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Therapy for healing toxic relationships

Anxiety

Understanding Anxiety

Anxiety is more than occasional worry—it is a persistent, often overwhelming sense of unease that can interfere with daily life. It may show up as restlessness, difficulty concentrating, muscle tension, or a sense of dread, even when there is no immediate threat. For many, anxiety reflects a nervous system that is stuck in survival mode.

If you feel constantly on edge or easily triggered, your anxiety may take the form of hyper-arousal—a heightened state where your body’s fight-or-flight response is overstimulated. This can make it hard to feel calm, grounded, or safe.

Alternatively, anxiety can manifest as hypo-arousal—a shutdown response. This often looks like emotional numbness, exhaustion, dissociation, or even depression. In this state, the nervous system becomes under-stimulated, leaving you feeling flat or disconnected. Many people shift between both states, depending on the situation.

The Role of Childhood Trauma in Adult Anxiety

For many adults, anxiety has deep roots in early life experiences. Complex trauma refers to the ongoing impact of childhood environments where emotional neglect, unpredictability, or pressure to earn love were the norm.

In order to survive such conditions, children often adapt by becoming hyper-vigilant, overly accommodating, or emotionally detached. These were intelligent coping strategies that helped them stay safe and accepted in the past. The challenge is that these same strategies can persist into adulthood—long after they are needed—and often now contribute to chronic anxiety.

Lasting Effects:

Coping Mechanisms and Dissociation

Childhood trauma disrupts the development of a child’s nervous system, leaving them in a heightened state of alert long after the danger has passed. As adults, this often leads to chronic stress, where the body remains stuck in a constant state of alert—always scanning for threats, struggling to relax, and reacting intensely to everyday challenges.

The survival strategies that helped you navigate childhood—such as emotional numbing, people-pleasing, or perfectionism—often become no longer helpful in adulthood. Left unexamined, they can contribute to anxiety, depression, shame, addiction, or chronic negative thought patterns.

Dissociation is one such survival response. It creates a sense of detachment from your present experience, protecting you from emotional overload. Though this was once an adaptive defense, over time, it can leave you feeling disconnected from your body, your emotions, and the world around you.

Psychotherapy

as Co-Regulation for Anxiety

In the consistent, attuned connection we build in our sessions, my regulated nervous system will support your nervous system in learning how to settle, creating a felt sense of safety that allows for healing and balance over time.

This process is known as co-regulation, and it is a foundational aspect of trauma healing—especially in modalities like Somatic Experiencing. The therapeutic relationship itself becomes a safe space where your nervous system will begin to learn, through direct experience, what regulation feels like.

Over time, our sessions will help retrain your nervous system to tolerate and process difficult emotions. As you build trust in the therapeutic space, you will also build confidence in your ability to regulate on your own—one moment at a time.

The Role of Anger

in Healing Anxiety

Anger is a natural and appropriate response to violation or mistreatment. However, for many trauma survivors, expressing anger in childhood was not safe or permitted. Instead, that anger may have been turned inward, often becoming self-directed as shame, self-loathing, or harsh self-criticism.

This internalized anger fuels anxiety and often keeps you stuck in old emotional cycles. Healing begins by acknowledging that you no longer need to treat yourself as others once did. Recognizing and honoring anger as a protective response—not a problem—will support the release of long-held emotional tension.

Embracing compassion and self-respect helps you begin to break free from old patterns rooted in fear, powerlessness, and compliance. In time, this creates space for more grounded emotions and a more peaceful internal world.

Managing

Social Anxiety

Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) involves a persistent fear of being judged, rejected, or humiliated in social situations. If you experience this form of anxiety, you may worry excessively about appearing awkward, incompetent, or unlikable. These fears can lead to avoiding connection altogether, reinforcing isolation and negative self-perception.

Social anxiety is linked to a history of emotional chaos or unpredictability in childhood. When you had little control over your environment growing up, hyper-vigilance became a survival strategy. This showed up in adulthood as a need to control how others perceive you, or discomfort in settings where outcomes are uncertain.

Healing social anxiety begins with learning to treat yourself with understanding and patience. Through a combination of self-compassion, grounding techniques, and cognitive tools such as reframing, learned in therapy, you can gradually shift your experience of social situations and begin to trust in your ability to relate authentically.

Understanding Panic Attacks

Panic attacks are sudden, intense episodes of fear that often appear without warning. They are commonly accompanied by physical symptoms such as rapid heartbeat, shortness of breath, chest pain, dizziness, sweating, or shaking. Many people describe a sense of losing control or a fear that something terrible is about to happen.

Although panic attacks feel alarming, they are not dangerous. They are your body’s way of discharging fear that may have been stored over time. Learning to recognize the early signs of a panic attack, and responding with calming tools, can help you move through the experience with less fear and more clarity.

In therapy, we will work together to reduce the frequency and intensity of panic by learning skills to address both the immediate symptoms, and by understanding the deeper emotional patterns that fuel them.

Calming Anxiety:

Tools for Inner Peace

Living with anxiety often includes a fear of its physical symptoms. This fear can lead to avoiding new experiences and retreating into a limited comfort zone. Ironically, avoidance tends to reinforce anxiety, making it feel even more inescapable.

In my psychotherapy practice, I offer evidence-based interventions and calming techniques that I have gathered over years of experience. These tools are collected in my Empowerment Toolbox and are designed to provide both immediate relief and support long-term, permanent change.

The first step in healing anxiety is to accept yourself exactly as you are, without judgment. Self-criticism intensifies anxiety. I will guide you in learning to observe your thoughts more clearly and challenge the beliefs that no longer serve you. Many of these beliefs began in childhood and have remained unexamined until now. It is time to question their truth—and gently let them go. I will help.

Case Study:

Reclaiming Calm Through Grounding, Somatic Imagery, and Inner Child Work

When my client first arrived in therapy, she described her anxiety as a constant presence—tight in her chest, loud in her thoughts, and quick to spiral. She felt overwhelmed by everyday tasks and often dissociated in moments of stress, unsure how to reconnect with herself. She carried a lifelong pattern of people-pleasing and perfectionism, rooted in a childhood where emotional safety was never guaranteed.

Our work began with grounding techniques to stabilize her nervous system. Simple practices like orienting to the room, feeling her feet on the floor, and tracking sensations in her body helped her build a sense of safety in the present moment. These practices laid the foundation for deeper healing.

Using Somatic Experiencing, I introduced guided imagery to support the release of stored anxiety. In one session, she visualized a safe place—a sunlit garden where she could rest. By returning to this imagery during periods of overwhelm, her body began to associate calm with internal resources, not just external control. Gradually, her symptoms of hyper-arousal softened.

We also engaged in inner child work, which was key to understanding the emotional roots of her anxiety. She identified the voice of a younger self who believed she had to earn love by never making mistakes. By meeting this part with compassion, rather than criticism, she began to shift her internal narrative. Over time, she no longer reacted from fear, but from grounded presence.

Through this integrated approach, my client’s anxiety decreased significantly. She now reports greater clarity, emotional regulation, and stronger self-reliance. She no longer sees her anxiety as something to fight, but as a signal to listen inward. Her healing has been not only about symptom relief, but about becoming more whole.

Healing Anxiety for a Better Future

Anxiety that is rooted in childhood trauma stems from old emotional patterns and protective strategies that once helped you survive—but now keep you feeling stuck. Through psychotherapy and Somatic Experiencing, we gently untangle these patterns and help your nervous system return to a place of balance and safety.

You no longer have to see the world through the lens of anxiety. You will begin to trust your inner signals, set clearer boundaries, and respond to life from a place of confidence rather than fear. People-pleasing, self-doubt, and emotional overwhelm will give way to self-respect, choice, and connection that feels safe and mutual.

The work we do is not just about managing symptoms—it is about reclaiming your life. A calmer, more grounded future is not only possible, it is waiting for you. Therapy becomes a space to build that future—one where you feel more free, more yourself, and more at home in your body and your life.