Anxiety can show up in a lot of different forms, and it doesn't always look the same from person to person. Sometimes it's loud: a racing heart, a spiraling thought, a feeling that something bad is about to happen. Other times it's quieter, showing up as a low hum of worry that never fully goes away, or as the extra effort it takes to get through ordinary things: a work meeting, a social event, a decision that shouldn't feel this hard.
I work with social anxiety, generalized anxiety, and the quieter ways anxiety can show up, including the perfectionism, over-preparing, and people-pleasing that often develop as ways of managing it. Many of the people I work with have spent years functioning well on the outside while feeling like they're white-knuckling their way through, and are ready for that to change.
Whatever shape it's taking for you, we'll work together to help you feel steady and present again.
We start by understanding what your anxiety looks like day to day, and what's underneath it. Anxiety usually has a job: it's trying to keep you safe, prepared, or in control. Once we understand what it's protecting you from, it becomes much easier to work with instead of against.
From there, we build a plan tailored to you, one that helps you feel calmer and more in control as you go. That might include learning to notice anxious thought patterns before they take over, practicing sitting with uncertainty instead of avoiding it, or slowly rebuilding your tolerance for the situations you've been steering around.
If your anxiety is tied to past experiences, we may use approaches like EMDR or Brainspotting to help those memories stop feeling so present. We'll figure out together what makes the most sense for you, and adjust as we go so the pace always feels manageable.