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Working with Anxiety

 

Anxiety is not just worry. It is a way of staying alert, braced, and prepared for things to go wrong.

 

You might find yourself overthinking conversations, replaying what you said, or scanning for signs that something isn’t right. Anxiety can show up as tension in the body, restlessness, or an inability to properly relax. For some people it appears as self-doubt and indecision; for others, as a constant pressure to get things right or not let anyone down.

 

Often, anxiety is less about what is happening now and more about what might happen. It pulls your attention into the future, keeps you monitoring yourself and others, and can leave you feeling drained, tense, or distanced from your own needs and feelings.​​

When anxiety starts to take over

Many people I work with have been living with anxiety for a long time. They may appear capable and thoughtful on the outside, while inside they are second-guessing themselves, holding things together, or trying to prevent mistakes before they happen.

 

Gradually, anxiety can begin to influence everyday choices, relationships, and self-worth. You might avoid situations that feel exposing, rely on reassurance, or feel caught between wanting closeness and fearing the consequences of it. Even when things are going well, anxiety can make it hard to trust that it will last.

How I work with anxiety

In therapy, we won't treat anxiety as something to eliminate or override. Instead, we will take time to understand how it operates in your life and what it has been trying to protect you from.

 

We will look at how anxiety becomes active in your thinking, your emotional life, and your relationships, and we will notice when it takes over, the assumptions it makes, and the expectations it places on you. Often, anxiety developed for understandable reasons earlier in life. The difficulty is that what once was helpful can later become restrictive.

 

Therapy offers a space where anxiety does not have to remain in control. As our understanding grows, people often find they can relate to anxiety differently and feel less governed by it.

Anxiety and relationships

Anxiety often becomes most visible in relationships. You might worry about being too much or not enough, fear rejection, or feel overly responsible for how others feel. Small changes in tone or distance can feel unsettling, leading to overthinking, reassurance-seeking, or withdrawal.

 

If anxiety is affecting how you relate to partners, friends, or family, this can be an important part of our work together. We can explore these patterns as they emerge and begin to understand where they come from and how they continue to influence your relationships.

 

You may also wish to read my page Working with Relationship difficulties.

What can change

Many people find that when anxiety is understood rather than battled, it begins to soften. This doesn’t mean never feeling anxious again, but feeling less driven by it. Over time, people often describe feeling more grounded, more able to tolerate uncertainty, and more trusting of their own judgement.

 

If anxiety has been taking up too much space in your life, therapy can help create room for something different.

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