Helping clients to manage stress and anxiety is one of my favourite parts of my work as a counsellor. I understand how debilitating it can be to be weighed down by stress or held back by anxiety. How exhausting it is to have your thoughts trapped in a constant spiral of “what ifs?” How frustrating it is to feel like you’re being controlled by your anxiety. I can help you to understand your feelings of anxiety, reduce the power that your anxious thoughts have over you and help you to feel like you’re more in control.

How do I do this? Well, the main technique that I like to use with clients who are experiencing anxiety is called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is all about changing your relationship to your emotions. It’s not about stopping or eliminating emotions, but rather reducing the level of influence they have over you.

If you struggle with anxiety, you’ve probably tried a lot of things to make it go away. You might have tried thinking positive thoughts, ignoring the anxiety, distracting yourself or fighting against the feelings of panic and tenseness. Perhaps you’ve tried to reason your way out of a thought spiral, only to find yourself caught in it again and again? Chances are, none of these things have really worked.

Even when anxiety isn’t present, it can still have a hold on you. You might struggle to relax or feel happy and engaged with other people because you feel frightened that the anxiety is going to come bubbling up. You might avoid certain situations or things that might trigger your anxiety. And this might mean that you’re missing out on doing things that are important to you, or aren’t progressing towards your goals because you’re afraid. You might also have feelings of shame or failure that are tied up in this pattern of behaviour.

In Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (or ACT), we won’t try to switch off your anxiety. Instead, we’ll try to explore your anxiety, help you to understand it better and find ways to change the way you interact with those emotions.

One way that I like to describe it is to think of anxiety as a monster. It’s as though you’ve been playing tug-of-war with this monster for years, trying to muscle the rope out of its’ hands and gain control. You’ve convinced yourself that if you could only be strong enough, you’ll be able to overpower the Anxiety Monster and it will go away. ACT doesn’t give you the strength to beat the monster, but rather it gives you the ability to drop the rope and end the struggle.

This idea sounds really scary at first, because the thought of allowing your anxiety to remain runs counter to what you’ve been trying to do all these years. By dropping the rope, aren’t you giving up? Wouldn’t that mean that anxiety can then walk all over you? Well, surprisingly, that’s not what happens.

Anxiety is a protective emotion. It works hard to get our attention and alert us to potential threats. At it’s core, anxiety just wants us to be safe. If you try to ignore it or pretend it’s not there, it only roars louder to try to get your attention. So in ACT, we work towards helping you to notice your anxiety, hear what it’s telling you, and then make a choice about what you want to do with that information. Funnily enough, when you can acknowledge your anxiety and treat it with compassion, it won’t have to try so hard to get your attention. It quietens down. This empowers you to take considered action, so that anxiety isn’t in the driving seat. You can “feel the fear and do it anyway” if you want.

In counselling, I will give you an opportunity to discuss the things that you feel anxious about. We’ll explore your anxious thoughts and the ways they impact your behaviour. We’ll work on creating more awareness of your anxious feelings, so that you can notice them before they really take hold. And we’ll practice finding ways to accept this sticky emotion, listen to what it’s telling you and then choose what to do next. This type of therapy is really powerful for all kinds of emotional work but I especially like to use it with anxiety management because it’s very effective.

If you’re struggling with anxiety and you’d like help managing it, please feel encouraged to book an appointment with me. I would love to support you to understand your anxiety and alter your relationship with it so that you can feel more empowered and in control.