The Two Sides to Treating Anxiety
If you are struggling with anxiety and looking for relief, then it’s important for you to know that there are two main avenues to treating and healing anxiety (you can think of these like two sides of the same “anxiety-fighting” coin):
Learning practical skills to regulate your nervous system
Doing the deeper work of uncovering triggers for your anxiety
Let’s break these two avenues down, shall we?
Practical Skills:
One of the most helpful things you can do to heal your anxiety is learn how to intentionally calm down and regulate your nervous system. Anxiety is a nervous system problem and requires a nervous system solution.
When you spend time learning about your nervous system and how to regulate it, you have practical skills to help you in the moments of intense anxiety. These practical skills help you feel confident that you can get through your anxiety flare ups. After all, it’s an incredibly helpless feeling to be stuck in an anxiety spiral or panic attack and have no idea how to get out of it!
The good news is that there are many ways to learn how to regulate your nervous system, including:
Prioritizing sleep
Engaging in intentional movement
Practicing deep breathing
Singing or humming
Grounding to nature
Practicing mindfulness
Activating your five senses
Activating your vagus nerve
Utilizing cold
And many more!
If you’re ready to dive into learning practical ways that you can immediately start regulating your nervous system, I created a course just for you! In my self-paced anxiety course for Christians I go in depth into how to understand and regulate your nervous system, and leave you with the practical tools needed to start overcoming your anxiety.
Deeper Uncovering Work:
On the other side of the coin, healing anxiety is also about doing the deeper work of uncovering your triggers for anxiety. Once you feel confident that you have the practical skills necessary to regulate your nervous system when your anxiety pops up, then you can have the confidence to dig deeper into why your anxiety is getting triggered in the first place.
This type of exploration can be really helpful to do with a therapist that can be your guide into exploring your anxiety. Doing the deeper work of therapy can help you identify the underlying triggers for your anxiety attacks that aren’t easily identified, or longstanding patterns in your life that are contributing to your anxiety. It can just be really helpful to have a guide outside of yourself who can help you navigate your anxiety and talk through some of your deepest fears.
Now if you’ve never been to therapy, it might sound a little scary - I get it! You might be worried about inviting someone to speak into your life, and trusting them with your innermost thoughts and feelings. It also might be really important to you that whoever this therapist is shares your faith background and will counsel you in a way that honors your most important beliefs.
Well the good news is that there are many excellent therapists that do provide Christian counseling and who incorporate faith and a biblical perspective on mental health into the process of therapy.
So if you’re interested in giving therapy a try, but don’t know where to start, here are some places that you can find specifically a Christian therapist to work with:
Psychology Today is the biggest and most comprehensive directory of therapists online, so to search specifically for a Christian therapist just select “Christian Counseling” from the drop down menu under “Types of Therapy”. This will filter the results to only list therapists that have identified themselves as Christian therapists.
You can also search for a therapist through the Christian Counselor Directory, which is an online database that only contains therapists that have identified themselves as Christian and who provide faith-informed therapy.
If you’re a California resident, you are also welcome to reach out to me to get on my waitlist for my private practice! I do provide faith-based therapy and maintain a small caseload of clients that I can work with one-on-one.
So let’s review the two main avenues to treating anxiety:
Learning practical skills to regulate your nervous system
Doing the deeper work of exploring your anxiety
As a therapist myself, of course I believe in the power of therapy to help heal anxiety. But I also know that therapy is not always accessible or practical for everyone, or there might be seasons of life where therapy just isn’t a realistic option (I mean, I’m a toddler mom so I get it, time is precious!)
That’s also why I created my online anxiety course, because there is SO MUCH healing work that you can start to do on your own, from the safety and comfort of your own home, and at your own pace.
So friend, if you are a Christian that struggles with anxiety and wants to find relief, then I invite you to think about which of those two paths toward healing you can start walking today.
References: https://healyournervoussystem.com/47-practices-to-heal-a-dysregulated-nervous-system/
