Anxiety Counseling
in Kansas City, Missouri
Is anxiety robbing you of peace in your life?
On the outside you look like you have it all together. Working hard, taking care of others and holding everything together. Inside it feels like you are running on a hamster wheel. You can’t stop your anxious and racing thoughts. You feel exhausted, tense, restless, and live with knots in your stomach.
It’s anxiety, and it feels miserable.
Anxiety is described as “a common mental health condition characterized by excessive worry, fear, and nervousness that can interfere with daily life.” Anxiety may be a normal response to stress, but when it becomes persistent, severe or overwhelming, it can be considered an anxiety disorder.
While many people struggle with anxiety daily, you do not have to accept living with anxiety as your norm. Therapy for anxiety has been known to help many people move from a place of constant stress and worry to experiencing peace of mind and contentment.
How do I know if I am dealing with anxiety?
Do you find yourself frequently worrying, having ruminating thoughts, or running over past or potential future scenarios over and over in your mind?
Do you have difficulty concentrating or making even small decisions?
Do you feel irritable and find it almost impossible to cope with what others would consider “normal stressors?”
Do you struggle to sleep, finding it hard to shut down your thoughts, thinking about everything that went wrong during the day or what could go wrong tomorrow?
Do you deal with physical symptoms such as sweating, rapid heart rate, muscle tension or shortness of breath?
Each of these symptoms are common with an anxiety disorder. You don’t have to continue suffering with anxiety alone. You deserve to find peace and enjoy experiencing the good things in life again.
Doesn’t everyone deal with anxiety? What’s the big deal?
While most people have experienced some level of stress and anxiety in their lives, anxiety disorders cause such significant distress that it makes it hard to function. Constant fear and worry interfere with daily life. Many people find themselves struggling to perform well at work, school, or complete tasks like they used to. Avoidance of specific feared situations or people can be common.
Anxiety can cause you to isolate yourself from others and negatively impact your relationships. You feel disconnected, and at times alone even if you are in a room full of people. Your mind is filled with worry and “what if’s” that keep you from enjoying the present moments. This can also lead to sadness, depression, and negative self-worth.
No matter what level of anxiety you may be experiencing now, you were created to experience peace and live a life without fear and distress.
Therapy for anxiety can help.
If you have been living with the effects of anxiety for a long time, it may seem normal to you. You may have started minimizing the impact of anxiety on your daily life, work and relationships. At the same time, you see others experiencing more peace and joy than you have felt in a long time. You wonder how others can navigate new situations and unexpected changes so much easier than you seem to.
Therapy for anxiety can help you recognize the unhealthy patterns that anxiety has formed in your life. In therapy sessions we will explore the root causes of your worries and fears and develop healthy ways to cope with them. You will learn practical strategies to stop those racing thoughts and calm your mind in the moment.
Whether anxiety presents as constant worry, racing thoughts, or physical tension, therapy offers individualized guidance tailored to your unique experience. Within a supportive therapeutic environment, you can begin to identify specific challenges and obstacles anxiety creates in your daily life.
Through anxiety therapy, you will have the opportunity to develop tools and strategies to help alleviate anxiety and distress symptoms at the core. By consistently working on these strategies, you can start to build greater confidence in your ability to manage stressful situations and respond to unexpected challenges as they come.
Imagine your life without debilitating anxiety…
Within our therapy sessions, we will use a combination of effective and research-based approaches to help you find relief from your anxiety symptoms as quickly as possible. While therapy is a process, you can walk away from your initial session knowing that you have been equipped with tools to help you find relief and feel hopeful that change is possible.
One of the helpful approaches we will often use in therapy for anxiety is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). CBT is one of the most effective treatments for managing anxiety, helping individuals identify and change the unhelpful thought patterns and behaviors that fuel worry and fear. In therapy, CBT offers practical tools to challenge negative thinking, build healthy coping skills, and gradually reduce anxiety’s hold on your daily life.
Additionally, I offer EMDR Therapy for those who struggle with intense anxiety and panic attacks related to trauma/PTSD. Although EMDR is typically known as a treatment approach for those dealing with trauma or PTSD, it is also known to be highly effective in helping clients decrease anxiety symptoms. Within our therapy sessions, we may create a timeline related to anxiety and distress symptoms to help you gain insight and change any unhelpful patterns we discover.
It is time for you to experience peace.
No matter what you are going through and how long you have battled anxiety and fear, you are not alone and help is available now. You don’t have to continue trying to fix it all on your own.
I truly believe there is always hope!
You don’t have to let anxiety rule your life or keep you away from healthy relationships and joy-filled experiences.
If you would like to learn more about anxiety counseling at Shalom Counseling, LLC, please reach out to schedule a complimentary consultation call.
Here we will discuss any questions you have for me about what to expect during therapy, and how it can help you. I have hope for you to live without anxiety and fear, and it is my privilege to come alongside my clients until they can also be filled with this hope for themselves!