– Understanding Anxiety in Nashville Counseling Services

Last Updated on May 4, 2023 by Chris Roberts

UNDERSTANDING ANXIETY IN NASHVILLE COUNSELING SERVICES

If you are looking for Nashville counseling services, there are many arenas in which services can offer help. Some people turn to Nashville counseling services for help with anxiety or depression or relationship struggles. Sometimes a person comes alone for counseling. Sometimes a couple will come in together to more fully articulate the difficulties they are experiencing. There is no good or right or perfect way to begin Nashville counseling services. The only thing that matters is that you, or both of you, are suffering and want help in alleviating some source of pain that is keeping you from enjoying life to the fullest.

This article will help explain a little more of what anxiety is, how it affects us, and how Nashville counseling services can be of help. What most people notice, when it relates to anxiety, is simply a constant worry or stress over issues that seem larger than they should be. Oftentimes, this worry or stress starts out innocent enough, but then becomes something they feel is out of control. Whenever we feel any emotions or thoughts that seem out of our conscious control, whether we know it or not, we are suffering. Anxiety is a complication that is so hard to nail down, because it has so many different manifestations. For some people, anxiety seems like worry. For others, anxiety feels like stress or being overwhelmed. It is common and healthy for all of us to feel some level of stress or worry in our lives. There are so many things out of our control in everyday life, that as humans, we need to have some awareness of the limitations of our power and control. Where everyday stressors and worries turn into anxiety, is when we no longer feel we have the power to turn our attention to something else.

Anxiety always wants a guarantee. Typical stressors and worries don’t necessitate this guarantee. With our regular cycles of worry, we are able to step back, and although the worry still remains, we can talk ourselves down and know on some level that things may work out for the better. When we are stuck in anxieties of worry, we are no longer able to put things in perspective. When we are in anxiety, the fear we feel in the pit of our stomach becomes the ONLY reality. Anxiety states that we must get some external reassurance that things will be okay. And until we get that external reassurance, we believe we are not going to be able to relax or be “okay.”

HOW NASHVILLE COUNSELING SERVICES CAN BE EFFECTIVE

Nashville counseling services can help tease out what is real and effective worry from what is anxiety. We must all learn our natural tendencies for worry and stress. Some of us have higher levels of tolerance for worry, while others of us are quite sensitive to the intrusion and disruption of worry. Nashville counseling services can help us know what our natural tendency is for worry and thereby establish a baseline for what might be our normal worries and fears. This takes time and is not particularly easy work, although is unbelievably effective at dealing with anxiety. We also need to know and understand our past. Our past can give us clues as to why we might be using anxiety to avoid dealing with harm or betrayal. The ways in which we have been harmed in the past will directly influence how deal with current life situations. This is more difficult work than that mentioned above, because it deals with our emotional scars from previous relationships and circumstances. We don’t like thinking about and reliving our past harm. Yet, if we aren’t aware of how we’ve been harmed, we will unwittingly live out our life in ways that seek to avoid that harm again.

As we understand that anxiety always demands a guarantee, we can more easily see when we are stuck in anxiety. Sometimes, getting out of anxiety is more about first recognizing that you are in it! Because anxiety is so closely linked with worry and stress, it is very difficult sometimes to even know we are dealing with anxiety! One of the signs that anxiety has taken over is when we feel powerless to do anything about it EXCEPT receive reassurance from an external force. This external force, we believe, will provide the guarantee we think we need. The problem with consistently using an external presence to alleviate our anxiety is that we become more and more reliant on something that is completely out of our control. We must also start to believe that we have some resources available on our own to quell the anxiety that is swirling about us.

Overcoming anxiety through Nashville counseling services is never an easy thing to do, but it is something that can be done! If you are struggling with what you think is anxiety, then it might be helpful to contact an anxiety counselor in Nashville to discuss more of how they might be of help. Chris Roberts is an experienced, licensed counselor in Nashville, TN that can help you determine what the best course of action might be for you.