Are You Struggling With Anxiety Because Of Overwhelming Life Decisions?
Should I get married? Have kids? Buy a house? Or should I get a divorce?
What career path should I choose? Or should I change jobs?
Do I want to live a life dictated by what my parents or society expects of me? Or how do I find my own path?
How do I best help my aging parent(s)? Will I be able to take care of them? Or do I need to consider a care facility?
Making big life decisions can seem like an impossible task. You may feel so overwhelmed about how to make the right choices for yourself that you just shut down.
Anxiety Can Make You Feel Unheard, Even By Those Closest To You
Perhaps you’re constantly giving to others and worrying about their needs, but what you wanted or expected out of life isn’t being fulfilled.
At the end of the day, your emotional needs are often overshadowed by everyone else’s—your child, your spouse, your parents. Everything seems unbalanced, and you may feel overwhelmed by your own anxious thoughts.
You want to share what’s on your mind but are unsure of how to do that. And because you feel unappreciated and unloved, you may withdraw from the ones you love the most.
All you want is to escape the constant stress and pressure for just a moment. What if you could stop letting guilt and shame be the motivations for your choices? What if you could learn to make decisions based on your own values from a place of love and care?
No matter what life has in store for you—significant life transitions, kids, career changes, and more—treatment can help you learn to manage your anxiety and find your own path.
Anxiety Is A Part Of The Human Condition
Many people may not realize that anxiety is an essential and valuable emotion. Our brains trigger anxious feelings to keep us safe. And when we constantly think about safety, we’re bound to feel anxious.
The problem is, when anxiety becomes the driving force in our lives, consuming our thoughts and disrupting our daily functioning, it turns into a clinical challenge. Therapy can help address this unhealthy aspect of anxiety, not by eliminating anxiety but by managing it and taking it from being the overwhelming factor in our decision-making to being a companion and a tool.
The Expectations Of Society Can Cause Constant Stress
From an early age, the image of a “perfect life” is force-fed onto us—a college education, a big house with a white picket fence, a beautiful spouse, and adorable little tykes. And this false reality of the “best life” is perpetuated by many elements—modern society, our families, our cultures, and even ourselves.
We don’t believe we are good enough until we fit the mold of the “American dream.”
But focusing on checking off all these proverbial boxes is like chasing after other people’s dreams. Finding what you value and following that as your guide to making life decisions will bring you much closer to a place of joy in your life. Counseling for anxiety can help you obtain that ability.
Treatment Can Teach You How To Manage Your Anxiety For Good
At The Sacramento Counselor Group, we approach treatment by assessing and meeting your unique needs. The ultimate goal of anxiety therapy is to equip you with the tools to take on whichever life challenges you’re facing through psychoeducation and skill building.
What to Expect in Anxiety Treatment Sessions
First, our counselors will focus on identifying the most immediate concerns and challenges related to your anxiety. Then, we work with you on developing skills and coping methods to help ease daily stressors.
Once you feel life is more manageable, we turn our attention to the longer-term goal of identifying what brought you to this place of overwhelming anxiety and stress and what you can do to not return there.
We believe that without understanding why or how you do something, it can be difficult to find solutions. That is why treatment involves educating you about your anxiety first before you can learn to manage it through coping, tolerance, perspective-shifting, self-care, and motivation skills.
Think of what causes your anxiety as a skill deficit, meaning your anxiety is not something to be “fixed.” And your therapist will teach you what you need to know to address this deficit and be a skilled anxiety manager.
Anxiety Treatment Methods We Use
Depending on your individual needs, we utilize a variety of treatment approaches:
● Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) – an evidence-based therapeutic approach that helps build awareness of unrealistic thinking and your responses to anxiety, such as fast heartbeat, sweaty palms, tight chest, involuntary shaking, etc. From there, you can learn coping strategies to calm your body, shift your perspective, and move away from the cognitive distortions anxiety uses to trick you (catastrophizing, perfectionism, mind reading, etc.) and into a more manageable state of being.
● Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) – used in anxiety treatment to promote an understanding of the duality of your brain between emotions and logic. You will feel the most balanced where they intersect, making decisions not only from a rational mind or motivated by emotions but from a harmony of both.
● Narrative Therapy – explores how you perceive yourself as a character in the world, your values, and your skills. Used in therapy, it gives you the ability to deconstruct and reconstruct a new narrative about yourself.
● Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) – a therapy method that can help you move from an abstract to a more specific understanding of your emotions and learn how to express them.
● Motivational Interviewing – a specific therapeutic technique for anxiety in which a therapist uses a communication style that motivates and empowers you to make shifts for yourself and within yourself.
● Mindfulness – helps direct your focus on the present moment and your surroundings, not the unhealthy thoughts that anxiety causes to pop into your mind. As a tool in therapy, mindfulness can help you make changes in your relationship with anxiety and your responses.
Anxiety does not have to be the focal point of your life. We can help you find tools and ways to live a life of greater ease and follow your own path to success.
Maybe You’re Thinking Of Trying Anxiety Therapy, But You Still Have Some Concerns…
I’m worried that seeing a therapist means I’m too weak to recover on my own.
Needing help is a sign of being human. We can not expect ourselves to be experts in everything. Having people support us as we grow in our understanding of our mental health is an integral part of gaining the knowledge and skills to overcome anxiety.
I’ve tried therapy before, and nothing changed. How will this be any different?
Your relationship with your therapist is unique and different from any other relationship. Finding the right therapist can feel like a daunting task. But at The Sacramento Counselor Group, we pull from many different theories and modalities to meet the needs of each client. We know your life and experiences differ from the next person's, so we focus on matching our style and techniques to your needs.
How long will I need to be in therapy? How much does it cost?
There is no set time frame for anxiety treatment. The majority of us cannot take time away from our everyday life to devote weeks or months to our mental health. But weekly therapy appointments coupled with practice at home allow for continued change. Most clients see a reduction in their anxiety symptoms' intensity, frequency, and length within six months to a year of consistent therapy services.
We provide good faith estimates to all our clients to help them understand the potential cost.
Are You Ready To Forge Your Own Path To Healing?
If you’re tired of feeling overwhelmed by stress and anxiety, treatment at The Sacramento Counselor Group can help you find your path to serenity. To start, we invite you to schedule a free, 15-minute phone consultation. Call (916) 707-1758 or visit the referral link on our website.
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