Thoughts From a Therapist
Anxiety, Stress, Triggers & Trauma
Anxiety, stress, triggers, and trauma, and what happens between the first spike and the return to baseline.
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Why Am I Anxious? Four Kinds of Anxiety and the Four Stages of an Emotional Reaction
Anxiety comes from four different places, and each one asks for something different. Sometimes the danger is real, sometimes it has already passed, sometimes…
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What Is Happening to Me When My Trauma Is Triggered? The Four Stages of a PTSD Response
Why PTSD triggers feel like the trauma is happening again. A therapist tracks three of his own traumas through the four stages: spike, interpretation,…
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Why Does It Hurt So Much to Not Do the Compulsion? OCD and the Four Stages of a Trigger
OCD is not simply a thinking error. Three kinds of obsession, where each enters the four stages of a trigger, and why refusing the…
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Why Does My ADHD Make Me So Anxious? The Four Stages of a Trigger in a Branching Mind
ADHD anxiety is rarely one spike. A branching mind turns a single trigger into many, and the thinking meant to help blocks the contact…
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Why Do I Get Triggered So Easily? The Four Stages of an Emotional Reaction
Why we still react after years of work: the three stages of an emotional reaction, what can and cannot change, and why sensitivity is…
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Why Do I Feel Things I Know Are Irrational?
Why do I feel things I know are irrational? Thoughts, emotions, physiology, memory, and behavior can create and interrupt emotional feedback loops.
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How Parenting Made Me More Controlling
Control can be an adaptation to anxiety, responsibility, and parenthood – and eventually the thing that perpetuates it. A therapist on letting go of…
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Meditation Is the Practice of Returning
“I didn’t do it well” is the most common thing I hear about meditation. But every time your mind wanders and you return, you’ve…
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Understanding Anxiety Is Only the Beginning | The Gap Between Insight and Action
Understanding anxiety is only the beginning. Learn how insight, physiology, habits, and values work together to reduce anxiety by turning awareness into meaningful action.
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Anxiety, Codependence, and What It Actually Means to Try in a Relationship
Anxiety and codependence often shape how we try in relationships. This piece explores the difference between effort that builds connection and effort that quietly…
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The Necessity of Adversity
Expanding Our Capacity to Navigate Everyday Stress When we think about stress tolerance, it is easy to imagine it as something we either possess…
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Social Anxiety and the Burden of Control | From Managing Perception to Living in Congruence
Social anxiety is often described as fear of judgment. That description is accurate, but incomplete. At a deeper level, social anxiety is more precisely…
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Five Core Tasks of Adolescent Development
The guide highlights adolescent development’s complexities, emphasizing five core capacities: Regulation, Identity, Foresight, Relationship, and Agency. Adults play a crucial role by modeling behaviors…
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The Difference Between Fault and Responsibility
The content discusses the distinction between fault and responsibility, emphasizing that while injustices may not be our fault, finding solutions is our responsibility. It…
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When Intimacy Feels Unsafe: Understanding Fear Responses in Trusting Relationships
We flinch from the very thing we long for. This is one of the most painful paradoxes in human relationships. In moments where trust…
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State Shifting: Breaking the Feedback Loop of Rumination
Rumination isn’t just mental—it’s physiological. Learn how cold water and other state-shifting techniques can disrupt the feedback loop and restore clarity.
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The Snake in the Room: A Mindful Approach to Understanding Anxiety
Not all anxiety is the same. This post explores three distinct forms of anxiety—trauma, adaptive fear, and cognitive worry—through the metaphor of a snake…
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Anxiety as a Signal of Misalignment
Existential anxiety signals misalignment between our lives and core values. Rather than aiming to eliminate it, we should interpret anxiety as a message indicating…
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