Stress and Anxiety Treatment

You don’t know when the scales tipped but you suddenly find that each day is full of constantly recurring thoughts of worry and fear. There have been times in your life you’ve been more stressed than others. Times you’ve had trouble falling asleep because your mind is racing. Instances of a racing heartbeat and some sweaty palms.

This Feeling of Anxiety is Different

But this? This is different. It’s all the time. Some days it’s less intense than others, but the nagging feeling of being on edge is always present. You’ve tried for years to pass it off as just being a high-achiever, or as someone a little more tightly wound than others. You’ve always suspected that it’s maybe been more to it than that, but since you’ve always been able to mostly manage it, you haven’t really addressed the symptoms and the drag they are on your life.

You’ve Come to a Crossroads

You’re a born perfectionist. A naturally high achiever. You’ve always figured that the tightness, hypervigilance, or anxiousness you’ve felt is the cost of that, but not a cost you’ll give up if it means losing your success, ambition, or accolades.

You’re at a crossroads now, though.

Could Anxiety Treatment Help?

Things have gotten worse lately, and you realize there is more going on than that.

You really can’t turn off your thoughts to get the sleep you need, so you wake up the next day in an energy deficit, already with depleted internal resources when it comes to getting through another day.

Maybe You’ve Fallen Behind

Now, you’ve gotten behind, at work, or in life, and you feel a sense of dread when you think about what it will take to get caught up.

Even now, reading this, you can feel your chest tightening thinking about “everything you need to do.” You’re not sure if you should run, hide, ignore it, or freeze. But you are experiencing a lot of wishful thinking about probably living a different life; longing for a miracle to make it all go away; or wanting to throw away your phone and computer and escape to island living.

Anxiety, Stress, and Worry Affect Everything Now

Managing Anxiety on Your Own Hasn’t Worked Yet

You’ve tried managing the anxiety on your own: working out, staying social, trying a new hobby, eating clean. But none of it is putting a dent in what it is: anxiety or stress that is now affecting your quality of life.

You’ve probably also tried journaling, self-help books, meditating, and maybe even yoga.

Resistance to Therapy

You’ve been a little suspect in the past of going to therapy because you believe your orientation to life has helped you with certain aspects of success you’ve experienced. And you’re probably right.

Or you’ve just been resistant to it because things “haven’t been that bad.” You’ve been able to get through it enough that you clear a bad couple of days, then have enough good ones, that you figure: “This is just my life.”

I want you to hear this: life can be better.

And let me also tell you this: you can retain those patterns of success while shedding the nagging worry, persistent fear, and other symptoms that have led to the number of bad days (fine, months!) you’ve been having.

But, is Anxiety Therapy Going to Help?

And I’ll tell you: those are all great questions. They are also very common questions which means you aren’t alone in your concerns AND that we have answers!

Is this going to be any different than trying to manage it on my own?

For starters, therapy for anxiety means you don’t have to figure it out alone. That’s a lot for anyone but especially if you’ve got a lot of other stuff on your plate (and who doesn’t these days!).

Working with a therapist means you have help untangling the web of thoughts in your head. It means you have an expert in the field guiding the journey and sometimes helping you with decision-making. That’s way different from the burden of trying to manage it on your own!

A therapist can help you validate some aspects of your worry and fear, while simultaneously steering you away from the elements of it that are bogging you down and actually interfering with your life.

What can therapy do that medication can’t? 

While medication can be a helpful tool for anxiety management in some instances, clients often want more interventions, tools, and long-term change than medication. Enter stage right: therapy!

Therapy with medication can truly be powerful, and sometimes therapy without medication can be enough treatment to get you where you want to be when it comes to symptom reduction. But therapy here allows powerful exploration, finding patterns, brainstorming ways to move forward, receiving both accountability and support in creating new habits and behaviors (including cognitively!) and interacting with someone else, which in and of itself can be so meaningful when anxiety can so often make you feel isolated and alone.

What if my therapist really thinks I’m “crazy”? 

We hear that a lot during a first session or after a therapeutic relationship has been established. “I was really nervous to come in. I thought you might not be able to handle everything going on in my head and in my life.”

But I promise you two things:

1. We can handle it, whatever “it” is when it comes to your anxiety (and a lot of other things! But hedged my bets here because if it is something we cannot be effective on for you, it still doesn’t mean you’re “crazy”, but it does mean we will talk to you about another provider who is going to be able to be a better fit.).

2. Whatever is going on in your head….it’s probably going to be something we can help untangle pretty quickly. And validate. And normalize. And we can do all of that in a completely warm, non-judgmental, safe space.

So often our clients say, “Wow, you just took all of my verbal vomit and made it make sense! How did you do that?” or often “Wow, therapy felt so much better than I ever thought it would. I wish I had started a long time ago.”

That is the Power of Therapy for Anxiety

And that’s part of the power of therapy, especially the power of therapy for anxiety. A person who is feeling at their wit’s end, unsure about whether their thoughts are true, but feeling like they are being driven to “the edge” with them….. untangles it all, makes it less overwhelming, and clears hurdles for you to move forward.

How Does Therapy Actually Even Help?

Quite the valid question and I’d love to tell you.

Anxiety therapy can lead to you being able to feel internal emotional and cognitive freedom. You can learn ways to manage fear and worry about the future or even decrease that fear and worry itself. Therapy can help you gain a greater sense of self so you increase self-reliance and decrease the behaviors that are fatiguing you but you’re too scared to release.

Anxiety therapy can help you regain energy, build internal calm, and realize a sense of hope and excitement for the future.

Anxiety Treatment Can Help Clarify Your Triggers and Core Beliefs

This helps us build a picture of a whole you, instead of just seeing the anxious part of you. It also sometimes turns up something really helpful to us, as therapists, that we can collaborate with you on when it comes to decreasing your anxiety systems and moving to a place of thriving.

Our Approach to Anxiety Therapy

We use a few different types of treatment interventions (called “modalities”) when it comes to treatment for anxiety.

Our therapists pull techniques from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Motivational Interviewing, Solution-Focused Therapy, Psychodynamic Therapy, and more modalities/approaches, as fit their training and approach AND as work for you and your needs. We even sometimes use techniques from art therapy and sand tray therapy. (Believe it or not, it unlocks really cool things in the therapy room and our clients usually love it!)

Working on Internal and External Processes

What all of this talk about modality translates to is exploring and working on a variety of internal processes and external considerations that are impacting you.

This includes:

• Discovering core beliefs you hold;
• The narrative in your head about how you and/or your life “should” be;
• Investigating other thought processes;
• And even take a look at your understanding of the role of anxiety in your life.

We look at daily and weekly habits and schedules to see what environmental factors may be impacting your anxiety and stress.

We offer relaxation tools that can be applied across settings and teach you one of the most important lessons about anxiety: you are bigger than it.

We also do something called Park Therapy (or Walk-and-Talk Therapy)

Park Therapy for individuals with anxiety can be especially beneficial because it allows even greater access to the benefits of the outdoors. Also, talking to a therapist outside and/or while walking can also feel safer for someone dealing with anxiety. And our Marble Wellness team is all about providing creative therapy approaches to help the individuals in our community be able to access the help they deserve.

Anxiety & stress may be your default mode now, but through the therapeutic process, you can live a life free of its dominating presence.

Life Beyond Therapy

After you finish therapy for your anxiety, it is going to be common to feel really capable. You’ll feel like you have a lot more energy and that sleep comes more easily. You’ll experience less worry about something you said in a meeting or to a friend. You’ll feel way more confident about your decisions in general, but also about your decision-making process. (No more constant calls to a partner or a friend or a parent about “what to do”!)

Increased Positive Feelings

You’ll probably have increased feelings of joy and happiness. You’ll be able to “let things go” more often and not get stuck ruminating about a situation. You’ll have moments where other you actually “feel chill” and laid back.

Life will just feel better. Easier. More fun. When stress does come up, you’ll manage it and then move along. When you find yourself managing conflict, it’ll be a dynamic well within your wheelhouse you can manage. When it comes to interactions or events requiring confidence and self-esteem, you’ll barely have to think twice.

Life after therapy with anxiety feels like a fresh start.

Reach Out to Our Anxiety Therapists Today!

Contact us today so you can start living this life free from anxiety. You can reach us several ways, so click the button below to be taken to our contact page. Let’s get you that life you want!

Begin Counseling for Anxiety in St. Louis, MO

To toss your anxiety and stress out of the driver’s seat,  let’s get you set up with anxiety treatment in our Ballwin, MO counseling clinic. We can also chat via telehealth for online therapy in Missouri and online therapy in Illinois. Truly, anywhere in the state!  If you’re a Chicago resident, we have in-person therapy available in Chicago, too! Taking this first step is a big deal, so you are already making great progress! Just follow these simple steps and we will get started.

Other Mental Health Services at Marble Wellness

At Marble Wellness, our goal is simple: Counseling services designed to help set you on a path of living a more fulfilled, calm, and happy life. We specialize in anxiety, depression, grief, chronic illness, therapy for men, couples, and maternal overwhelm. We can also help new moms with various postpartum concerns, moms in the thick of parenting, and moms with teens. We can also chat from wherever you are in the state with online therapy in Missouri and online therapy in Illinois. No matter where you are in your journey, we would love to support you.