Anxiety, Managing emotions

What to do when I’m Anxious? Four simple questions to put you back on track.

Written by Here Counseling

Anxiety is that pesky companion that wants to rob you of your control in life. 

  • It hijacks your thoughts during important moments.
  • It tenses your shoulders, your chest, and your digestive system. 
  • It over activates your “what if” fears.
  • It can affect your sleep, diet, and ability to stay present and attentive to life.

You want to take a deep breath, rest once in a while, to be assured that somehow everything will be okay, but Anxiety’s “what if” voice has your amygdala doing somersaults, taxing your nervous system with a constant, low-volume version of fight or flight. 

Anxiety’s Master Plan

Anxiety is most successful at taking over if it can convince you there’s something in your life that isn’t secure or loved. Your amygdala may automatically trigger your fight or flight response when you feel unsafe or unloved.

Fight or flight is beneficial when you are in present physical danger. Your digestive system shuts down, your logic and reasoning are dulled, blood rushes to contracted muscles, and your heart rate increases, so you can expend the energy where it matters when in danger: getting to safety.

Fight or flight is less helpful when you’re worried about a promotion, when you don’t know if you and your partner see eye-to-eye, when a difficult test is around the corner and you aren’t sure if you studied enough. 

We want to turn down the volume on Anxiety’s voice of unsafety and insecurity. Turning down the volume will help you gain a little more control over when you need your amygdala’s essential function and when you don’t. The way to turn on the brain’s logic center is by asking ourselves four crucial questions.

4 Important questions to regain control from Anxiety

1) WHAT AM I FEELING IN REGARDS TO MY SECURITY AND SENSE OF BEING LOVED?

Anxiety’s power is in convincing you that things cannot be okay. Its voice is always found in an unhelpful statement about yourself:

  • Something’s wrong with me.
  • I’m not enough.
  • It’s hopeless.
  • I’m not wanted.
  • I should have known better.
  • I’m a failure.

This list is not exhaustive. There are many potential unhelpful messages that Anxiety may be trying to tell you about yourself.

For some, this first question will be the hardest of the four, but it’s essential to start here with Anxiety’s voice so you know how to speak to it. Behind your racing heart, behind your fear of calling that parent, behind your worry about what someone else is thinking, there is an unhelpful voice trying to convince you something negative about WHO YOU ARE. Try in this first step to name that message.

2) WHEN I FEEL THIS WAY, HOW DO I NORMALLY RESPOND?

Anxious symptoms and behaviors are a response to those unhelpful messages that Anxiety wants you to believe about yourself. If you’re convinced you are unwanted, you may struggle with sleeping or what you eat. When feeling hopeless, you may respond in outrage. If you feel like a failure, you may give up or spend hours thinking through a problem instead of experiencing peace, rest, and a solution.

You’ll win the battle against Anxiety when you can 1) name the negative message about your security and sense of being loved, and 2) when you can name how you are tempted to respond to the aforementioned negative message. Here is a small list of potential examples:

  • Excessive worry
  • Self-medication (drugs, alcohol, sex, TV, video games, etcetera)
  • Racing thoughts
  • Lashing out
  • Giving up
  • Fatigue
  • Body symptoms  
  • Feeling on edge
  • Changes in diet

3) WHAT’S POSITIVE AND TRUE ABOUT ME?

Here’s where you can consciously choose to divert your attention to evidence that contradicts Anxiety’s unhelpful voice, where you entertain thoughts that are more true about who you are. If this step is difficult, you can begin by journaling about times the negative message was untrue about you. Eventually, practice diverting to these more positive messages in the middle of Anxiety’s advances to lessen its power.

  • There are plenty of reasons to hope.
  • I have proven I can succeed.
  • I will get through it.
  • I did the best I could.
  • There’s reason to believe I am loved and cared for.

4) HOW WOULD I RATHER RESPOND?

Through knowing the truth of who you are and the strength and love inside of you, you have now turned down the volume on Anxiety’s unhelpful voice and can choose more helpful behaviors and fewer body symptoms.

  • Practice deep breathing and mindfulness.
  • Give attention to the people around you instead of to the problem.
  • Improve eating and sleeping habits.
  • Enjoy soothing behaviors like TV, alcohol, etc., in a healthier, non-excessive way.
  • Complete tasks efficiently with a more solution and strength-based mindset.

How do I know when I need therapy?

Anxiety can be a formidable adversary to fight. Maybe you want a coach to walk you through these four steps. Or perhaps you’d like a little help looking underneath the unhelpful messages, understanding the deeper unconscious drives that have led to some of the symptoms you experience.

There’s no harm in asking a therapist for a free consultation to see if you might be a good candidate for a little extra help. All therapists at Here Counseling offer free consultations, and if we’re not the right therapist for you, we can help you find someone who is.

You’ve got this!

Integrate these four questions into a regular routine. 

  1. What am I feeling in regards to my security and sense of being loved?
  2. When I feel this way, how do I normally respond?
  3. What’s positive and true about me?
  4. How would I rather respond?

Eventually, you’ll be able to quickly cycle through these four questions in the middle of a stressful experience, utilizing the empowerment of truth to turn down the volume on Anxiety’s unhelpful messages, and living in the peace and accomplish you long for. 

Questions to Respond to Anxiety Worksheet

Want these questions in an easy to use free downloadable worksheet? This worksheet will help you take steps forward in dealing with anxiety. You’ll also get access to all our worksheets in Here Counseling’s Resource Library!

Download Free Worksheet

Reference:

Hargrave, T. D., & Pfitzer, F. (2011). Restoration therapy: Understanding and guiding healing in marriage and family therapy. Routledge.

Gavin Cross, AMFT
Gavin Cross, AMFT

I empower young adults and couples to enjoy connection and embrace life transitions.

Learn about therapy with Gavin
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Managing emotions

Therapist shopping and feeling overwhelmed? Ask these questions.

Written by Here Counseling

Choosing a potential therapist is a big deal, and the significance can make the decision feel overwhelming. This article and the accompanying worksheet will help you think through important factors when deciding on a therapist. Many therapists (including our therapists at Here) offer 10 or 15-minute consultations to ask questions and see if a therapist is the right fit for you. These consultations allow you to meet with a therapist or even multiple therapists before making a financial and time investment in a therapeutic relationship. 

As a note, therapists set their boundaries and choose what they feel comfortable disclosing. Holding boundaries is their right, AND you can choose not to see a therapist who doesn’t answer questions about important issues.


Questions to ask yourself:

  • What is most important to you when choosing a therapist? There is no right or wrong answer to this question. This is your therapist and your journey. You know what matters most. Maybe you have a marginalized identity, and you want to see that identity reflected in your therapist. Perhaps you want a specific type of therapy like EMDR or DBT. Or maybe it’s important to you that you can see a therapist via telehealth to fit a therapy session into your busy schedule. Identify what is important to you and stick by that.
  • How do you know when your therapist is a good fit? Maybe you’ve been to therapy before, and you know what makes you feel safe in a therapeutic relationship.

Questions to ask a potential therapist:

  • What is your definition of mental health? Psychological theories have different opinions on what mental health is. It is important to ask potential therapists about their definition of mental health so that you can compare it with yours. Knowing the definition helps you see if you and your therapist will have compatible goals.
  • What is your theoretical orientation? There are so many theoretical orientations that a therapist can use! A theoretical orientation has specifics on what mental health is, what a therapy session looks like, how much self-disclosure your therapist uses, how frequently you meet, how long the course of therapy is, how they think about psychopathology, and more. You have the right to ask a potential therapist about their theoretical orientation, and a therapist should be able to give you a summary in understandable terminology.
  • Have you worked with my issues/mental illnesses before? This is a great question! What experience does this therapist have that will help them work with you? Many reasons could bring you to therapy, and no way that one therapist could specialize in all of the reasons people begin treatment. Even if a therapist has listed a specialty or experience with an issue on their website, you can ask them to discuss this in greater detail.
  • Have you worked with my particular identities before? How do you integrate theories or training to better treat and support me? Especially if you have one or more marginalized identities, asking this question is a matter of safety. It is absolutely your right to ask your potential therapist how they create safety in sessions. Does this therapist incorporate anti-racist learning and training? What specific trainings have they attended to learn about your diagnosis? What additional certifications do they have? Whatever information you need to feel safe, you can ask.
  • What is the fee for a session? In addition to this question, you might want to know if this therapist accepts insurance or if they’ll provide a superbill for you to submit to your insurance.
  • What policies of your practice should I know? Some of these policies could be canceling appts, COVID-19 safety (vaccine requirements, masks, etc.), and ending treatment.

Above all,

I hope that this article helps you to feel less overwhelmed and more empowered as you search for the therapist that is the right fit for you. If you are interested in learning more about our therapists, click here. If you would like to set up a consultation with one of our therapists, click here.

Questions for your Potential Therapist Worksheet

Want these questions in an easy to use free downloadable worksheet? This worksheet will help you take steps forward in dealing with anxiety. You’ll also get access to all our worksheets in Here Counseling’s Resource Library!

Download Free Worksheet
Moriah Conant, MA
Moriah Conant, MA

I connect you with therapists at Here who can help you overcome the biggest obstacles in your life.

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clear your mind
Anxiety, Managing emotions

Three simple steps to help you clear your mind and give you more energy.

Written by Kristi Wollbrink

Do you ever have one of those nights – where you find yourself tossing and turning, your mind filled with thoughts and worries, “what ifs,” and feelings of uncertainty or fear? Sometimes these same feelings and thoughts pop up throughout the day, with a sudden sense of your mind racing, your heart rate speeding up, and breathing getting shallow. Suddenly, all you can think about is what you said or how you may have messed things up, and your mind begins to consider all the possible things that could happen or go wrong. All of a sudden, that one small thing feels like it has become a massive storm with certainty that everything will go wrong.

But could you learn to take back control of these moments of worry and begin to find a place of rest for your mind and body? By practicing just a few simple steps, you can start to quiet the storm inside your mind, leading to more clarity, better sleep, and the ability to breathe a little more deeply.

Consider these three simple steps to help clear your mind and begin to rest.

  1. Name the fear.
    It’s essential to identify what is at the root of our anxiety. Slowing down and naming what you are most worried about can help you see just what you are most fearful of happening. Maybe it’s the fear that you will lose your job or that you may lose someone you love. Whatever it is, taking a deep breath and saying what you fear will help you begin to take a step toward understanding what has you feeling overwhelmed and anxious.
  2. State a truth.
    Consider the fact that what you fear could happen, but it is essential also to consider that the facts that may support this fear becoming a reality may not be the whole truth. Often there may be some truths that challenge this fear. Maybe it was another project you worked on that proved you competent and a great asset to your workplace. Or that making one mistake does not mean that you are a complete failure.
  3. Imagine the “best-case scenario.”
    These feelings of fear and uncertainty are often based on the worst-case scenario. What would it be like to ask yourself to consider the “what ifs” for the best-case outcome? Seeing yourself as capable of overcoming or succeeding, rather than imagining only adverse outcomes, may allow you to realize that your fear is only one possibility of what could happen. In reality, there is a possibility of a positive outcome.

As you allow your mind to focus not only on the possibility of what could go wrong and consider what could go right, you may start to notice a mental shift. This shift comes as your mind begins to slow down, and you can think more clearly, sleep more soundly, and feel more energetic in your everyday life.

Clear Your Mind Worksheet

Want these questions in an easy to use free downloadable worksheet? This worksheet will help you take steps forward in dealing with anxiety. You’ll also get access to all our worksheets in Here Counseling’s Resource Library!

Download Free Worksheet
Kristi Wollbrink, AMFT
Kristi Wollbrink, AMFT

I help individuals and couples decrease anxiety in order to find meaning and connection.

Learn more about therapy with Kristi
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Managing emotions

What to do when I’m Depressed: 3 habits to incorporate for your mental health.

Written by Here Counseling

It can feel impossible to get ahead of what Depression tries to take from your life. 

  • You find it hard to do the things you once loved.
  • You wonder if your energy and drive will ever return. 
  • Your relationship with food, sleep, sex, and motivation no longer makes any sense.

You want to regain control of the peace you once felt, but the peace seems so far away you aren’t even sure you remember how peace felt. 

Depression’s Sneaky Goals

Depression often makes its entrance through a mix of difficult life experiences, misfiring chemicals in the brain, unhelpful interpretations of events or relational interactions, or even all of the above. But Depression flexes its malicious strength by working to convince you that there is nothing you can do to stop it. 

Depression’s Goals:

  • Convincing you to spend more time alone, away from loved ones or fun activities that can help diminish its power
  • Persuading you to overeat or undereat, affecting your glucose levels and subsequently keeping you in a foggy mindspace.
  • Assuring you that you don’t have the energy to get out of bed, thus keeping you in a lethargic state that encourages more tiredness.

Saying NO to Depression’s Power

1. REST

Many who suffer from Depression experience either hypersomnolence (too much sleep), or insomnolence (too little sleep). The result of too little or too much rest is a crushing lack of energy. Aim for 7-9 hours of sleep, keeping in mind that urges to oversleep or overrelax are Depression’s wants, not yours. Set an alarm and adhere to it with strict determination. You have the strength within you to say NO to Depression’s goals. 

If initiating sleep is difficult, cut caffeine earlier in the day, avoid screens for the final hours of the day, and ensure a relaxing bedroom environment as bedtime approaches. If these fixes don’t help, talk to your doctor about your difficulty sleeping.

Equally, remember that relaxing in waking hours is necessary. Allow yourself to lay on the couch and watch some comedies without guilt, but remember that getting off the couch after a reasonable amount of time is equally important. 

2. EXERCISE

Have you heard of a runner’s high? Or a weight-lifter’s euphoria? Feel-good chemicals released in your brain during exercise, chemicals like endorphins, endocannabinoids, dopamine, and serotonin can feel like pure magic if exercise is part of your regular health routine. 

Regular exercise can also regulate your body’s relationship with food and healthy sleep. Saying NO to Depression’s seduction toward lethargy by moving your body is one of the single greatest practices you can incorporate into your health routine. 

3. PLEASURE

Your friends want to spend time together, to participate in activities that used to bring joy, but now you can hardly imagine responding to their texts. Just saying YES to dinner and a movie can feel like the bravest three letters you’ve ever typed. But you ARE brave, so do it! Drag yourself to the car and get that chicken parm you love so much when your best friend wants to see you. Make sure to get a great hug. In bravely seeking out pleasure with others, you’ll release dopamine and oxytocin, more feel-good chemicals, into your body, and watch as Depression’s power begins to shrink. 

How do I know when I need therapy?

Perhaps you wonder if you need a little extra help. Are you finding yourself in the same patterns and nothing seems to help? Maybe you’ve reached out to friends, gone to the gym regularly, been strict about your sleep and rest, and you don’t feel better. 

Depression can be a complicated adversary, one we sometimes need a little help to tackle. In therapy, we’ll peer behind the unconscious motivators behind your stuck feelings and explore some helpful tools to increase your power against the malady that is Depression. 

There’s no harm in asking a therapist for a free consultation to see if you might be a good candidate for a little extra help. All therapists at Here Counseling offer free consultations, and if we’re not the right therapist for you, we can help you find someone who is. 

Be empowered to be you. 

You long for peace in your days, in your nights. You want to clear the fog in your brain and enjoy the things you used to love. Incorporate healthy levels of REST, EXERCISE, and PLEASURE into your life, and see how empowering it can be to lessen Depression’s power. 

Incorporate these 3 Habits when Depressed Worksheet

Want these questions in an easy to use free downloadable worksheet? This worksheet will help you take steps forward in dealing with anxiety. You’ll also get access to all our worksheets in Here Counseling’s Resource Library!

Download Free Worksheet
Gavin Cross, AMFT
Gavin Cross, AMFT

I empower young adults and couples to enjoy connection and embrace life transitions.

LEARN ABOUT GAVIN
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pandemic mental health
Anxiety, Managing emotions

Taking care of your mental health during this ongoing pandemic

Written by Rose So

In 2020, Covid was new. We thought we might be home for just a couple of weeks. Those two weeks turned into a couple of months, which turned into 2021. And now, we’re in 2022, and the pandemic is still ongoing. What about pandemic mental health?

Taking care of mental health fell on the back burner for many of us. We needed to survive, and that took up the energy that we would typically use for self-care. 2 years later, we’re starting to feel the effects of that.

Do things feel directionless or purposeless? Maybe it’s burnout you’re feeling or perhaps a lack of motivation. Or is it increased anxiety? Sadness? Depression?

It has been hard to take care of your emotional and mental well-being. It feels especially hard if you’re still working from home. But not taking care of these parts of yourself is not sustainable. You can’t keep waiting for the pandemic to end before starting to take care of yourself. Ignoring your mental and emotional health will have long-lasting negative effects. It’s important to manage your pandemic mental health.

So where can you start?

1. Separate your workspace from your “rest of life” space.

  1. Even if it’s just a corner of your room or a section of your dining table, intentionally use that space as your work zone and nothing else. It’s vital to designate proper spaces for work and life while you’re still working from home. Organizing your space in this way can help reduce the stress of feeling like your office has taken over your home.

2. Pause and mindfully take note of how you are feeling.

  1. You know you feel “off” or “not yourself,” but what does that mean? Are you feeling down? Are you feeling stressed constantly? Are you feeling apathetic? Tune in with yourself and acknowledge your feelings.

3. Identify one enjoyable activity that you can begin engaging with regularly.

  1. What brought you joy or gave you a sense of purpose pre-pandemic? Is there just one thing that you can begin reengaging with as a way to reinspire, reinvigorate, recharge yourself? Whether monthly, weekly, or even daily, start with just one thing you can begin to reconnect with – maybe something lost during the pandemic.

It can feel impossible to know where to start as you consider taking care of your mental health, whether for the first time or the hundredth time. Start with small, manageable steps and slowly build upon those intentional habits – whether it’s separating your work life from your home life, pausing to acknowledge how you’re feeling, or reengaging with things you once loved. Begin taking care of yourself during this time when things continue to remain in flux and unpredictable.

Rose So, MA
Rose So, MA

I help adolescents and young adults overcome life transitions and learn to thrive.

Learn about Rose

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Healthy Relationships, Managing emotions

These myths are keeping you depressed in your relationship

Written by Kristi Wollbrink

Have you ever had the feeling that no matter how hard you try to make a change, you are just not able to “get it right” in the relationships and with the people that matter to you the most? You might find yourself worried all the time, holding back in your interactions, second-guessing yourself, or even finding that you want to give up because you feel so uncertain about if things will get better.

You might be having a depressive experience.

Feeling depressed in a relationship may look like this:

  • you internalize responsibility for all of your mistakes
  • you find yourself ruminating on your words and actions
  • you feel exhausted after being with your partner
  • you avoid conflict

One of the first steps toward change is naming the myths that often contribute to feeling depressed in your relationships.  

Could one of these common myths be keeping you stressed or depressed in your most important relationships?

Myths that may be Keeping you Depressed in your Relationship

  1. “I have to get it right all the time.” It’s impossible for us to do things perfectly every time, especially when talking about relationships. Instead, it is crucial to recognize that we will have ups and downs and let those be ok and normal.  
  2. “I always mess things up.” When we make a mistake, it can be easy to go back to a headspace of feeling like all we do is mess up. However, this mindset overlooks everything that has gone well in our relationships and the value we add to those relationships.
  3. “My relationship doesn’t look like “their” relationship.” Comparing ourselves and our relationships with what we see around us is typical.  But sometimes, comparison can cause us to begin to believe that somehow we aren’t measuring up or that we are the only one for whom things are difficult.  Everyone has difficulties, and sometimes we may need to remind ourselves that there isn’t one way to be in a relationship. 

Once we recognize the myths we may believe, we can change these thoughts and decrease the stress that keeps us feeling depressed in our relationships.  

As you begin to shift some of these thinking patterns, you can move away from your hesitations and worries. From here, you can continue taking steps toward a greater sense of ease and connection in your relationships.

Identifying the myths that may be keeping you feeling depressed is an essential first step in the journey toward feeling less depressed and moving toward more profound, more intimate connections. 

When Therapy may be Helpful for your Relationship

Therapy may be a helpful step for individuals or couples struggling with finding deep intimacy in their relationships. A therapist can provide a safe space and support to help you identify the myths that have you feeling depressed and help you move forward toward finding the sense of connection you have long desired.  

Kristi Wollbrink, AMFT
Kristi Wollbrink, AMFT

I help individuals and couples decrease anxiety in order to find meaning and connection.

LEARN MORE ABOUT THERAPY WITH KRISTI

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Anxiety, Testing and Assessment

Should I worry about my anxiety? How to know when stress is more than just stress, and what to do about it

Written by Here Counseling

Anxiety can be overwhelming.  Though we all feel stress, anxiety disorders can cause a person to become agitated, restless, or excessively worried over something others may see as small.  Anxiety can come in many forms, whether it’s

  • Feeling your heart pound and palms sweat
  • Negative self-talk
  • Avoiding social situations
  • Difficulty sleeping and calming down
  • Racing thoughts and difficulty concentrating

You may not know whether what you are feeling is typical stress, or signs of an anxiety disorder, and that feeling of not knowing brings its own discomfort and additional stress.  

When we don’t know, we google. 

And when we google, we can find that there are many types of anxiety, as well as other disorders in which anxiety plays a part.  If you weren’t feeling anxious before, you may feel even more anxious as you flip through online pages of diagnosis after diagnosis.  There are some online anxiety tests, and they can be helpful as a starting place to help learn more about anxiety, and to see whether it may be helpful for you to seek professional help.  However, online tests have limits.

You’re probably feeling more anxious than normal when you read through a list of symptoms or diagnoses, and that may impact how you answer the questions.  Secondly, sometimes the way things are written is not clear. For example, these quiz questions often ask about how often a symptom occurs without providing context – how often is “often” or “sometimes”? Lastly, even if an online quiz can tell you with 100% certainty that you have an anxiety disorder, it may not be able to link you to treatment with a quality mental health professional, nor provide treatment recommendations that are tailored to best fit you.

Pros of Taking an Online Anxiety Test

  1. Learn basic information about anxiety.
  2. Get a starting point to understand your own emotions
  3. First easy step toward deeper self understanding
  4. Free, or low cost.

Cons of Taking an Online Anxiety Test

  1. Possible misdiagnosis
  2. General, often not validated (accurate) questions
  3. Not able to recommend appropriate treatment
  4. Difficulty understanding results
  5. Incomplete, limited results or insights

Knowing yourself is a key part of understanding how to take care of yourself, but figuring yourself out can be a complicated and uncomfortable process.  I’ll explain a few ways to get started on your own, as well as ways we can help.

Take an anxiety quiz or read an article online

Though they have their limits, those online anxiety tests can help us start to learn the lingo around anxiety and start to get some ideas about ourselves.  There’s a lot of them out there, so I would begin with any that come from any reputable clinics or universities. For example, here’s a page from Mayo Clinic on common signs of anxiety, or an article from Harvard on the difference between stress and anxiety.  In terms of quizzes, this quiz from Mindspot gets around the “how often” problem by providing more concrete terms, which may help you be more exact about your symptoms.  I also like this one from ADDitude, which provides more detail about what each of these symptoms means.

Start a Journal

Often our thoughts and feelings happen so fast that we have a hard time organizing them.  Journaling is a great way to slow down our minds and put our complex thoughts, feelings, and patterns out on to paper.  It doesn’t have to follow a standard format. For some people, just simple bullet points with their thoughts and feelings about a situation can be helpful to start to see patterns.  Find a format that works for you and work to integrate it into your regular routine. This can also help you see if your anxiety tends to happen in any kind of pattern, as well as help you answer those pesky “often” and “sometimes” questions with more accuracy. When you write, reflect by asking yourself:

  • When did I start feeling this way?
  • What events today contributed to how I’m feeling now?
  • What feelings do these words communicate?
  • How much do these feelings affect my well-being, on a scale from 1-10?

Consider psychological testing

At Here Counseling, we provide quality psychological testing that can help you better understand what makes you tick.  Psychological testing is a professional service that uses empirically validated measures to draw conclusions about your emotions and behaviors.

Our professionals will explore with you your concerns about anxiety, design a set of tests tailored to your needs, and provide personalized and concrete recommendations to help you with your anxiety.  These tests can provide so much more than a quick online quiz, as we conduct a thorough interview to see patterns in your anxiety or in your history, look at other personality traits that may contribute to anxiety or be sources of strength to help you combat anxiety, and check for any other concerns that could be linked to anxiety.  Let’s understand how psychological testing works.

  1. Initial interview. A psychologist will ask you about the questions you want answered about yourself. These can range from questions about a specific diagnosis, such as ADHD or Bipolar II, to questions about your personality and relationship patterns.
  2. Testing. You’ll come back in for a few hours of testing in which the psychologist will help you complete hand-picked, curated measures that together create a cohesive picture of your functioning.
  3. Report writing. The psychologist writes a report with significant findings from the measures and draws conclusions in order to clearly shed light on the testing question.
  4. Feedback session. The psychologist will sit down and explain the results of the test, and also recommend next steps for accommodation or treatment.

Having a professional working with you to give you accurate and helpful information has the potential to transform your life and move you closer toward your goals. It takes the pressure off of you to figure out the problem, so that you can take the right steps forward toward healing, health, and wholeness. Reach out today, we’re here to help.

Ashley Holcomb

Ashley provides psychotherapy and testing in our downtown Los Angeles office.

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Managing emotions

“Am I too emotional?”: Do this one thing today to manage difficult emotions

Written by Jeff Creely

People tend to see emotions like anger, sadness, or fear as bad things; at best they’re a distraction, at worst a weakness. There’s a perception that these feelings disrupt logical thinking and lead to bad decisions—that negative emotions simply get in our way. 

You can even hear it in how we often use emotions as insults:

  • “God, you’re so emotional,” 
  • “Quit being such a drama queen.”
  • “Don’t be a crybaby.”

We think our emotions betray us. So it makes sense that sometimes we even get emotional at our own emotions: we get pissed at our sadness, afraid of our anger, or made hopeless by our anxiety. Then down the rabbit hole of negative feelings we go, round and round as we lose sight of what upset us in the first place. 

So it’s no wonder that we’ll try anything to hide our feelings. We fear negative emotions as evidence of our own failure.

This way of hiding our emotions is dangerous.

This is why people start to eat to soothe worries. It’s the reason we’ll watch TV when we’re feeling lonely or drink to numb ourselves. But this doesn’t solve anything. This doesn’t make the feelings go away, just hides them from view.

But if our goal is to simply get rid of the evidence, get rid of these feeling as quickly as possible, hiding them is the logical shortcut we take to get there.

There’s something important you should know: a way to break this cycle.

Negative emotions aren’t a distraction or a weakness, they’re communication.

They’re our bodies ways of telling us that something important is going on. Before we can put something into words, emotions are a red alert that we need to pay attention.


And just like ignoring someone shouting for help, when we try to avoid our feelings they are going to get louder. Our feelings want to help us understand something important and they won’t go away until the message is delivered.

So instead of trying to shut out your negative emotions, instead of fearing them as evidence of your failure, what if you did something radically different? 

What if you turn toward your emotions, look them right in the eyes, and ask “What’s wrong?” 

Negative emotions are communication and by listening to your emotions you give yourself the power to help them. Next time you notice yourself feelings something powerful, slow down and be curious. Ask yourself some questions.

  1. First pay attention to the physical experience. What sensations are you having? 
  2. Then, if you know, what’s the name of the feeling?
  3. Then gently ask yourself what happened that led to this feeling? 
  4. Does something in the world feel wrong? 
  5. Does something in the world remind of something wrong that happened in the past? 
  6. Do you feel like you did something wrong? 
  7. Are you thinking about something wrong happening in the future? 

Then ask yourself a very loving question. With all the same gentleness and compassion you would offer to a scared child,

“What can I do to help?”

Perhaps helping is simple. 

In which case, great! Go do it. Feel better. 

But perhaps the feeling doesn’t know how you can help it, or helping seems too intimidating to even begin to try. Maybe the answer you get confuses you or you’re embarrassed by what the feeling wants. In which case, it’s helpful to talk with a therapist about what your next steps might be. 

But even if you never speak to someone else about it, asking these questions can be extremely helpful. Because even if you don’t know what to do with what you find, there is something powerfully healing in simply being listened to by someone who loves you. 

What a wonderful gift to offer yourself when that loving person is you. 

Managing Difficult Emotions Worksheet

Want these questions in an easy to use free downloadable worksheet? This worksheet will help you take steps forward in dealing with anxiety. You’ll also get access to all our worksheets in Here Counseling’s Resource Library!

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Jeff Creely, PhD
Jeff Creely, PhD

I help people who struggle with anxiety and sexuality issues gain peace and freedom in their lives.

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