Anxiety Treatment
Do You Feel Too Stressed Out
To Slow Down And Relax?
Are you struggling with obsessive thoughts and constant worry? Has stress made you feel exhausted and overwhelmed, undermining your confidence and quality of life? Are you a deep thinker with a tendency to overthink everything and end up exhausted? Do you feel a chronic sense of angst or dread, like you can’t trust that life will be okay?
Along with ruminating thoughts and constant stress, anxiety can cause uncomfortable levels of self-doubt and self-criticism. It can also manifest in physical symptoms like body aches, shallow breathing, digestive problems, or even insomnia.
Would you like to be able to just exhale, relax, and find peace?
Emotional well-being is possible, and you don’t have to go it alone. Together, we can help you regulate your emotions, stay grounded, feel more calm and ease every day, and learn to love yourself in a deeper, more meaningful way.
Anxiety Is A Natural Response To Our Fast-Paced, Stress-Filled World
Let’s get a little nerdy about anxiety. It’s a basic human experience. Our brains are designed to scan for threats and keep us safe. This vigilance was a life-saver (literally!) when we had to run away from saber-toothed tigers and other ancient predators, but now it just makes us feel run down.
Even when no threat is present, the modern mind is inundated with deadlines, obligations, and other stressors that make it hard to find any peace. With such a fast-paced, pressured life, it’s no wonder that many of us don’t know how to relax.
The same active mind that can serve us so well in our work and accomplishments can also make it difficult to relax and let go. The more we push ourselves to succeed, the less time we have to stop and rest or appreciate the beauty of life. This is why anxiety often becomes habitual, embedded in our thought patterns until it seems to happen automatically.
If you took a poll of our family, friends, neighbors, and colleagues, you might be surprised at how many of them also struggle with anxiety and worry. Unfortunately, people dealing with an anxiety disorder often have trouble opening up about their struggles. Our culture tends to encourage people to suppress emotions. As a result, many people feel shame in admitting they suffer from anxiety. This internal shaming often leads people to minimize their pain, telling themselves “it’s not that bad” or “it’s just a temporary struggle.”
And for those who have felt some degree of anxiety their whole lives, it may seem odd to seek help for a feeling that seems “normal” (even if it is stressful to live with). They think they should be able to feel better on their own. Does this sound familiar?
Left alone, anxiety won’t magically disappear. Even if it comes and goes in passing phases, it can still inhibit your true potential and cause you to miss opportunities for growth. In counseling together, we can help you expand your self-awareness, deepen your sense of self, and overcome anxiety so that it doesn’t hold you back anymore.
Anxiety Treatment Can Help You Expand Self-Awareness And Deepen Self-Compassion
One of the reasons many people with anxiety don’t get the help they need is because their treatment options aren’t well-rounded. Many counseling methods only address one aspect of a person’s life. At Four Corners Counseling & Well-Being, we make it our mission to concentrate on all facets of your life - mind, body, spirit, and relationships. Our goal is to help you integrate all your emotions so that you can grow into the fullness of who you are. Doing so will help you realize what’s driving your anxiety and keep it from dominating your life.
To get started, reach out for a brief phone intake with our Client Care Coordinator who will match you with an anxiety therapist. During the first three sessions, we will focus on getting to know you and establishing a strong working relationship. The entire healing process is personalized to suit your needs - we aim to collaborate on goals with you and go at whatever pace you’re comfortable with.
Most importantly, we want you to know that no matter how hopeless you feel, change is possible. With understanding, tools, and support, anxiety is highly manageable. The key is to understand how to integrate your emotions properly and recognize how they cause stress in your life. By working together with a skilled and caring therapist, we believe you can expand your self-awareness and deepen your self-compassion in ways that will move you from focusing on problems to enjoying new possibilities.
You may have some questions and concerns about anxiety treatment…
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If you’ve struggled with anxiety all your life, it’s probably hard to envision yourself ever feeling different. This is understandable. The good news is that you really can change, and most people underestimate their own resilience. Feeling anxious may be your day-to-day baseline, but it doesn’t have to be. By paying closer attention to your thought process and learning to integrate different emotions in a healthy way, you can break the cycle of habitual anxiety in your life. You’re not alone - we can help.
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When you’re dealing with anxiety, it’s very common to start feeling anxious about your anxiety. We will help you develop tools and responses to use when you are feeling anxious so that you have a new capacity to manage whatever comes your way. Sometimes topics that are discussed in therapy can cause a short-term rise in anxiety. We will help you manage it and teach you strategies for keeping it from controlling your mood.
But our goal is not simply to reduce your symptoms; we help you grow as a person. We will help you expand your self-awareness, learn new skills, and develop greater empathy for yourself. We want to enliven you to move forward with a greater sense of peace, confidence, and emotional clarity. If you are struggling with worry, stress, and anxiety and can’t slow down, we can help. By teaching you skills to regulate your emotions and stay grounded and centered, we can help you achieve peace in every aspect of your life.
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In therapy, you and your counselor will explore how anxiety affects the mental, physical, spiritual, and social aspects of your life. You will concentrate on achievable, concrete ways to manage your anxiety in each of these areas. Our goal is for you to get to know yourself better, understand your emotions in a deeper way, and develop a more secure attachment to yourself. We believe self-compassion is essential to healing. By growing more connected to yourself, you can stay more grounded and centered when you feel stressed. To that end, we often use mindfulness techniques like deep-breathing or meditation. These strategies will help you pay attention to your own thought processes with greater clarity and less judgment.
Our practice is grounded in the philosophy and tools of Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy. At its core, IFS seeks to help you understand how all of your emotions are connected. Rather than shaming or exiling certain emotions, IFS will teach you how to achieve a holistic balance between all of them. We also use tools based on the Polyvagal Theory, a neuro-biological approach to well-being that looks at how cues of safety or stress impact your mood and nervous system responses. Once you understand how you react to perceived threats—in other words, how you become anxious—you will have a lot more freedom in how you respond.
Ready to get Started?
Call us at 301-960-8960 for a short chat with our Client Care Coordinator, who is available weekdays from 9 AM to 5 PM. You can also fill out the contact form and we will get back to you.
I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.
- Louisa May Alcott, 19th century American novelist
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Find us in Silver Spring, MD
We’re located right off of the beltway and just 10 minutes north of the Silver Spring Metro at 10000 Colesville Rd #5. We are easily accessible by car, bicycle, rideshare, and public transit.