Approximately 40 million Americans or 18% of the population struggle with anxiety. But exactly what is anxiety? Over the next few blogs I will discuss types of anxiety and coping skills to help manage them.

Generalized anxiety symptoms include:

Excessive anxiety and worry

Difficult to control worry

Restlessness, feeling keyed up or on edge

Easily fatigued

Difficulty concentrating or mind going blank

Irrita...

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One way to challenge anxiety is by identifying the anxious thinking. This can be tricky, often people don’t even recognize how their thoughts influence their emotions. People are aware of their anxiety, but when I ask what they were thinking about when their anxiety spiked, they don’t have an answer. They will tell me that the spike ‘just happened.’ This is almost never the case, there is almost always some thought, usually several thoughts, which precede the spike in ...

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Now I want to discuss practicing mindful acceptance. This is probably the simplest concept to explain, but the hardest strategy to practice.

The harder we try to push negative emotions away the stronger they become. It’s kind of like this….ask someone to close their eyes for just a second. Once they have closed their eyes, tell them to not think of a pink elephant. Tell them to think of anything at all, but whatever they do, do not picture a pink elephant. Nope...

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Seasonal Affective Disorder

or

Why do I want to hibernate every winter?

It's that time of year in the mid-west. The days are getting shorter and the nights are getting cooler. The leaves will be changing soon, than dropping. After that, it's time to brace for short days; going to work and coming home in the dark. Gray skies, snow storms and ice. I'll admit it, I dislike winter in the best of times. I especially dislike it when I slow down and feel the urge to curl up and hibernate until spring. Otherwise known as Seasonal Affective Disorder or SAD.

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Grounding

Ground is a set of simple coping skills to help you detach from intense negative emotions. Think of it as a type of active mindfulness. Grounding is useful for a variety of people to help decrease intense emotions related to anxiety, OCD compulsions, panic attacks, self-harm, extreme anger, substance use , dissociation and more. Grounding is intended to help anchor you in the present.

When practicing grounding remember:

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Grounding Exercises

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I find myself normalizing being an introvert to my clients a lot. Our society celebrates extroverts. The expectation is to have every minute scheduled. Committee meetings, volunteer events, parties, spending every free minute being 'productive'. There's nothing wrong with that, but introverts often feel they must be defective in some way because they have a limited amount of energy to spend on the outside world.

As an introvert myself, I've learned to celebrate these differences rather than being embarrassed by them. I enjoy helping my clients learn that it's okay to prefer time home alone to being surrounded by people all the time. I asked people on facebook what they wish people understood about their experience as an introvert. Here's what some of them said:

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Learning to say no. Learning to state your wants and needs while respecting other people, is a valuable skill. Do you find yourself running around trying to please everyone because you don't want to hurt their feelings? Do you end up exhausted and resentful because no-one asks what you need? Maybe you find yourself making snarky little comments because you are sick to death of taking care of everyone. And once in awhile you find yourself exploding, yelling and screaming because you just 'can'...

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1. Start small. Start practicing being assertive with someone safe and with small issues. Maybe tell a friend what you are learning and than practice with that person.

2. If someone asks you for a favor, don't say yes right away. Try something like, “Let me get back to....

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My sobriety date is July 20, 1997. I got sober in my 20's and can now say that I have been sober much longer than I drank and that I have in fact, spent the majority of my adult life sober. My name is....I'm not gonna give that, am I? I believe that anonymity is super important to recovery. So you can call me....Sally. (And yes, I stole that from the title of ...

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