instead, we work. And work. We manage ourselves and others. We worry and problem solve. We create problems to solve. We dive into our To-Do lists with fervor and grab our dopamine hits there.

Creativity and pleasure can be your greatest tools in reducing overwhelming anxiety

Building time for creativity into your day can help you dig out of your anxious rut. Actually doing creative activities such as journaling, doodling, gardening, painting, or cooking can create a lot of ease in the nervous system. Here's the thing, though, that creative moment can also include daydreaming, dancing, mindful attention to beauty and the quality of light around you, singing, humming, and whistling. In fact, drumming is excellent for altering your sense of time and awareness of self.

Bit by bit, life can become more vibrant

Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash

Allowing your mind to wander creates a sense of spaciousness and ease. Creates a sense of possibility and potentiality. Creates a sense of optimism. It allows the nervous system to settle. Makes room for something other than worry and busyness. Increases our resiliency. Allows the mind to empty and makes room for a renewed sense of energy and vitality. Slipping into the zone while engaged in creativity, creative thought, movement, music, the contemplation of beauty and nature, is a form of mindfulness and brings with it rewards. We can learn to create more space in our lives for ourselves and in so doing, anxiety can start to slip away. In it's place, we find more energy is available with which to explore life more fully. To live. And that is, after all, the point.

I help people who feel bad feel better. Let’s talk. Learn about online anxiety therapy in California.

Why Am I the Only One Who is Anxious

You’re not the only one. Explore why anxiety can feel so isolating and how nervous system awareness can shift your experience of being “too much.”

Michael Heise—unsplash

Why does anxiety make you feel like the only one struggling?

When you look around your family, friendship circle, and
co-workers, does it seem like you’re the only one stressing out? Do you get the impression everyone else has somehow
got life wired and is managing better than you are right now? Always? Maybe struggling with a little Imposter Syndrome? Although you’re perceived as competent, does it feel like you’re faking it somehow? If they only knew how you felt and who you were on the inside, they’d never trust you with a coffee order, let alone a project at work.

Anxiety feels isolating, but you're not alone

Your anxiety and struggles are much more common than you'd guess. Yeah, just a part of the human condition at times. This I know, having daily worked with and focused on supporting highly anxious adults in my practice for the last fifteen years

I specialize in anxiety reduction. I utilize depth-oriented talk therapy, cultivating self-regulation and resiliency, and  incorporating Somatic Experiencing (a gentle body-oriented trauma therapy) for a well-rounded, grounded, holistic approach to feeling better. While sometimes super uncomfortable and even debilitating, feelings of intense anxiety and even panic attack are common. Too common. In fact, these fears are quite prevalent in our surface-oriented-optimism-and-extroversion-is-good-for-business-and-life culture. Even if the only thing we’re selling is ourselves.

BBH Singapore—unsplash

Comparing yourself to others can fuel anxiety

We compare our inside experience to how other people present on the outside. How they want to be seen. Facebook, of course, is a great example of this. If we’re on social media at all, then most of us are curating our image. Editing. We show ourselves as we want to be seen: successful, accomplished, confident, happy, beautiful, or handsome.

It’s not new, of course. Presenting a front is part of real life too. Playing it close to the chest, when it comes to our fears and weaknesses has probably been going on since humankind reared up onto their two legs, if not before. In fact, we could argue this is just good survival strategy. Awesome adaptive behavior. It pays to look big, strong, assertive, experienced, and in control in the natural world. Everything from frogs to mammals have puffed up and played some competent, confident version of the I’M TOO BIG TO TANGLE WITH game. Or too fast to catch. Or too wily for you. We’re really not that different.

How anxiety and overthinking can keep you from enjoying life

Nik Shuliahin—unsplash

There’s a price to be paid, of course. All this subterfuge. All this hiding out with our insecurities and fears. For one thing, it takes a whole lot of energy to try and control our interior world and not let it leak out in some image shattering way. We don’t want to show when we’re sweating it. We really don’t want to let on when we’re panicking. Of feeling shaken. Here’s the thing, though. Your anxious responses are designed to save your ass and keep you out of danger, not run your life. And certainly not to ruin your life.

One cost of high anxiety and stress is feelings of isolation. The question posed at the start, “Why am I the only one?” is a self-isolating lie. When we are so invested in keeping a lid on it, we fail to open up to others. We lose out on the opportunity to connect and to connect most deeply. We miss the opportunity to be seen and known. We miss out on being loved for who we are. Our bogus painful story that we are inadequate or unlovable is sneakily reinforced. To top it off, our anxiety can keep us so caught up in our thoughts that we're not really available to be present and attentive to the people we care about most. We end up alone in our head, second guessing ourselves, and missing out on our share of the goodies.

Online therapy for anxiety and burnout in California

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Experiencing highly anxious states on a daily basis, or being run down by rumination and intrusive negative thoughts, doesn’t have to be the way it is for you. Even if it is more common than you imagine. You don't need to sacrifice your joy, happiness, and well-being. When anxiety and worry are running the show it’s a good time to get some support. You don’t have to try and solve it on your own. As much as it might go against the grain for you, lean in a little. Allow support. At least talk to a friend, or find a therapist like myself to confide in. A trained, neutral helper can be invaluable at times like this.
 
There are ways to break anxious patterns of experience. To reduce the painful and invasive thoughts. To sort it out a bit. Lower the level of anxiety, and with it, the depression and low mood. Lower the stress hormones running wild in your body. Reduce the physically uncomfortable sensations that accompany highly anxious moments and feed the cycle of negative and self-limiting thoughts. There are tools to learn. Habits to acquire. Some self-compassion to cultivate. Yes, there is life on the other side of overwhelming anxiety. And it is good.

I help people who feel bad feel better. Let’s talk. Learn about online anxiety therapy in California.

Why Somatic Experiencing—Panic Attack

Collage art by Victoria Wallace Schlicht

Learn how Somatic Experiencing can help you understand the purpose of anxiety, reduce panic and overwhelm, and build increased self-regulation and resiliency.

How chronic anxiety & panic attacks hijack your freedom

Out of control anxiety and panic can rob you of your freedom. It can certainly rob you of your joy and spontaneity in life. Drain you. I see it every day. New clients coming in, weighed down by concerns, worn out by worry and rumination. Bearing all the signs of a nervous system under assault.

The experience we have of overwhelming and out of control anxiety fills our mind and our bodies with disturbing symptoms and sensations. We're caught in endless and intense cycles of rumination, racing thoughts, negative and often catastrophic thoughts, sweaty palms, racing heart beat, breathlessness, tight chest, stomach agitation, acid reflux, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, high blood pressure, muscle pain and tightness. It goes on and on and on. High anxiety is extremely uncomfortable and can have a lasting impact on our general physical health.

Panic-attack symptoms: when anxiety mimics a heart attack

If your generally anxious experience has actually progressed to the level of panic attacks, you're sometimes experiencing all these symptoms and more. Panic attacks will be characterized by their sudden onset and an overwhelming sense of dread and doom. In fact, panic attacks are so intense they routinely send folks to the ER with symptoms similar to heart attack. Heart pounding, chest pain or tightness, sweaty palms, trembling, fear. My clients have reported narrowing of the field of vision, feeling as if they are going to pass out, afraid they are actually dying. The level of panic in an actual panic attack is not something you miss. It's obvious and one of the side effects is often embarrassment. Panic is so intense that after your first panic attack your primary anxious fear may be ever feeling that way again. You'll do anything to avoid feeling this again. Anxiety, in general, and panic, in particular, can have to effect of beginning to limit your life in significant ways. You may stop going places that might lead to anxiety. Stop doing things you enjoy. This can be progressive in nature, ultimately limiting your life more and more.

Chronic anxiety drains energy, self-esteem—and relationships

Our high and anxiety and panic impacts our interior life, our mental and emotional functioning, our sense of agency and control in our lives, our self-esteem, our work and social lives, and can deal a hard blow to our most valued and intimate relationships. Our high anxiety demands a lot out of us and can demand a lot from the people around us, as they make efforts to accommodate our growing list of needs, demands, and restrictions, to say nothing of our irritability. Long-term, highly anxious states can have the unhappy consequence of stressing our most important and intimate relationships, adding yet another level of stress to our lives. Anxiety is exhausting and it can become isolating.

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Why your nervous system gets stuck in anxiety in the first place

Our anxious experience is there for a reason. Anxiety is part of your built-in survival mechanisms. Working as it should, anxiety is there to keep you safe, alert you to danger, and fuel your quick responses. We want you alert enough to  know when you're safe and when you're not. The problem is, given enough of the right kind of stimulation over the course of a lifetime, somehow anxiety ends up running the deal. We're stuck in anxious overdrive. Stuck in our anxious problem solving mind. We may always feel afraid in some way, not only when there is something to fear. Instead of being appropriately aware and oriented, we are vigilant and feel under near constant threat. All the time. It's exhausting. And emotionally painful.

The hidden survival function behind anxiety

Alex Harvey—unsplash

Believe it or not, while it may feel like your anxious experience is out to get you and your body has become your enemy, anxiety is here to help. Anxiety is doing it's job of looking out for you, keep you safe, and making sure you avoid danger and pain. It doesn't feel that way, though. Anxious experience promotes and shows up as persistent negative thoughts and highly critical self-talk. An out of control, negative, and critical parent. Sometimes I think of anxiety as a well-meaning, nosy grandma, constantly fussing in our ear about how we won't be successful if we don't do this, or that we shouldn't try something new, launch out into the world, trust anyone other than ourselves, or take a chance on a new adventure. "Don't leave without your coat! It's a scary cold world out there!" Our anxious thoughts are running hard ahead of us trying to keep us safe and willing to use any means possible to do so.

You need your anxiety. It isn't going anywhere. But just like dealing with overly critical and intrusive parents and worried. kvetching grandmas, we can learn to set boundaries. We can learn to bring our out of bounds anxiety back into healthy, functional, and useful levels. It's a process. It's a process and there's a learning curve to negotiate.

How Somatic Experiencing eases panic symptoms in the body

Gabby Orcutt—unsplash

Why use body-oriented psychotherapy for anxiety and panic attack? Because it works. As we've discussed, your experience of anxiety is felt strongly in the body. Overwhelmingly so. You are experiencing it in your gut, in the tightness in your chest and throat, in your breathlessness, through your racing heart, in your racing thoughts, and in your sense of overwhelm. Anxious physical symptoms may arise from our thoughts, even our transient thoughts, and anxious thoughts may emerge as a result of sensations in the body. It's an endless loop. When working with highly anxious clients, I am looking for multiple ways to disrupt this loop and to soften the experience of high anxiety over time. We're looking for a way to emerge from this sometimes overwhelming experience of ourselves.

Anxiety is a very physical experience, as well as a mental one. Our habits of anxious coping strategies are located deep in our nervous systems, in our psyche, and in our history, typically arising from brilliant coping strategies we employed as children. Since the experience of high and anxiety and panic occurs over multiple aspects of ourselves, I prefer a multipronged, holistic, and somatically informed approach. It is what I find most effective. In addition to being trained as a Depth and Systems therapist, I have been fully trained, certified in, and daily utilize Somatic Experiencing, a body-oriented trauma and healing modality. Somatic Experiencing works with the nervous system to support the release, resolution, and healing of big and small traumas. It is also priceless for working with and settling highly anxious adult nervous systems.

Learning somatic self-regulation—no special tools required

One thing I love about holistic body-oriented approaches is they require a body and everyone I know already has a body. No need to buy one. No need to continue to feel overwhelmed by your body and mind. No need to feel you are the victim of your anxious experience. You can befriend your body again. You can get back in touch with your innate joy and well-being. You can begin to notice where you feel the best or most neutral within yourself and allow that awareness to spread. You can become more free.

Wouldn't it be nice to learn how to work with both your mind and your body to reduce your anxiety and panic and begin to reclaim your life? Call now and begin to use your body awareness to learn the deep skills of self-regulation, cultivate resiliency, and get your life back and back on track.

I help people who feel bad feel better. Let’s talk. Learn about online therapy in California.