Anxiety

Why does it show up in my body first?

Because the alarm system is older and faster than the thinking part. The chest tightens, the jaw sets, the stomach turns, and only afterwards does the mind supply a reason. Then the reason feels like proof, and the loop closes.

Knowing that does not switch it off. It does change what we work on: not arguing your way out of a feeling, but changing your relationship to the alarm.

What do we actually do about it?

We start with the moments. What time of day, what room, what happened twenty minutes before. Anxiety feels shapeless until you map it, and most people find it is far more patterned than it seemed.

Then we build skills you can use in the moment: settling the body first, holding a thought without obeying it, and going toward the thing you have been circling, in a size you can manage. Goals are specific and achievable, because a vague goal is one more thing to worry about.

What if I have run on this for years and it works?

That is common in people who are relied on. Worry keeps the plates spinning, so giving it up feels reckless.

Two things are true: the vigilance has genuinely got you through, and it is charging you rent. We are not trying to make you careless. We are trying to make the alarm answer to you rather than the other way around.

Familiar shapes it takes

• Lying awake running tomorrow, or last Tuesday
• Rehearsing a conversation for hours before having it
• Checking, re-reading, and confirming things you already know
• Cancelling at the last minute and feeling relief, then worse

Ready when you are.

Therapy starts with a conversation. Send a short message and tell me what is going on, in your own words. We meet in person in Omaha, and online across Nebraska and Rhode Island.