Anxiety Counseling in Madison, WI

Anxiety is caused by resisting the flow of life, saying “no” to our present experience. Arguing with reality is the primary cause of anxiety and suffering.

Anxiety Comes From Focusing on Past and/or Future

We often argue by being rigidly focused on our expectations of the future, or stuck on the losses of our past. Focusing on the past or the future allows us to avoid our unpredictable, sometimes painful emotions and associated uncomfortable body sensations.

The more we detach from the present moment and our body sensations, the more we will suffer anxiety and a lack of emotional connection with our self and our loved ones. Anxiety stops our ability to emotionally connect. 

The Anxiety-Loneliness Connection

Chronic anxiety leads to loneliness. This loneliness can take over our life causing us to feel like we are a phony, not really living our life, just going through the motions, without any enjoyment or connection.

How Pain and Loss Relate to Anxiety

One of the main causes of anxiety is the avoidance of painful emotions arising from loss. Each time we go through a life transition, such as going to high school, getting a new job, or the ending of a relationship, we must let go of old ways of life and create new ones. This involves a process of grieving the old, to make room for the new. To grieve in a healthy way, we must be comfortable experiencing the painful emotions of shame, anger, fear, sadness, and emptiness. If we resist or avoid these emotions, we get stuck and become unable to effectively recover from loss, referred to as Inhibited Grieving. This leads to low resilience in the face of loss or change, and heightened sensitivity to rejection and loss.

Each time we go through a life transition, inability to fully grieve causes us to become more anxious, emotionally shutdown, and numb to the world. Our only option is to move faster and faster to continue to avoid the losses in our past, while trying to achieve our expectations of the future. Eventually we become burned out, leading to an emotional breakdown culminating in depression, or a mid-life crisis. In addition to burnout, we can also develop panic and/or panic attack symptoms.

Panic and Panic Attacks

Panic attacks are caused by chronic repression of uncomfortable body sensations arising from painful emotions. If we repress and reject our painful emotions and associated body sensations, they seem to disappear, only to come back when we least expect it, stronger than ever. When the body sensations return, it is typically in a moment of great anxiety and distress. We are easily overwhelmed by these seemingly alien feelings, making us feel out of control and possibly tricking our mind into thinking we are dying. We call this a panic attack. 

Managing Anxiety through Therapy

To help you manage anxiety and/or panic, we will teach you about different emotions and associated body sensations. Then, very slowly, we will help you become comfortable with the anxiety-producing body sensations and associated painful emotions.

We will also help you learn to identify which emotion you are feeling in a given moment, and whether or not the emotion is a secondary or a primary emotion. When learning to regulate emotions, it is important to distinguish between primary emotions (I am sad because my partner left me) and secondary emotions (an emotion about an emotion, I am mad that I am sad).

When trying to decrease anxiety, you want to experience and regulate your primary emotion and not focus on your secondary emotion. Through our grounded, compassionate support and our experience teaching clients how to regulate their anxiety and emotions, our Madison anxiety counselors can meet you in your anxiety where you are, and lead you to peacefulness.

Contact Our Madison Therapy Team

To schedule a free 20-minute consultation, click the button below to reach our contact form. We’ll schedule a time to talk, where we can answer your questions and see if we’re a good fit for each other.