Sleepless Nights
Rest and relaxation don’t come naturally for you. IF ONLY you were able to “just take it easy.” You have a hard time letting things just be, because the idea of being caught off guard feels awful. Things don’t “just” happen for you - you WISH you could have an easier time with it, but it‘a EXHAUSTING to rest.
You freeze when projects come up, not knowing where to begin. You procrastinate, knowing that the deadline is approaching, but just can’t seem to get yourself to begin for fear of messing it up.
Restless thoughts
“What if I say something, and they get mad at me?”
“What if they find out that I don’t actually know what I’m doing?”
“What if I missed something? I better double check…again.”
“Can’t sleep, even though I have to wake up in 5 hrs. 4 hrs. 3 hrs.”
What other people think or feel about you influences what you do. You are annoyed at yourself for this, but you don’t know how to do otherwise.
You keep rehearsing what you’re going to say and censor yourself so you make sure you say the RIGHT thing, only to find out that you’ve missed your chance. Then you beat yourself up and spend the following week replaying what should have happened.
Uncertainty is the devil. You HATE not knowing what’s happening. When things turn out differently from what you expected (even when it’s better), you get knocked off balance, unable to recover.
Squeezed out of life
The word anxiety literally means “to strangle.” Doing things out of anxiety gives the illusion of you being in control while actually stripping it away from you.
The ironic thing is, the more you push, work, buy, ask, and research, the more out of control you become. Anxiety is an iron grip that chokes the life force out of you.
When good things happen, you think, “When is the other shoe going to drop?” It’s not easy actually enjoying the good things in life because you’re obsessing over the *possible* bad thing that might just be peeking around the corner.
Rather than in the present, you’re living everywhere else but here.
Desperate for Peace?
My name is Joanne,
I can help you do what you always DREAMED of but never gave yourself permission to do so because of judgment and SHOULDs.
With the use of tools called:
- the Enneagram (which describes patterns of thinking, feeling, doing, and relating)
- Brainspotting (which heals trauma reactions that are stored in your body),
We can resolve what’s keeping you stuck in these soul-sucking dynamics so that you can finally build the kind of life and connections you’ve always dreamed of.
If you’re looking for a quick & easy fix, I ain’t your gal. Instant solutions are what your anxiety is craving, and I’m not going to scratch that itch, because the itch is only going to get worse for you (you can also do that for free on your own!).
But if you’re wanting to create a life where you can actually rest deeply and laugh heartily, ROLL UP YOUR SLEEVES, ‘cause we’re gonna do some deep work from the foundation up!
Live with laughter!
Click here to schedule a free 15-min consultation for counseling.
Joanne (OliveMe Counseling) and Melinda (Inviterra Counseling) are Enneagram therapists who love helping people grow beyond their reactive patterns of thinking, feeling, and doing. Listen to part 4 of their 4-part series as they discuss the Head Triad and their central emotion of fear.