The Coronavirus crisis makes anxiety worse.
If you are struggling more with anxiety right now, you are not alone. Our day-to-day lives have been turned upside down by the Coronavirus and the need for social distancing.
Even if you are following the recommended precautions of social distancing to avoid spreading germs, you may be constantly worried and feel it’s just a matter of time before you or someone in your family will get the virus.
With the misinformation and unknowns about this new virus and how it can be transmitted, there seems to be no way of staying completely safe. But what we can control is our mental resiliency and well-being.
Helping you deal with your anxiety via Online Therapy, is a way that I can help you cope. There are techniques that you can learn to manage anxious thoughts, sleep better, build resilience and nourish in place.
Reach out if you would like to chat with me to see if working together makes sense.
You can thrive at work and in life without being constantly plagued by feelings of overwhelm, inadequacy and stress. In fact, you can find a way to succeed while feeling peaceful, balanced and excited to bring your best self to life’s challenges.
Whether you are trying to launch a business or raise a family, life can be filled with unexpected demands.
- Conflicting deadlines
- Demanding, grumpy clients, colleagues and children
- Plumbing and other household emergencies
- Being afraid to follow up with clients and new prospects
- Feeling scattered and unable to find important documents
- Hearing you have a reputation as an unreliable business owner
For people who suffer from severe stress or who have anxiety, those unexpected demands can sometimes feel like too much to bear.
But, it does not need to be so difficult
You don’t need to reach for a bottle or a brownie to deal with the stress. Instead, there are simple techniques you can learn to re-wire your brain and help you feel calmer and more capable.
The right therapeutic support can access your best self and achieve more, without all the stress.
It is my professional mission to help busy entrepreneurs and career women find freedom from unhelpful habits that are holding them back from personal and professional success.
Through our work together you will feel more calm and capable and start to achieve your goals
- Effortlessly complete more proposals and get more clients
- Quickly and confidently follow through with leads and new opportunities
- Have fun and get everything done, even on the days when last minute emergencies pop up
- Deal with demanding people in your life with ease
- Feel eager to start your day and respond to difficulties as they arise with mental clarity and ease.
- Crush your to-do list and conquer your feelings of overwhelm and worry.
- Feel competent that you have what you need to meet the challenges that arise as you move through your day.
It is possible to have more peace of mind, feel balanced and content in your life.
The First Step Is Understanding What Anxiety Is and How It Works
What is Anxiety?
Anxiety is an emotional state characterized by feelings of worry, nervousness, and unease. Anxiety can become all-encompassing, invading your thoughts and emotions and determining your behavior.
How anxiety works and anxiety symptoms
Anxiety shows up differently in different people, but typically people will experience a combination of symptoms that affect them both physically, emotionally, and in their thinking and behavior.
You might experience:
- Rapid heartbeat
- Trembling
- Fear
- Feelings of impending doom
- Worry thoughts
- Avoiding situations or people
- Irritability
- Panic
- Nausea
- Insomnia
No anxious person has the same exact set of symptoms, but everyone has some of each type.
Does this sound familiar; You get messages from others, “Don’t worry” or “Don’t stress, just chillax”.
Easier said than done, right?
Because of constantly being told to just relax and chill out, you may feel like there is something fundamentally wrong with you.
But guess what? According to the ADAA (Anxiety and Depression Association of America) anxiety disorders affect 40 million adult Americans every year, and “everyday anxiety” affects a greater number.
I see people like this in my office everyday who have made great strides in learning to take control of their anxiety and start living with more freedom.
One memorable client, whom I will call Sally, came to me with such debilitating anxiety that she was having difficulty enjoying social situations, leaving her home and fearful of underperforming at work. After our work together, she not only learned how to manage her worry thoughts, insomnia, and irritability, but she went on to getting the job promotion that she had so dearly wanted.
Your anxiety is actually trying to help you!
Being anxious is part of our evolutionary system that keeps us safe by pausing and scanning our environments.
Feeling anxiety helps us to look out for potential threats. If you detect a potential danger, it’s not supposed to be easy for you to stop thinking about that threat.
Now that’s great if you’re a caveman worried about how to keep your family safe, but not so great when you’re a new business owner convinced your business is going to fail if you don’t make the next sale.
For many of you who suffer from anxiety, your alarm bells are going off too often when there isn’t good reason to be excessively cautious.
It’s not a personality defect
- It’s a healthy legacy, it kept your ancestors safe
- It warns you when you are not safe
Having some false anxiety alarms – where you see threats that don’t exist or worry about things that don’t end up happening – isn’t a personality defect. This built in alarm system kept your ancestors safe and is a built-in part of the nervous system. It’s our fight, flight, freeze response.
It’s normal to feel anxious when you leave your comfort zone or take on a new challenge – like getting that well-earned promotion or leaving a long-term, but unhealthy relationship. Where we get into trouble is when we avoid certain challenges that keep us stuck and not living the life we want to live.
It’s not possible or even useful to reduce our anxiety to zero. We need a low to moderate level of anxiety (or stress) to help us perform at our best. For example, anxiety tells us we need to study for that big exam or prepare for the job interview.
Anxiety becomes a problem when it becomes life-limiting, preventing your from living a life that reflects your goals, desires, and values.
The high cost of avoiding your anxiety
You may have been doing things to decrease your anxiety in the short run, such as avoiding things that make you feel anxious, that have increased your anxiety in the long run. For example, if you have social anxiety and always feel judged and inadequate, you might start avoiding other people or situations where you must interact closely with others.
At first, such avoidance can relieve anxiety. Suddenly, you’ll find avoidance has you trapped, and what used to be a useful coping mechanism is now a life-limiting problem.
Does this sound like you?
- You hesitate so much that you miss important business opportunities
- You avoid feedback at work and then are not alerted to real problems that could have been averted earlier
- You turn to alcohol, drugs or food to cope with your anxiety and this leads to more problems
- Your anxiety shows up in the form of perfectionism that paralyzes you to the point of not acting on important tasks
- You’re so afraid to leave your comfort zone and avoid situations and people that your world gets smaller and smaller
- You second guess every social interaction and start avoiding your friends, let along meeting new people
This is a painful way to live, and there is a way out.
You don’t need to continue to suffer
You can learn to step out of the habitual pattern of anxiety and find more joy, resilience and peace. Feel excited to start your day, knowing you have what it takes to meet challenges with ease.
Imagine yourself living the life you want to live, enjoying doing fun things with people you love. Your mind is free of anxious, racing thoughts. Your emotions are mostly positive. You feel confident and balanced. Your life is yours to live.
Anxiety causes you to live trapped in your mind, focused on your spinning thoughts and feelings.
There is a way out and it’s not as difficult as you might think.
Let me be your guide along the path to peace of mind
There are proven techniques to help manage anxiety. If you have read this far, it’s likely that you have investigated other options; self-help books, talking to friends, or googling the problem.
Unlike your friends and fellow co-workers, I also understand the dynamics behind anxiety and have proven techniques to help you take back control. I use the latest brain science coupled with practical, well-researched techniques to reduce anxiety symptoms and to help calm the mind and the body.
As we work together you will start to feel more at peace, capable, and confident to stay the course.
You’ll be able to go to your kids’ activities without being on edge and complete a work or school assignment without dreading that it’s not good enough. You’ll be able to enjoy yourself in social situations without worrying what others are thinking of you.
I want to be your guide in navigating anxiety. You don’t need to do this alone. Many people suffer from anxiety and I am eager to help you get unstuck, start feeling like yourself again and get on with your life.
I will support you in your journey to being anxiety free
Initially, I want to know what you would like to see be different in your life because of our work together. I will also want to know what you have tried that has not helped and what has gotten in the way of you not reaching your goals.
Then we start with increasing awareness around identifying the thoughts and behavior patterns that have contributed to the development and persistence of anxiety.
I will want to know what your symptoms of anxiety are and how they are showing up in your life and in what situations. We will also look at triggers for your anxiety.
From there I will teach you some new tools, such as mindfulness exercises, to re-wire your brain and help you feel more calm and capable.
In addition, I utilize the following types of treatment to help you feel relief quickly and start to gain control of your anxiety:
- Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction
- ACT – Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
- DBT – Dialectical Behavior Therapy
Frequently Asked Questions About Getting Anxiety Help with Dawn King
What should I expect at the first session?
During the first session I will want to hear how anxiety is affecting your life. I will also want to get some history of the problem and what you’ve tried in the past. From there we can discuss what you would like to see be different as a result of our work together and then make a plan.
Our sessions will be interactive – in addition to asking questions, I will give you feedback, and may gently challenge you at times. With your input, I will make suggestions for ways to integrate our work outside of sessions through a new skill. This new skill might be for example a journal exercise, a handout or a breathing exercise.
How long will therapy it take?
Most people find significant relief in 7-9 months, for some it could be 4-6 months. It varies from person to person and depends upon what you’re coming in for and what you want to accomplish. In some cases, it may have taken years to establish the problem behavior, so realistically, it may take time to reverse deeply embedded behaviors. In this case, you may want to plan for at least six months of concerted action to get to a point where you are maintaining the changes that you have made in therapy.
To get the best outcome, it takes a commitment to show up consistently and to budget the time, energy and money for counseling.
How often do I see you?
I start out seeing clients weekly anywhere from 16-20 sessions. As our work progresses, we will discover if we can move to a less frequent schedule, say every other week. Again, everyone’s situation is different, and you will have an individualized plan.
What do you charge?
I charge $130 for a 50 – minute session. I encourage you to think of this as a long-term investment in your prosperity. Trying to “suck it up”, by doing it on your own, can be a costly strategy and one that’s not sustainable.
Consider these statistics: One in four of us will experience significant mental health problems, such as depression and anxiety, at some point in our lives. Not seeking help can impact your livelihood in several ways: decreased performance while at work, loss of income due to poor decision making, potentially losing your job or business and in some extreme cases – disability. (The World Health Organization names depression as a leading cause of disability.)
Getting help can also save on costly ER or doctor’s visits. Regularly people with anxiety show up in the ER with panic attacks that mimic the symptoms of a heart attack. Or they are visiting their doctors with back pain, headaches and other symptoms of unrecognized or untreated anxiety.
You don’t want to be a statistic. Taking care of yourself is putting the oxygen mask on yourself first, so that you can show up for the people you love and thrive in your business and personal life.
Will my insurance cover our sessions? How does that work?
I am currently an out-of-network provider for most insurance companies. I can provide a receipt (superbill) that you can submit to your insurance company for possible reimbursement.
Will you think I’m “crazy” or judge me?
There is no judgment. I strive to create a sense of safety for my clients and my office is a “judgment free” zone. I want you to feel comfortable with sharing whatever is on your mind.
What if I don’t want to talk about something?
That is totally fine. I would not pressure you into talking about something that you are not ready to talk about. I will follow your lead in what you want to discuss in our sessions.
How will I know if therapy is working?
You may notice an improvement in your mood, positive communication skills, sleeping better, making better decisions, enjoying your work more, improvement in your relationships, flying off the handle less, worrying less, or you’ve stopped engaging in an addictive behavior and are participating in activities that you enjoy. Not everyone will have all of these, but if therapy is working for you, you will have some of these and or be meeting other goals that you’ve identified.
Where are you located?
I’m at 8800 Ralston Road, Suite 204, Arvada, CO 80002 close to Olde Town Arvada close to Olde Town Arvada. My office is at the corner of Ralston and Estes. There is plenty of free parking.
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When are you available for appointments?
I see clients Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday by appointment only.
How Do I Get Started?
Simply visit my Getting Started page or call me at 303.229.2804. We will set up an initial, free 15-minute consultation. Following our consultation, we can schedule a time to meet in person at my office for our first appointment. Feel free to download the paperwork for our first appointment and to learn more about my practice. You can find it here: Getting Started.