Anxiety
Anxiety can be simply described as excessive fear, worry, or concern. When we experience anxiety, we often have several symptoms that can be quite disturbing - racing thoughts, sweaty palms, tunnel vision, racing heart rate, and a feeling that you need to avoid or escape a situation. Panic attacks are an example of a severe response to anxiety. The good news - there are steps you can take to improve.
1) Identify triggers: Something is triggering this response. It might be obvious or it may be hidden deep in your mind. We can help you to identify these triggers so that you can take appropriate steps to respond.
2) Learn better coping skills: There isn’t a life without anxiety. A cope pulling you over, difficulty at work, finances, etc. These are events that naturally produce anxiety. The use of coping skills doesn’t eliminate the anxiety, but they allow you to deal with the anxiety in a better way in the moment.
3) Process the root cause: Most of us no longer face daily threats of lions, tigers, and bears. So, our minds try to help us by figuring out what the next threat is that we need to be prepared to face. These threats can be legitimate or an excessive response. In either case, therapy can help you to process the root cause and help you develop steps to improve.
Matthew 6:25–31
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ (ESV)