That familiar pit in your stomach, the racing heart and that on-edge feeling. When your brain decides that the best time to remind you of everything that could go wrong and all the ways you’ve failed is right when you’re about to fall asleep. Anxiety can show up in many ways for different people, and none of them are pleasant.

As one of my clients so wisely observed, anxiety is a lot like an allergic reaction – the swelling, the itchiness, the runny nose are all indicators that something is not right. Sometimes anxiety shows up for no particular reason, but most of the time it’s a signal that there is a deeper emotion (anger or sadness, for example) that for various reasons we don’t feel entitled to feel. Oftentimes, it’s a message from our deepest, truest selves that somewhere along the way we learned to ignore in order to stay connected to others.

Working with anxiety involves a two part process of addressing both the symptoms and the cause of anxiety. One part is building your toolkit using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to be able to manage the anxiety effectively so that you’re able to sleep, work, connect, or do what matters to you, regardless of how you feel. The second part uses AEDP to help you move through those deeper emotions without either getting yanked around by them or avoiding them altogether, and in the process rebuilding your connection to your truest self.

If you're ready to stop fighting your anxiety and start listening to it, let's talk.