Anxiety

You might experience it as “I worry all the time,” “I can’t stop thinking about this,” “My body is on red alert and can’t calm down,” “I’m always preparing for the other shoe to drop,” or “I know people are judging me.” Some of us are lucky enough to have a mixture of a few or all of these.

As a basic emotion, anxiety is not evil – in fact, it tells us what we care about, helps us to prepare for stressful situations, and reminds us that we are not robots. It also protects us from real threat. No doubt, our anxiety and fears also make us want to hide from and avoid situations, can feel too distressing to tolerate, or can paralyze us from action. I don’t want you to end up missing out on the good stuff in life. I’m interested in helping people understand their specific experience of anxiety and kick it out of the driver’s seat of their lives.

Signs of  high anxiety can include:

• Always feeling on edge, high-strung, hypervigilant

• Worries about the unknown or worst-case scenario that interferes with your ability to enjoy what is going on now

• Trouble sleeping due to racing thoughts

• Being distracted by a fear of how others might be judging you

• Repetitive, unproductive thought loops

• Feeling in a “daze,” numbed out, detached from your body

• Having specific periods of time where you can’t calm down, your heart is racing, you’re sweating, and breathing fast or shallow

• Freezing or giving into others out of fear