Taming Your Anxiety
Anxiety was Tom’s* constant companion.
It was like an older brother: moderately annoying and constantly pushing him around on the good days. The bad days were a different story. His whole body felt as if it were vibrating like a plucked guitar string. It was challenging to focus on anything other than the most current object of his anxiety.
What made it all so frustrating was that Tom had a good life. He had a solid job with good promotion prospects, a girlfriend who adored him, and a supportive family. And he lived in a city he loved. But none of those things stopped the undercurrent of anxiety that swept through his daily life.
Even when there was nothing to worry about, his brain actively searched for something to fret over. It was like going to the fridge when you’re bored – to see if anything new popped up in the last few minutes. But instead of browsing leftovers, he dredged up some new fear to unleash on his mind.
I wish Tom’s story were unique, but it’s not.
Many of us live with wild anxieties that affect our relationships, work, and basic ability to enjoy life.
Your anxiety may look like persistent panic attacks with sweaty palms and a heart that beats like a jackhammer. Maybe it’s racing thoughts that won’t go away no matter how many meditations you do. They’re like a dog whose jaws have latched onto a bone.
Or maybe, you’re the “parent” of your friend group, always caring for and worrying about others. And when you go to sleep at night, your brain just won’t comply. Your head hits the pillow, and your thoughts shift into high gear, banishing any hope of sleep.
I bet you’ve started to accept this is “just how life is.”
Janet* didn’t believe that therapy could help.
She’d had anxiety since she was at least five years old, and that was just because she couldn’t remember any further back than five. She could remember that every sentence started with “maybe,” or ended with “I guess,” because the thought of making a mistake without qualifying it with those words terrified her.
When she sat in class and at work, her leg bounced up and down like a pogo stick. She could feel her chest tighten when she had to make presentations. And when she went home for the day, she just wanted to crawl under the covers and have some relief from her anxiety. Every Sunday, she felt that anxiety ratchet up for dealing with people and expectations for the upcoming week.
With a life full of anxiety for so long, could therapy help? Or was it going to be another one who gave her a self-help book and droned on and on about the powers of meditation?
It’s time to redefine your relationship with worry.
At Dallas Psychotherapy, we’re not going to give you junk advice like, “Have you tried not worrying?”
Instead, we educate you about the different kinds of anxiety and how to identify them when they visit you.
It possible that you might have what we call real worries: anxiety about situations that are almost certainly going to happen.
For example, if you live in the United States, you will have to file federal income tax. However, hypothetical worry is a type of anxiety in which someone conjures unlikely situations that they might face and begins to ruminate about it. These two different anxiety types require quite different approaches: worry about income taxes might be best dealt with through practice in problem-solving. In contrast, worry about if everyone at the office hates you requires some altering of thoughts.
We also provide clear guidance on how to “worry in the right way” – how to manage it so that it doesn’t take over your life.
Worry, specifically hypothetical worry, is like going swimming in the summer.
,p>If you’ve ever jumped into a pool that was just a little bit too cold, you can imagine how your skin reacts once it hits the water. There’s an urge to jump right out of that pool, but you know if you stick around a bit, then you’ll warm-up.
But if you do jump out, you’ll have to start the process repeatedly – that’s how we tend to worry. We think about it for a few minutes, distract ourselves, and then continue the process for the next day, week, month, year.
At Dallas Psychotherapy, we draw from the Intolerance of Ambiguity Model of Anxiety, which teaches individuals how to engage in scheduled worry that allows you to see your anxiety plateau and eventually descend.
We also help you think about your thinking.
The ancient Greeks believed that logic was stable, dependable, and could be trained. Whereas emotions were wild and unstable, like the feral beasts of the field. We reject that notion at Dallas Psychotherapy and believe that logic and emotions can both be trained. To do that, we provide education about how we think that leads to emotions being unpredictable and upsetting. We frequently have clients ask themselves, “Is that a fact or a feeling?”
Once that’s been identified, we provide experiential practice in reacting appropriately to facts and feelings. We also teach our clients to evaluate what parts of a thought or feeling are helpful and which ones provide no actionable data.
You may have talked to other counselors or friends who believe in the power of “positive thinking.” At Dallas Psychotherapy, we emphasize the power of “accurate and helping thinking.”
It’s time to stop anxiety from bullying you.
Your anxiety may have started recently or been a long-time companion. However, that fact alone doesn’t doom you to a life that is impaired by anxiety.
We can provide the skills you need to manage your anxiety so that you can enjoy your life.
You can learn to enjoy quiet moments and gain freedom from the anxiety that has plagued you for so long.
Reach out today. Give us a call, and let’s schedule your free 15-minute consultation: (469) 225-0344.
*Names changed to preserve client confidentiality.