The new year is here! The month of January tends to invite motivation, whether it is to face a new challenge, become healthier or make a change in your career. January can make you feel like a new person and conquerable all of your goals.

However, it’s undeniable that a time so full of determination also has moments of anxiety as you plan and reflect on the year ahead of you. Anxious thoughts race through your mind, ‘Will I accomplish all I have set out to do this year?’ ’ ‘What if I fail?’ and all the other “what ifs” that might come up. These questions can be more prevalent for those who worry, are nervous or experience anxiety. It’s easy to see how new year’s resolutions can be anxiety provoking. If this is something you can relate to, then I suggest you consider creating some of your goals around reducing your worries, nervousness, and stress.

Because anxiety can be all consuming, mind and body, when you’re able to minimize and heal anxiety, it will free up your focus, energy and time to work on your other goals. The last thing you want to do is live in fear and anxiety that prevents you from being the best you can be in 2017. The good news about anxiety is that it is entirely possible to manage and eliminate your anxiety.

Here are 6 new year’s resolutions every anxious person wants to consider right now – they’re worth the effort!

1. Talk about your anxiety instead of hiding it.

Don’t feel bad about your anxiety. Open up to those you feel safe with. It can be hard for people who don’t have anxiety to understand what it’s like to have anxiety. Opening up to others and sharing how you feel and what you’re going through can help others gain a better understanding of your experiences and also how to best support you. You might isolate when you feel anxious, which can be hard for others to understand what’s going on for you. Plus, you might be surprised to find others who also experience anxiety but didn’t feel comfortable sharing their struggles.

2. Prioritize putting yourself and your self-care first.

Think of the safety warning before taking off on an airplane, ‘Put on your oxygen mask before helping someone else with their mask.’ This is a great metaphor, if you’re not breathing, you’re not going to be helpful to others. Is this a tough one for you? Do you always focus on making others happy before taking care of your own happiness? If this is your pattern, it may very well be contributing to your anxiety and stress.

3. Exercise at least 20 minutes every day.

Exercise can be one of the most significant ways to help manage and reduce your anxiety and support your overall mood. To name just some of the benefits, exercise lowers the stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline. Exercise enhances the production of the feel-good neurochemicals serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine. It also helps to produce new neurons in the brain that raises the brain’s capacity to handle stress.

4. Try yoga or meditation.

Numerous scientific studies have found both mindfulness practices of meditation and yoga to be effective in treating anxiety. Chronic worriers often have increased reactivity in the amygdala, the area of the brain associated with regulating emotions. Yoga and meditation help with one’s ability to turn down the reactivity of the amygdala. Mindfulness also reduces the number of neurons in this fear-triggering part of the brain. The focus on breathing also helps to slow down and calm the mind.

5. Get out of your comfort zone more.

Anxiety occurs when we’re outside of our window of tolerance and our body is in hyper-arousal. While everyone’s comfort zone varies, individuals with anxiety typically have a more narrow comfort zone. One of the things I work on with my clients is widening their window of tolerance so that their bodies are more resilient which increases their anxiety threshold. Widening your window of tolerance is something you can practice by getting out of your comfort zone. You want to be mindful and find the intensity that’s evoked just at the edge of your comfort zone.

6. Work with a therapist.

Working with a psychotherapist can significantly reduce or eliminate anxiety symptoms, allowing you to get back to get back to your life and regain a sense of control. Psychotherapy aims to identify and address the source of the anxiety. This process helps people to understand, unravel, and transform anxiety and learn self-soothing techniques to use if worries flare up.

Do you feel like a fraud? Do you have a nagging fear of being found out as not being as smart or deserving? Are you plagued by the feeling and the worry that the world will see you as incompetent? If you feel like a fraud, you’re not alone. High achievers like Tina Fey, Sheryl Sandberg, and Maya Angelou have all admitted to feeling like an impostor during their life.

Performance anxiety

While we all experience anxiety, worry, and doubt at times, the impostor syndrome can create a cycle of shame and embarrassment, leading to self-defeating thoughts of not feeling adequate, such as “I am not worthy.”

Research has shown that those who suffer from impostor syndrome are typically those who are talented and capable, as opposed to actual frauds. If you feel like an impostor, chances are you’re not. Individuals who feel insecure are more likely to be high achieving since their self-doubt pushes them to work hard. But as you can see, this can be a never-ending cycle, similar to the beliefs, “if I don’t know everything, then I know nothing” or “if I’m not performing at 100% all the time, then I’m incompetent.” read more…

As a therapist, clients often come to see me because they feel stuck. They feel stuck in a job, or their career no longer satisfies them. Clients may have difficulty fully engaging in meaningful relationships. They tell me that they feel like they’re going through the motions of life. They feel anxious or worried.

We all get stuck at times but if this is a persistent theme in your life, you might be living in a state of functional freeze, a term coined by psychologist Peter Levine. I see many seemingly high achieving individuals who are in a state of functional freeze. These clients often share that their ability to feel joy and peace are muted. They feel anxious, worried, numb and lack true vibrancy, have trouble concentrating and struggle to connect with their creativity. read more…

Patterns play a vital role in our everyday lives. As the saying goes, we are creatures of habit. Patterns help to simplify our lives by triggering familiar thoughts and actions in response to familiar information and situations. Recognizable patterns are how our brain processes and organizes the world around us. However certain patterns can leave us feeling stuck.

In this video I talk about how these patterns can keep us feeling stuck, the immense power that patterns have in your life, why you need to know about patterns and how to work with them so you can get unstuck.

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For a long time I considered myself one with good boundaries. After all, I did speak up and stand up for myself. But then I realized that boundaries are much more than that. In my very personal relationships, I had a tendency to take on the feelings of others. I felt like I was responsible for others and their feelings. Talk about a formula for burn out! Once I recognized my pattern and identified when this pattern showed up, I began setting better boundaries.

Boundaries are an important piece of our emotional health. They define where we end and where others begin and our emotional and physical space separate from others. Boundaries are influenced by various factors such as culture, gender and life experiences. Extreme positions in boundaries such as ones that are too inadequate or too rigid can create psychological issues. Lack of healthy boundaries can lead to abuse, taking responsibility for the feelings and actions of others and losing our own sense of identity. When they are too rigid, they keep individuals in isolation.

In this video, I discuss 4 ways to help you build healthy boundaries.

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I love you, je t’aime, ti amo.. These are just some of the ways in which love is communicated verbally.

How do you communicate I love you? How do you feel most loved? What is it that others, whether it be your partner, family member or friend, do that makes you feel loved deeply? Is it enough to say, “I love you”?

Dr. Gary Chapman, author of the best-selling book, The Five Love Languages, noted through his work with couples that there are 5 ways in which we can express our love to each other.

We are all unique beings, as such, we hear, feel, experience and express love in different ways. In this video, I discuss the 5 ways in which we express love.

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The holidays are just around the corner and while this time of year can be a ton of fun, it can also be a time of stress and anxiety. Things can become even more stressful at family gatherings. The dysfunctional family dynamics that occur during the holidays are rooted in the painful memories of the past. Old wounds are reopened and we often revert back to childhood coping patterns. But the good news is that we are no longer our 7 year old self. We are rational and insightful adults.

Today’s video will provide you with strategies to help you get through and survive your family holidays.

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