Counseling for Anxiety and Depression
in Brentwood and throughout TN
It’s Saturday morning and you are out to coffee with a friend. Your friend asks you ‘How are you feeling?’ You give the standard answer of ‘fine’ or ‘ok’ or ‘good.’ The answers that won’t invite additional questions about how you are feeling, allowing you to shift the conversation to what you are doing or completely bring the conversation back to focus on the other person you are with.
This person will often comment how great of a friend you are, what a good listener you are, and how close they feel to you. But you don’t feel close to them. You realized that you don’t feel close to many people in your life.
If they were to dig a bit more, you would feel stuck in how to answer, uncertain what to say or of how you are feeling.
When you think about it, you notice that you are going through the motions of life, doing the things that should bring you joy and fulfillment, but you’re not really feeling much.
You notice a low hum of worry in most things you do, worrying about completing everything on time, finishing everything perfectly, having work-life balance, and having close relationships with friends and family.
You keep yourself busy with outings, work projects, hobbies, planning trips, filling your day to the brim because if you stay still, stay quiet, that inner voice becomes too loud, too powerful and you are not sure how to sit in the discomfort.
The biggest shift in feeling you notice is getting to a place of exhaustion, of burnout. Where the only thing left to do is stay in bed for a full day, or week, or weekend, trying to recover so that you can try again the next day or week. You keep your mind busy- have something going-music, a show, a movie, a podcast, a book-anything and everything so that you don’t have to be alone with your thoughts–with your feelings.
You try so hard to shut out the thoughts and feelings, but some of the harder ones creep through.
Whether in a:
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‘Did I really just say that! What do they think of me now?’
‘What was I doing? I completely lost my train of thought.’
‘Why are you feeling this way? You don’t have a right to feel this way.’
‘You have to do it right, no mistakes!’
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Anxious or worried
Depressed or sad
Irritated
Overwhelmed
Lonely
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‘My jaw really hurts. I must have been clenching it throughout the night.’
‘It feels like there is a heaviness or pressure on my chest.’
‘My heart feels like I just ran a marathon.’
‘I feel so tired all the time!’
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Sleeping all day.
Staying up all night.
Picking at your cuticles.
Difficulty starting or finishing a school or work assignment.
Doing too much or too little.
You know there is something going on inside, you're just not quite sure what it is. You feel off, different then you used to, one minute jittery and on edge, the next completely wiped out, unable to motivate yourself to do much.
Gain clarity on how you feel and make space to feel it.
Imagine this…
It’s Saturday morning and you are out to coffee with a friend. Your friend asks you ‘How are you feeling?’ You answer honestly, saying that you have been having a hard time at work and feeling stressed about how to make time for everything you need to get done.
Your friend really listens to what you are saying and gives you support, reassurance, and offers a couple of suggestions on how to destress. You feel a little bit lighter and less alone after ya’lls talk.
You were able to clearly and comfortably communicate with your friend how you were feeling and what experiences were contributing to this feeling.
You were able to make space for yourself to be heard, to honestly share what you were experiencing without worry about being judged or dismissed. You didn’t shy away from your experience or letting your friend be there for you.
As you leave coffee, you don’t turn on music or a podcast, you're able to sit in the silence, being with your own thoughts. You reflect on feeling closer to your friend than you ever had, you feel less heavy and rather than worried about what you said or didn’t say, you smile thinking how much you enjoyed talking with your friend.
When you return home, rather than feeling exhausted from doing a thing on a Saturday morning, you feel energized to move through your Saturday flexibly. You feel comfortable in the quiet as ticking off to-dos; dancing in the kitchen as you cook dinner; spending time laughing with roommates or family ; and curling up to sleep soundly at the end of the day.
What an enjoyable experience that would be! How do you get there?
How Counseling Can Help!
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Learn your emotions beyond happy, sad, angry, scared… to distinguish, clarify, and put into words how you’re feeling.
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What did you learn about emotions growing up? That some were ‘good’ emotions’ that some were ‘bad’? How did you see emotions expressed? How has this impacted how you feel?
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Ask yourself what is this emotion’s purpose? What are they trying to tell me? What are they trying to do for me?
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Learn how to care for yourself when you are feeling depressed or anxious. Identify things that are already working for you- while expanding your ‘toolbox’ of skills to help you process and soothe uncomfortable emotions.
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Connect with the present moment, paying attention to the here and now, as well as connecting to internal thoughts and feelings.
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Say ‘It’s ok to feel this way.’ ‘This feeling is valid.’ ‘It’s understandable that I am feeling this way.’ ‘I can take care of myself when I feel this way.’
In building these skills, you create space to interact compassionately with yourself. You stop trying to minimize or avoid your feelings, recognizing that all emotions have purpose and meaning– are valid to your experience. You are able to better let your feelings come and go- both the ‘good’ and ‘bad’- without fighting to change your experience. You learn how to care for yourself when you are feeling depressed or anxious, so that you don’t feel as if you will drown in the feeling
You are able to allow the past to inform your present and your future to guide your present, while not staying stuck in the past or fearful of the future.
Therapy for Anxiety and Depression can Help You:
Identify your feelings with more clarity and accuracy.
Expand your understanding of how you feel and what it means.
Develop coping skills for dealing with uncomfortable feelings.
Reduce how often and how intensely you feel anxiety and depression.
Improve how you communicate your feelings.
Your emotions are valid.
Give yourself a safe space to feel your feelings!
Frequently Asked Questions:
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A: Totally understandable…happy feels great!
And it is a feeling, which means ‘happy’ or ‘happiness’ will not be a fixed state. It will come and go, just like every other emotion you experience.
You’ve probably heard this cliche before (if not, I am so glad to introduce it to you!) emotions are like waves. They come and they go. Some are big; some are small; some pool in a pond we’ve dug; some carry us out to sea, leaving us feeling frightened and fighting for a way out. The more we fight or try to swim back to shore, the more caught up in it we become, drowning in the wave.
The same is true for feelings, the more we fight against the feeling, trying desperately to push it aside or get rid of it, the more stuck in it we become.
However, if we swim with the wave, if we go with the feeling, we tend to come out of it faster, less tired, and less beat up.
Focusing on the present moment and being in the feeling, including happiness, creates space for us to feel less fearful of losing happiness, less down for not being happy when we ‘should’, and feeling more content in life overall.
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A: Anxiety and Depression can show up differently for everyone, and with a lot of people experiencing both to some degree. Some common signs may be:
Anxiety: constant worry, unable to relax, racing thoughts, difficulty making decisions, irritability, tension in your body, fatigue, trouble with sleep, avoidance, and physical sensations
Depression: persistent sadness, loss of interest or pleasure, appetite or weight changes, trouble with sleep, tiredness and low energy, feelings or worthlessness or guilt, trouble making decisions, irritability, and physical sensations.
While we all may have trouble with some of these signs at different times in our lives, together we will explore the frequency, intensity, and length of these experiences and how it impacts your day to day life to meet your own goals for the work we do together.