Orlando counselor providing somatic resources for anxiety…

When anxiety has a stronghold on the body, it can feel like frenetic energy vibrating throughout the body. When working with clients, I also notice that it often lives in the upper half of the body, as well as in the front of the body. In the body, this looks like tension in the head, neck, chest and shoulders coupled with a forward momentum in the torso. All of this is happening outside of the conscious awareness of the person sitting in front of me.

Guided Meditation for Anxiety: Calm Place

Having a regular mindfulness and meditation practice helps to calm anxiety in a natural way. It brings online the part of the brain that tells the nervous system that you are safe now. If you have been struggling with anxiety, I recommend you start a mindfulness and meditation practice, as this teaches your brain and nervous system the ability to discern the difference between a threat and a trigger.

Orlando Counselor Providing Trauma, Anxiety, and Relationship Therapy

Do you ever wonder if your decisions are driven by old worn out fear patterns or if you’re getting an intuitive thought or hunch? Do you feel frozen in your tracks because you are afraid you will make the wrong decision?

Orlando Counselor Providing Trauma, Anxiety, and Relationship Therapy

Have you ever asked yourself, “Is this fear or my intuition telling me not to do this?” “Is my gut telling me ‘no’ or is my fear holding me back?” About 10 years ago, while I was working through my own anxiety, I asked my counselor a similar question… “How can I tell the difference between my fear and my intuition?”

Orlando Counseling Providing Anxiety Therapy

You’re feeling anxious. Your mind is racing. Your heart is pounding and you’re all revved up. Even though you want to relax, you can’t seem to turn it off. There is a constant nagging feeling that you’re not doing enough, an undercurrent of “go, go, go.” This feeling won’t let you rest. You stop and think about what you’re worrying about, and you can’t even seem to narrow it down to one thing. You just feel all geared up. You start to wonder, “What the heck is wrong with me?!"

Orlando Counseling Providing Anxiety Therapy

Your heart is pounding, your throat feels constricted, and your mouth is dry. Your system is geared up and ready to respond as if you’re actually in danger. You know there is no real threat, but you can’t seem to get your brain to calm down and stop acting like you’re being attacked by mountain lion. You’re exhausted from feeling all revved up and on edge.

Orlando Counseling Providing Anxiety Therapy

Your heart is pounding. Your mind is racing. Your mouth is dry. You have butterflies in your stomach. You feel pressured and rushed. You are caught up in the tidal wave of anxiety. When you feel it start to come, you think, “Not again!” and then a sense of dread comes over you.

As an anxiety and trauma therapist providing counseling in Orlando, I help my clients calm their anxious feelings using mindfulness. In this post, I will share some super simple mindfulness tools for soothing those overwhelming and uncomfortable feelings of anxiety.

Orlando Counseling Providing Anxiety Therapy

These days you can respond to your boss’s email, text your partner about the kids, google search a recipe for your dinner, answer your best friend’s phone call, and shop for your mom’s birthday gift all at the same. This makes you a super-efficient human being, right?

Nope, it doesn’t. It makes you a super stressed-out and anxious human doing in a pressure cooker about explode with anxiety.

Orlando Counseling Providing Anxiety, Trauma and Relationship Therapy

Rose Colored Glasses? Nope, That’s Not Me!

Do you hear things like, “Why are you so negative?” or “Why can’t you see the bright side of things?”

First of all, as humans, we all have what is called a negativity bias. This is our innate drive to tune into, and remember the negative experiences over positive ones. We can thank our ancestors, the cavemen, for this. It was much more important for them to remember which berries were deadly and how to avoid being eaten by a ferocious animal than it was to tune into the butterflies and rainbows. I could talk more about negativity bias, but I will save that for another article.