Inner Weather
Anxiety is not a character flaw. It is a nervous system doing its job too well, too often, and it responds to practice.
For anxiety I draw primarily on two modalities. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, because it offers practical, simple strategies for managing the thoughts and behaviours that in turn shape mood. It also teaches self-awareness, so you learn to catch a negative thought as it happens rather than an hour later. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, because it focuses on being in the present rather than the past or the future, on accepting yourself, and on learning to tolerate strong emotion without denying, avoiding, or fearing it. It teaches that you are not your thoughts. Thoughts are events, not permanent facts, and by definition they change.
My approach to this work
In the first one to six sessions, progress usually looks like this. First, we establish psychological safety, so you can be open about the material that is emotionally activating. As you feel safer, you start moving toward the information you find disturbing instead of away from it. Second, you begin taking small, achievable actions using the CBT and ACT tools, so you can stay present and address things in real time in ways that build resilience and distress tolerance. Third, you learn to stop personalizing your thoughts and start treating them as impermanent events produced by memory and other stimuli. Automatic thoughts feel permanent, but new thoughts and behaviours emerge with patience and practice, like any other skill.
Sixty minute sessions, weekly or every two weeks at the start, moving to once or twice a month as things stabilize. Available in person in Sechelt or by secure video.
Getting started
A short call to hear what is going on, answer your questions, and see whether we are a good fit. No pressure either way.
Sixty minutes to lay out the situation in your own words. We get clear on what matters most and what you want to be different.
We settle into a rhythm that suits you, weekly or spaced out, in person on the Sunshine Coast or by secure video anywhere in BC.
If any of this sounds like where you are right now, the next step is a free 15 minute consultation. No pressure, no commitment, just a conversation.