what is emdr and how does it help with anxiety?
EMDR works with your brain to address the root causes of anxiety, not just the symptoms. Instead of just managing the anxious thoughts or sensations, EMDR helps uncover and reprocess the experiences or beliefs that might be fueling your anxiety.
What is functional freeze, and how does it relate to anxiety and stress?
Functional freeze is a protective response from your nervous system. When you face stress or danger, your body has a few options: fight, flight, or freeze. Freeze happens when neither fighting nor fleeing feels possible. You have high peaks (anxiety, panic, overwhelm), and low valleys (freeze). Your system "freezes" to keep you safe by conserving energy and avoiding harm.
Expanding your window of tolerance
Have you ever felt like your emotions are a rollercoaster, swinging from feeling super anxious to completely drained? Or maybe you feel stuck in one place—constantly on edge, or totally checked out. These feelings aren’t random. They’re connected to how your nervous system responds to stress and past experiences. Understanding something called the window of tolerance can help explain what’s happening and how therapy can make a difference.
The profound simplicity, and radical resistance, of slowing down
These moments can create an opportunity for reparative relationship to the present- that it can be safe to slow down enough to watch a gentle stream of water fill a glass, for a few moments.