- 500 Washington St, Portsmouth, VA 23704
- 757-613-8801
- contact@charesejosie.com
Is anxiety getting in the way of your best life?
Are you consumed by fear of failure?
Do you feel like you always have to be busy because you feel guilty and unsatisfied if you stop to relax?
Maybe you wish you could stop working so hard but you’re afraid of what will happen if you do.
Perhaps you’re so used to setting unrealistic expectations that by now, doing so feels automatic. As a result, you may feel frustrated, impatient and overwhelmed.
When you’re dealing with anxiety, it’s easy to feel like you’re living in a mental fog, unable to concentrate because of how stressed you are. You may struggle to sleep at night because your thoughts are always racing. But since you’re able to function at a high level in day-to-day life, other people probably don’t see the stress in you. Your anxiety may go unnoticed until it starts to affect you physically—in panic attacks, stomach or body aches and even illness.
One of the hardest parts of living with anxiety is how it can affect your social life. Perhaps you long for connection and wish you could spend more time with friends and family but you feel like you’re missing something when you relax. Because of how consumed you are with what you have to do, you don’t have the emotional space or energy to engage with others. Your stress does not allow you to give or receive vulnerable or loving emotions, leaving you feeling lonely and isolated.
Deep down, you may tell yourself: If only I could accomplish more, I would feel less anxious and stressed. But the paradox of living with anxiety is that the harder you work to try to fight your stress, the worse you feel.
Anxiety treatment gives you a chance to reverse this process and make time to slow down and reflect on life. With my support, I am confident that you can overcome feelings of guilt and shame, learn new stress management strategies and develop a healthier self-care routine.
Anxiety is widespread in today’s fast-paced world but it is especially common among leaders and hardworking professionals. Many of them struggle with high-functioning depression—that is, they are constantly adding to their workload in order to combat depression, which only creates more stress. In this way, they end up in a vicious cycle of anxiety and depression, each one worsening the symptoms of the other.
In our society today, African-American women are expected to work hard in the home and the workplace. We are supposed to juggle a million responsibilities and are not allowed to get tired. When we do feel overwhelmed and exhausted, seeking help is often shunned or seen as a sign of weakness. The message of “do more, be more” increases our stress and causes us to suffer in silence.
As an anxiety therapist, I am here to tell you that you don’t have to suffer in silence anymore. As hard as it may be to ask for help, it’s important to remember that doing so is a sign of strength. It shows that you want to improve your mental health, broaden your support system and learn to regulate your emotions effectively.
If you’re reading this page, you may be asking yourself:
What if I do therapy wrong?
What if I don’t change or make any progress?
If this is how you feel, I encourage you to take comfort in the fact that anxiety counseling is not a sprint. It is a place to slow down, unwind and feel heard and validated. Instead of pushing you to accomplish more, I want to help free you from the unhealthy thought patterns that are driving you to overwork yourself.
As we work together, my goal is to help you understand your emotional needs, identify your stressors and explore any unresolved childhood trauma in your life. There may be painful experiences in your past that trained your brain to feel anxious, causing the negative habits and thought patterns that drive your stress today. By modifying your thoughts and behaviors, you can overcome the pain of the past and reduce the anxiety it has created.
Additionally, I will assist you in identifying the emotions and sensations associated with your stress reactions. In other words, we will explore the body cues that signify that you are having a stress reaction (e.g., sweaty palms or rapid heartrate). This will enable you to track your symptoms as they surface in real time and act decisively instead of reactively.
I also want to help you create a routine that allows you to be productive without overburdening yourself. The goal is to find a healthy work-life balance. I will help you learn to establish boundaries without feeling guilty, allowing you to avoid the “do more, be more” mentality that caused undue stress in your life.
Mindfulness is one of the main techniques I use in stress counseling. Through grounding and calming exercises, you will learn to be present in the moment and attentive to your thoughts, feelings and body responses. Mindfulness can help you focus on one task at a time, reducing the sense of overwhelm that anxiety creates. Moreover, it can help you strengthen your connections with others and lead more effectively in the workplace.
No matter how debilitating it may feel, anxiety doesn’t have to hold you back in life. With my help and support, I believe that you can identify what makes you stressed, what boundaries to put in place and what habits to cultivate going forward.
Yes, stress is a normal part of life that everyone experiences at some point. However, simply because stress is normal does not make it unworthy of treatment. Without understanding what heightens your anxiety or how to properly treat it, your symptoms may spiral out of control. With my help, you can learn to keep these symptoms under control so that they do not consume your life.
With all of your responsibilities, it’s understandable that you’re not sure how to manage your anxiety. Thankfully, my focus is not so much on managing anxiety as it is on helping you heal and grow. Instead of trying to combat or eliminate your stress, I want to concentrate on what brings you joy, fulfillment and peace of mind.
I’m not here to tell you how to live your life. Anxiety treatment is a time to figure out what changes and adjustments you want to make. Besides, rather than focus on giving up responsibilities, it may be better to ask how much to invest yourself in each of them. This way, you’re not cutting important tasks out of your life but you’re also not expending too much energy on any one of them.
If you wish you had someone to talk to about anxiety who wouldn’t judge you or tell you that it’s not a big deal, I would be honored to be that person. To learn how to cope with stress and create a more effective self-care routine, you can schedule a free, 15-minute phone consultation.
