Thriving in Interesting Times

We are living in interesting times. There is so much happening around us - in the world, in our relationships, on our screens, in our minds. It can be exhausting, agitating… enervating and aggravating at the same time. The frenetic activity we are suffused with in our culture can amp up our fears, heighten our awareness of risks, bring the suffering of others into our living rooms.

It’s a lot. It’s a lot for all of us. But for those of us who run a bit sensitive, who are finely tuned to the pain felt by others as well as ourselves, who creatively imagine the future (including all the bad things that could and might come our way), it can be excruciating.

Anxiety is a physical state that is ordinary – a universal experience, something we all know. When we are anxious, we are prepared erupt into fight or flight; we are vigilant; we are planning our escape; we are solving the future problems we anticipate to be bearing down upon us. A highly adaptive state in the face of actual high threat, anxiety wears us down over time when we feel it chronically, without respite.

And for many of us, this is our reality.

We find ourselves running around, reacting to perceived danger, sometimes forgetting or neglecting what is truly important as we strive to feel safe. To know with certainty that the future is bright, that our children will thrive, that our drive home will be smooth. Sometimes we think… if we could just be sure – if we could just KNOW that things are OK – well then, THEN we could get started on building the life and relationships we want and value.

But we can’t. We can’t be 100% sure. That certainty is just not available in our world. So where does this leave us, if we feel we need to reach certainty? Running drill after drill as a continuous alarm bell sounds in the background of our minds, never ceasing.

We at the New England Center for OCD and Anxiety Disorders are anxiety specialists. This does not mean we are immune from the feeling. Indeed we know it intimately, through our own life experiences, as well as through the eyes of the hundreds of clients we have supported to thrive. We begin our work by creating understanding of the role and mechanisms of your own variety of anxiety – both its adaptive value AND its impacts and costs. We can help you to see and understand how and why your own anxiety acts the way it does, and we can help you begin to change your reaction to it – to renegotiate your very relationship with it – in order to make space in your world to move towards what truly matters in your heart.

We look forward to supporting you in freeing up your energy, your body, and your mind, to build the life you truly want… rather than the life that your anxiety seems to require of you.