Therapy for Anxiety
online in colorado & Indiana
The mind that won't stop is often the one that knows something needs to change.
Anxiety has a way of taking over your entire body before your mind even has a chance to catch up. It’s difficult to be present in your own life when your heart is racing, your thoughts are swirling, your chest and shoulders feel tight, and the restlessness won’t let you sit still.
And underneath all of it, there’s one persistent feeling: something is wrong, and you have to fix it.
Even when you know your fears are irrational, and even when you can look at a situation logically and tell yourself there's nothing to worry about, your body doesn't care. It interprets danger anyway.
To everyone around you, you seem fine, but you know what it costs to show up that way every single day.
Anxiety isn't who you are.
It's the manifestation of your nervous system doing exactly what it was designed to do: keep you safe. At some point in your life, staying on high alert and scouting for danger made sense. The problem is that your body never got the memo that the threat has passed, so it responds to ordinary moments like they're emergencies.
Anxiety can sound like…
"I'm so tired of doing things all the time."
"I always feel like something is wrong, even when there's nothing wrong."
"I should be further along by now."
“I’m not good enough, smart enough, talented enough to do what I want to do or be who I want to be.”
"What if I change and don't like who I become?"
"What if things get worse before they get better?"
"What if I’m just an anxious person, and that’s all I’ll ever be?"
"What if I let go of who I've been and lose myself?"
You may have already tried to manage anxiety through deep breathing, journaling, listening to podcasts, or reading self-help books, and maybe they help for a little while. Coping strategies alone only go so far because they address the symptoms without touching the root. If we don't look at where the anxiety came from and what it's been protecting you from, it will keep finding its way back.
This work goes beyond just managing anxiety; we're understanding it, working with it, and teaching the parts of you that have been on high alert that it's finally safe to rest.
My approach
I believe every part of us, including the ones we'd rather not have, serves a purpose, or it wouldn't be there. I know what it's like to despise anxiety, and my goal is to help you befriend it instead.
we’ll work to…
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Anxiety takes a toll on your body and your mind. We'll develop a toolkit for you using somatic approaches, CBT, and Internal Family Systems (IFS) to explore things like how to use journaling to process emotions effectively and how to work with your nervous system so it learns to relax outside of session.
Different things work for different people, so we'll find what works for you.
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Anxiety loves a good story, usually a worst-case one. We'll look at the cognitive patterns keeping you stuck, like catastrophizing and negative self-talk, and explore the relationship between your thoughts, emotions, and behavior. You'll learn to catch anxious thoughts, understand where they're coming from, and reframe them in ways that benefit you without just temporarily quieting them.
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There's a big difference between managing anxiety and healing it. Using IFS and/or hypnotherapy, we'll go beneath the surface to explore where your anxiety came from and what it's been protecting you from. The goal is to make peace with it so it no longer has to keep you safe because it trusts you to keep yourself safe.
What we’ll talk about:
People-pleasing
Productivity guilt
Future-tripping
Catastrophizing
Imposter syndrome
Self-esteem
Time anxiety
Perfectionism
Burnout
Attachment styles
Health anxiety
Identity
Financial anxiety
And anything else that's keeping you up at night
what becomes possible:
When you're in charge of your life, anxiety takes the backseat. You feel capable of making decisions and handling any potential outcome. You stop measuring your worth against everyone else's timelines or expectations.
The what-if thinking that once hijacked your mind starts to quiet. You can be present in your own life without bracing for something to go wrong. You stop abandoning yourself in the name of keeping everyone else comfortable.
You understand why you felt the way you did, and that understanding replaces the shame. You trust yourself, maybe for the first time. You spend your days feeling calm, collected, and free.
what that can look like:
✓ Waking up without your heart racing, and falling asleep without replaying every conversation from the day.
✓ Making a decision and moving forward without spending days second-guessing yourself.
✓ Saying no without the guilt and shame that follows.
✓ No longer ruminating on past situations or bracing for future ones that may never happen.
✓ Showing up in your relationships without anxiety dictating how much of yourself you give.
✓ Living like your life actually belongs to you.
Anxiety doesn't have to be the loudest voice in the room.
FAQs
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Anxiety is a persistent and intense feeling of worry that can last for weeks, months, or even years. It's often accompanied by physical symptoms like heart palpitations, sweating, irritability, poor concentration, and sleep disturbances and can interfere with daily activities and relationships.
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Stress is a normal reaction to an overwhelming situation, such as deadlines or major life changes. Once the situation has resolved, the stress typically disappears.
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Everyone is different, so in therapy, our approach to treating your anxiety depends on what works for you. Generally speaking, here are some ways to manage anxiety:
- Deep breathing exercises: Taking slow, deep breaths can help you relax and reduce your heart rate when you’re feeling anxious. I recommend 5-7-5 breathing: inhaling for five seconds, holding your breath for 7 seconds, and exhaling for 5 seconds. Repeat.
- Mindfulness meditation: Mindfulness meditation involves focusing your attention on the present moment and observing your thoughts and feelings without judgment. Meditation has been shown to reduce cortisol (aka the stress hormone) levels, as well as improve focus, concentration, and sleep.
- Regular exercise: Exercise releases endorphins, which can improve your mood and help you feel more relaxed.
- Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT): CBT is a type of therapy that helps you identify and change negative thought patterns and behaviors that contribute to anxiety.
To learn more about my approach to therapy, click here.
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The length of time it takes to see improvement in anxiety symptoms with therapy can vary depending on the severity of your symptoms, the type of therapy you're receiving, and how committed you are to the process.
Often, within a few weeks or months of beginning therapy, many clients begin to notice improvements in their anxiety symptoms. It's crucial to remember that therapy is a process, and it can take longer before you see a noticeable change.
Ultimately, it’s important to be patient with yourself. Change doesn’t happen overnight.
