Is Anxiety Making Life Feel Harder Than It Should?
Do you ever feel overwhelmed by things that seem like they should be simple?
Maybe you’re putting off an email, rescheduling an appointment you’ve been meaning to make for weeks, or lying awake because your mind won’t stop running through everything that could go wrong.
You might be doing well in school or work, staying busy, and trying to make all the “right” choices, yet still feel like you’re barely keeping up.
For Many Young Adults, Anxiety Doesn’t Always Look Like Constant Panic
Sometimes it looks like overthinking, procrastinating, crying more than usual, losing your appetite, or feeling completely drained by decisions that other people seem to handle so easily.
You may know what you’re supposed to do, but knowing isn’t the same as being able to do it.
And when you’ve spent your whole life being responsible, capable, and driven, slowing down can feel almost impossible.
Deep down, you just want things to be okay. You just want to feel like yourself again. And while constantly living this way can be exhausting, it doesn’t have to be your permanent reality. Anxiety therapy can help you understand what’s keeping you stuck and find a calmer way forward.
Anxiety Doesn’t Just Affect Your Thoughts
Anxiety can make even ordinary parts of life feel exhausting.
You may be experiencing:
- Constant overthinking and worrying about what might happen if you don’t do something perfectly
- Crying frequently, having trouble sleeping, losing your appetite, or experiencing unexplained headaches or nausea
- Taking on too much because you’re afraid of failing or falling behind
- Putting off simple tasks even when you know they’ll make your life easier
- Absorbing the moods of people around you and having trouble separating their feelings from your own
You probably isolate yourself or try to avoid burdening those who care about you. Or maybe you’ve talked about the same problem so many times that you feel like you’ve worn out your support system.
Conflict can be especially difficult. Something happens with a friend, and instead of being able to let it go, you stay upset for a long time.
Sometimes anxiety creates a strange combination of being highly capable and completely overwhelmed. You truly want to do it all, so you keep adding things to your schedule.
You’re responsible, so you keep saying yes. And underneath it all is the belief that you don’t really have a choice.
You’re Not Failing—You Believe You Should Keep Pushing
It is common for young adults to believe that being responsible means pushing through. They’ve been rewarded for being dependable, productive, successful, and easy to rely on and have watched the people around them do the same thing.
Rest, self-empathy, and lowering expectations aren’t always the messages they see modeled. Instead, their mentors and algorithms keep telling them to pursue excellence, work harder, and become their “best selves.”
But when you’re already anxious, it can be difficult to filter through all of those expectations and decide what actually matters to you. You may start believing there is one right way to live, and that you’re falling behind if you don’t follow it.
Parents may also offer advice based on what worked for them like, “toughen up and push through.” You may recognize that those approaches aren’t working for you anymore, but still feel unsure about what to listen to instead.
Over time, this can disconnect you from your own inner experience. You stop trusting yourself and start looking everywhere else for the answer.
Anxiety therapy with a trusted therapist can help you figure out what actually works for you.
Anxiety Therapy Can Help You Find Your Way Back To Yourself
When we begin anxiety therapy, I start with where you are and what you want to change.
Therapy gives you a safe, warm, and supportive space where you can feel at ease sharing your thoughts and experiences openly, without fear of criticism or being misunderstood.
I’m not interested in breaking you down and building you back up from scratch. Part of our work is naming your strengths and learning how to use them in every area of your life.
We’ll talk about what’s bothering you most right now while also keeping your bigger goals in view. I’ll help you notice your symptoms, recognize patterns, and become more curious about where those patterns came from rather than judging yourself for having them.
We’ll also identify the narratives you tend to believe about yourself so you can start recognizing them when they show up and celebrate your progress along the way. I want you to notice your own growth, not just hear me tell you that you’re doing better.
My Approach To Anxiety Therapy
I use a personal strengths-based, solution-focused approach and draw from several evidence-informed methods depending on what you need.
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)—We practice noticing negative or unhelpful thoughts and challenging the assumptions behind them. CBT can help you create some distance from thoughts that feel like facts so you have more choice in how you respond. It also gives you step by step solutions for managing and preventing panic attacks.
- Brainspotting—Sometimes there are experiences or emotional patterns that are difficult to explain with words. Brainspotting can be one way of working with those deeper responses and bringing attention to what your mind and body are holding.
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)—Helps you recognize the strengths you already have and reconnect with what truly matters to you and your values. It also teaches cognitive defusion, helping you step back from your thoughts and let them come and go without allowing them to control your actions. ACT helps build your confidence by highlighting everything you are already getting right, redirecting your rigidity to flexibility, and reconnects you with your values.
- Mindfulness, Breathwork, And Other Strategies—We may practice deep breathing, mindfulness, energy monitoring, and recognizing the limits of your capacity. We may also use compassion-focused strategies or narrative therapy to explore the story you’re telling yourself and find a more helpful way of understanding your experiences.
Together, we’ll use the approaches that make the most sense for you to reduce stress, understand your patterns, and develop practical tools you can carry with you beyond anxiety therapy.
You Don’t Have To Start From Scratch
There are already strengths, skills, and healthy parts of you that have gotten you this far. Together, we’ll find them, build on them, and figure out how to make life gradually easier and more enjoyable.
You can begin feeling relief without becoming a completely different person. You can learn to notice when you’re pushing yourself too hard, quiet some of the noise, and trust yourself a little more.
And yes, there can be room for some laughter along the way. Anxiety therapy can be meaningful without every session feeling heavy.
You don’t have to keep pushing through anxiety just because that’s what you’ve always been taught to do. You can learn a different way—and you don’t have to figure it out alone!
Serving Tennessee with Online Therapy
