Therapy Services

Anxiety

Anxiety is the place that our bodies can live when we are feeling afraid, out of control, or worried to the point that it often translates into physical responses such as a stomachache, headache, crying, trouble taking deep breaths, difficulty leaving the house, avoidance of things or people. Anxiety can be either a characteristic of something else or something that comes a bit more regularly to us based on several factors. This feeling is often strong. It can take over (randomly or situationally) and cause a big impact such as overthinking, or over-producing. Some of the other symptoms of anxiety include restlessness, fatigue, irritability, or trouble eating and sleeping. Anxiety feels bigger than us. It can shut us down or make us move quickly. It can change the thoughts in our heads at a rapid pace. Anxiety can also lead us to avoid things. Anxiety can activate a part of us that feels like we are not enough. Anxiety is a liar.

Life Transition

People often ask me, “What is a life transition, and how do I know if I’m going through one?” My response is normally, “What big changes have happened in your life recently?  Has your circle of friends changed? Are you in a season of self-discovery? Did you move? Have you found out something that is going to change your life? Did something change in your schedule? Are you feeling lost?” If you can answer one or more of those questions, the answer is that you’re going through a transition. A transition is the marking of something new. Now, as humans, we do not always feel safe or confident when a transition is happening, even if it is our idea. Transitions leave us grieving something that may be left behind. Transitions are also a time of gaining and in the therapeutic space, we will work to uncover how the transition is impacting parts of you.

Trauma

Trauma is individualized and an emotional response to an event or series of events that left us feeling and/or being threatened (physically and/or emotionally). Our sense of safety and security is challenged after these experiences. Oftentimes, we then have long-term effects leaving our body in fight-or-flight responses. It can leave us questioning everything, including ourselves.  The body needs help to understand what happened because trauma gets “stuck” inside of us and we then begin to live in that space. We may then engage in self-harm or harmful things as we are looking to release the pain. Therapy can help us to understand our inner workings, honor the parts of us that were harmed, and find a path.

Relational Issues

We learn a lot about how to operate in relationships during our adolescence and through our experiences both inside and outside of our family systems. Sometimes, the systems we see are not the systems we want; however, role modeling is a pretty powerful thing. It creates a sense of knowing, or rather, unknowing. “Ahh, that’s how we show feelings” or “I never was shown how to be vulnerable in a relationship” are common statements I hear when someone is learning how to express themselves in a partnership, friendship, or family relationship. Vulnerability is a key ingredient to getting the best out of our relationships, but it feels really scary when you’re beginning to peel back the layers and find out how they systems were created and if they need to be broken down.