Counselling for Anxiety: Managing Anxiety with a Counsellor

Counselling for anxiety is commonly sought out by individuals struggling with anxiety or needing help managing anxiety symptoms. Anxiety is commonly experienced by individuals of all ages and can be detrimental to our mental health and our day-to-day routines. Counselling for anxiety is essential for addressing symptoms and negative effects of anxiety, which may range from mild symptoms to extreme and debilitating symptoms, making it difficult for the individual to maintain their daily routine and creating a dynamic where they must adjust all aspects of their life to work with their anxiety, stealing most of their happiness and joy from life.

Why Do We Have Anxiety?

Anxiety is a natural and necessary response since it alerts us of threats in our environment, cautioning us about potential dangers that we must navigate through. Unfortunately, anxiety has become such a natural response to possible dangers, triggers, and social negativity that we can sometimes foster an automatic anxious response to many things that are not life-threatening. The key is to change our perspective about what anxiety is and what purpose it has in our lives, accepting and valuing that anxiety will always have a place in our lives but not take over us and lead us to battle each day. The end goal is not to rid anxiety from our lives completely but rather to manage it.

Counselling for Anxiety and Managing Symptoms

Counselling for anxiety is essential to decreasing the severity of symptoms, such as increased heart rate and breathing rate, trouble sleeping, and excessive worrying, allowing us to take control of our lives and determine what requires us to look at something with caution, as it could be dangerous to our psychological and physical safety, is changing our cognitive perception of the things around us. For example, an individual may experience tremendous anxiety about going to a social gathering since they feel anxious about speaking and interacting with other people. Looking at the root of this issue, the individual may have an underlying insecurity about themselves causing them to feel afraid of harsh judgment by others, thus, creating an overwhelming anxiety (a perceived threat) to the upcoming social event. If we change our perception and put things into perspective, it is possible to manage and diffuse the anxiety experienced.

Changing Our Cognitive Perception: A Method to Try

One method that may help to change our cognitive perception of an anxiety-provoking event or matter is to write it down on a piece of paper. Ask yourself a few questions:

1) What is the thing causing you anxiety

2) What about this is making you feel anxious and where is it stemming from?

3) What are some facts or reasons that contradict this anxiety and your beliefs about the situation?

4) Do these contradictions, or facts, bring a different perspective and clarity to you, helping diffuse the anxiety?  

After you complete this activity, assess if the matter that is causing anxiety is still a threat or if it has lessened in severity. Oftentimes, if we look at facts and use them to contradict our fear and belief about a certain matter, it is enough to change our perspective and lessen the angst we feel towards it, giving us control of the situation and our minds. 

Counselling for Anxiety and How a Counsellor Can Help

Seeking professional help from a Registered Clinical Counsellor may help you work through intense anxiety since counsellors may help you uncover the underlying root cause of why you are experiencing anxiety in your day-to-day life, or if it mainly presents around certain triggers. Counsellors may help guide you to better understand your triggers and what strategies may help soothe you to manage these emotions proactively. Furthermore, counsellors may also help you to alter your cognitive perception of events, matters, and concerns, providing you with an alternative viewpoint, thus, allowing you to see the matter in a new light that is less threatening. At Straight Path Counselling, our counsellors are trained and equipped with the necessary knowledge, tools, and experience to provide understanding, empathy, and methods to help you overcome anxiety and manage it healthily. Check out Straight Path Counselling at www.straightpathcounselling.ca or reach us at straightpathcounselling@gmail.com or 604-302-3021.

Let’s start our conversation today and work through the anxiety you are feeling.

Straight Path Counselling in Abbotsford offers counselling for anxiety.

Erica Fussi, M.A, B.A, RCC

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