Anxiety Therapy in Flagstaff
Life in our mountain town can be overwhelming. Chances are if you landed here on this page, you’re searching for ways to overcome overwhelm, anxiety, and maybe moments of panic.
Maybe your mind won’t slow down. Maybe your body always feels like it’s on alert. Maybe it’s been so long since you felt peace that you don’t even know anything other than being on alert. And chances are things look fine from the outside.
I believe anxiety is a wise companion - one we don’t always love, but if we can listen, it actually has some valuable messages for us. When we can build a relationship with this companion, we move from “how do I get rid of this feeling” to “what is this trying to tell me”, which, ironically often helps the feeling ease way back.
I don't believe anxiety has a single cause.
There are what I’d describe as the “classic” causes of anxiety - a history of trauma, major life transitions, periods of chronic stress, years of living in survival mode. Just because we’re surrounded by the beauty of Flagstaff in our mountain paradise, we’re not immune to the realities of anxiety.
And there are the not-so-classic connections anxiety has to other aspects of our being. Anxiety can often show up after a chronic illness rears its head. It can show up in perimenopause or menopause after we’ve lived an entire lifetime of being a high-performer and now it becomes increasingly difficult to perform at the same level. It can show up after an exposure to an environmental toxin like sneaky mold, for example. Let’s get curious about all of it, together.
Looking Beyond the Individual
Some clients also find resonance in exploring anxiety within their larger context.
Researchers and clinicians such as Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart and Eduardo Duran have expanded conversations about the impacts of historical and intergenerational trauma, inviting us to consider how the experiences of those who’ve gone before us are living through us today, often as anxiety or depression.
Whether or not this perspective resonates with you, I believe healing often happens when we broaden our understanding of ourselves rather than reducing our experiences to a diagnosis alone.
Anxiety therapy in Flagstaff that honors your whole story
If you're looking for anxiety therapy in Flagstaff, you don't have to arrive with everything figured out.
You don't need to know why you're anxious.
You don't need to have the right words. In fact, you don’t even need many words! We can let artistic expression, song lyrics, ways your body wants to move or not, metaphor, movie scenes, or your imagination do the talking.
This is to say, you simply need a place where your whole self is taken seriously and explored with curiosity. Whether we ultimately work with your anxiety with techniques such as somatic work, EMDR, Brainspotting, IFS-informed work, or ancestral work, let’s start with broadening the lens, being curious, and digging in together.
Let’s Work Together
If you're interested in exploring how we might tackle your experience of anxiety together, send me a note through this form for a free 20-minute “get to know each other” session.