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Anxiety, Worry & Stress- Help From a Raleigh Therapist

We know all too well…. the pit in the stomach, butterflies, short shallow breath, heart racing; the scattered fearfulness of anxiety.
By definition, Anxiety is fear of the unknown. We know to be afraid, but of what, we aren’t entirely sure.
Certainly, anxiety serves several functions and crops up in different forms and for different reasons. Our evolutionary psyche is wired to keep us alive. It wasn’t that long ago ( in the course of human development) we needed to stay alert, very alert, to keep from being swallowed up by a bear.
And, our brains were and are wired to feel danger more readily than to feel gratitude. We avoid the danger and live to procreate another day!
The problem is… we have these very old-slow to change brains when modern life isn’t as dangerous. Still, we feel the fear.  We stress out.
Our animal brain scans the environment to find them before they find us.  The kicker is,  most of those things never happen.

 Much of what worry might happen doesn’t, in fact, come true. Still things we don’t want to happen, we spend much time anticipating and trying to avoid.

So much, in fact,  much of the anxiety we feel comes from avoidance. 
You know the breakup conversation we just know in our gut is coming… but we’d rather not have it. Although, when it does happen, we, in fact, live through the pain of it and ultimately make room in our lives for the next good thing to come along.
We know this, yet we unconsciously cling to the fear. 
By the same token, there is a mechanism in our brain that tells us that worrying about something prevents it from happening. This is, of course, a total lie we tell ourselves but we believe this lie wholeheartedly.
We SO want to be in control. We will unconsciously choose misery rather than admit the loss of control. Even if that control is but an illusion.
As hard as it is, when we face our true feelings, process those feelings with someone who really gets us we can let go of anxiety and make plans to effectively deal with our life. By facing the hard feelings, we end up feeling more competent. This in, turn helps us feel less anxious.
This turn around is what happens in therapy. Just as anxiety and worry feed on themselves, facing things and talking through help us feel more secure and thus less anxious.
If you’d like to book a session, don’t hesitate to contact me!