Get the help you need for anxiety, panic, stress, worry, and chronic overthinking so your life feels manageable again.
Why Am I So Anxious?
We all experience anxiety. It’s nature’s alarm bell. We couldn’t survive without it. Anxiety tells us when there’s something we need to pay attention to.
For some, though, this warning bell gets stuck, is turned up too loud, or just goes off at the wrong times.
Our bell can get ‘rung’ in all kinds of unsuspecting ways.
We can feel uncertain and insecure in our relationships.
Thoughts about the future can overwhelm us.
Work pressure, deadlines, presentations can all be triggering.
We can struggle with the parts of our life that are supposed to bring joy like social activities or travel.
Health concerns can become health obsessions.
Even the thoughts in our own heads can turn on us, becoming anxious and uncomfortable hooks for worry and fear.
When we think of the origins of anxiety, there isn’t just one source.
Anxiety comes from lots of places. We’re born with some of it — a highly reactive nervous system, our natural temperament, and other genetic factors play a role.
Important relationships, family dynamics, and other developmental issues can contribute.
External factors like exposure to trauma, stressful life events, changes/transitions, chronic pressure or perfectionism, and work stress are also involved..
Some anxiety is normal, it only becomes a problem when it starts to run and ruin your life.
Anxiety can show up in your life any of these important areas:
our thoughts (overthinking, rumination, intrusive thoughts)
our feelings (chronic worry, overwhelmed, fear, panic, despair)
body sensations (tense, restless, heart racing, shortness of breath, nauseous)
how we act (reactive, avoidant, overly cautious, irritable)
how we function (sleep, appetite, social isolation, focus/attention problems)
These impacts drive anxiety sufferers toward similar ways to cope. Attempts at control, change, and avoidance are common.
Control or avoidance strategies might help in the short term but they almost always make things worse in the long run.
“Stop Worrying, Calm Down, You’re Over-reacting”
If you struggle with anxiety, you’ve likely been repeating some version of these statements to yourself for the entirety of your anxious life. While you likely know these words don’t help, you might still be using them today.
You can’t wish anxiety problems away with words, judgements, or even reason.
There’s nothing reasonable about anxiety and our efforts to fight it, change it, judge it, or avoid it generally make it worse.
Most anxious people have developed very good methods of avoiding what worries them. This makes sense initially — these feelings, thoughts, body sensations are really uncomfortable.
But, the message sent to our nervous system and our deeper self is that this alarm bell is accurate and should be listened to, no matter the cost.
Of course, the problem is that the cost becomes increasingly steep.
We tend to overestimate anxious threats and underestimate our capacity to meet them with courage and resilience.
It turns out that the paradox of anxiety is this: what you fear the most is also the one thing that is most likely to help you.
Chronically avoiding your fears and turning away from them makes them stronger. Courageously turning toward discomfort leads to the cure.
Accepting and even befriending the anxiety we experience — and the situations that seem to trigger it — dramatically disarm it over time.
The right kind of therapy can teach you that hiding from anxiety and from your life won’t help.
Boldly turning toward your life again is the only way out.
My Approach to Anxiety Therapy
I use a thoughtful, practical approach that draws from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), relational therapy, and depth-oriented psychotherapy.
Together we’ll work to help you:
See that your alarm is misfiring. It’s not telling you the truth of your experience.
Practice relating differently to anxious thoughts and feelings instead of trying to get rid of them, control, or judge them.
Stop listening to your anxious self and start listening to your bigger, stronger, kinder, wiser self instead.
Observe your anxiety from a place of compassionate curiosity.
Adopt an approach philosophy to your life, instead of the avoidant one that’s actually strengthening anxiety’s grip.
Help you clarify what matters most to you so you can move in that direction in spite of some anxious discomfort at times.
Understand what might also be driving anxiety and stress in your life.
Look at the bigger picture of your life and the unique meaning your anxiety might have in it.
Noticing, Accepting, Engaging
Therapy can help you learn to pause and practice noticing what you experience — in the moment — from the safe distance of an observing part of yourself.
This can help you see and relate to anxiety in an entirely new way.
You’ll discover that in naming what you fear, you can tame what you fear.
You’ll learn to relate to your experience with acceptance, making room for whatever’s there. Compassionate curiosity will take the place of criticism and judgment.
When anxiety has you hooked and is carrying you away, you’ll practice anchoring with a breath so you can come gently back to the moment, to your body, and to a reliable place of refuge.
As we unhook, we practice re-engaging with what’s right in front of us: our senses, the people in our lives, tasks, the next thing in our day, or with what’s most important to us.
We learn to keep moving, alongside our anxious thoughts, feelings, or body sensations. We keep moving courageously, one step at a time, in the direction of a life that matters.
When what’s important to you gets bigger, anxiety gets smaller.
Anxiety Symptoms I Can Help With
Anxiety impacts people in lots of different ways.
Here are some common concerns that you might be having that I can help with:
chronic worry
panic attacks
overthinking, rumination
obsessive regret
future tripping
trouble relaxing, feeling restless, body tension
health anxiety
sleep problems
social or relationship anxiety
obsessive-compulsive anxiety
perfectionism, over-functioning
work stress and burnout
stuck in fight, flight, or freeze mode
shrinking your life from reliance on avoidance strategies
isolation and depression related to the anxiety
No matter what your anxiety looks like, the remedy is the same — compassionate understanding, a willingness to begin moving toward what’s uncomfortable, skills to anchor and regulate your heightened nervous system, clarity around the life direction that’s important to you, and committed and courageous action to build that life alongside your fear.
Go After the Life You Want
If anxiety is something you’re struggling with, together we can understand how it’s interfering with your life. We’ll build the tools you need to better accept and cope with the pain you have suffered, the life you have lost.
We’ll work to take back what anxiety has robbed from you — recommitting to what brings you joy and meaning again.
You don't have to let fear control you. Anxiety therapy can help you be your biggest and brightest self — driven more by what you actually value and less by the worries holding you back.
Ready to take the next step?
Anxiety Therapy in Bellevue and online across Washington
Call (425) 326-1690 or email joe@joebutlertherapy.com