Stress, PTSD and Anxiety Therapists in St Marys, ON.

I support my clients in addressing their anxiety and stress through the development of meaningful self-care strategies to keep them in becoming more self-compassionate. Learning how to engage the parasympathetic nervous system to counter the effects of an overactive sympathetic nervous system is essential in effectively managing stress and anxiety. If you find yourself struggling to view situations with a more compassionate lens, encouraging yourself to engage in behaviours that support your well-being, therapy can be an effective tool to get you the results you want.

I use an integrative non-pathologizing approach that validates the human condition. We all experience worry and stress but I work with clients to accept and understand how they can be curious about what it is that keeps them feeling stuck or stressed. Learning how to regulate our emotions supports our ability to maintain a balanced life. We have the power to switch from our fight/flight/freeze state to our rest/relax/digest state. Mindfully and with compassion, we can find a way through this together. Anxious symptoms often shows up with depressive symptoms and vice versa.

Anxiety and stress can affect all aspects of our lives. It can impact our mood, it can impact our thoughts and it can impact our functioning. It's quite an overwhelming experience at times. In therapy, we can work together to reduce your experience of distress, find balance in life, and reconnect with experiences of joy. We will work towards improving your sense of well being and help you regain your ability to function in this high paced world.

Stress and anxiety are part of everyday life. Sometimes these emotions can motivate us to finish a project or draw our attention to issues that could be improved. Other times it can be uncomfortable and overwhelming leading to poor performance, isolation, and/or illness. Working on anxiety in psychotherapy can include learning to become more mindful and accepting of anxiety symptoms to reduce suffering. Or perhaps improved organizational skills or assertiveness to say “no” when there is already too much on our plate. Being able to reduce symptoms of anxiety or cope with them more effectively, can allow you to work towards the goals important to you and deepen your connection with others.

For many of us, our stream of life is interrupted by events that are so stressful and scary that they create lasting change. This can be a single incident such as an assault or accident. Or, it could be recurring incidents that take place in the course of our work. It could also be trauma in our earliest years from our caregivers or in our first relationships. If you feel that something from your past is impacting your current life, trauma and stress focused therapy may be a good fit for you.

The goal in counselling is not to get rid of anxiety. It is an emotion, not good or bad. But if you are finding that anxiety is impacting your life in a negative way, then it is a good idea to address how to manage it in a way so it is not so overpowering. I work with you to discover why your anxiety is impacting you so much at this present time and deal with the underlying issue that is causing you to feel overwhelmed, while also offering skills to help you to cope with the impact it is currently having on your life.

Anxiety and stress are normal, natural, and functional human experiences. At times, for many, anxiety and stress can start to feel overwhelming and all consuming and it may feel as if you're stuck and trapped in these difficult feelings. When we feel anxiety and stress it's our body's natural way of signalling to us that there is something we need to pay attention to and address, and it's our job to pay attention! When life feels overwhelming, it can often be helpful to seek the help of a compassionate and un-biased professional to help you explore what is challenging you, put voice to what is hard to talk about, and together learn strategies and tools to cope more effectively.

If you're struggling with anxious thoughts, you may find it hard to focus. The fight or flight alarm is going off in your brain, constantly sending you messages starting with "what if...." If worrying is keeping you trapped in a hamster wheel, tired, but unable to rest, you may find yourself turning to addictive substances or behaviours to cope. As an addiction counsellor, I help clients cope with the anxious thoughts keeping them trapped in addictive behaviours. By uncovering these underlying thoughts, I help you develop coping skills so you can gain a sense of focus, clarity, confidence, and freedom from constantly overthinking. Send me a message and I'll guide you through the next steps.