Anxiety therapy in Nelson, BC

Beyond managing symptoms to understanding your nervous system

Your chest tightens before an important meeting. A knot forms in your gut when you think about the future. Your breath becomes shallow, or you realize you've been holding it without noticing. Sometimes the world narrows, and you lose track of everything except the anxiety itself.

Whether you experience sudden panic attacks or a persistent hum of worry that never quite leaves, anxiety is exhausting.

You've probably tried the standard approaches: breathing exercises to calm down, challenging anxious thoughts, understanding where your anxiety comes from. These tools can be very helpful. But for many people seeking anxiety therapy in Nelson BC, these approaches eventually plateau. The anxiety still lives in your body, and calming it down or thinking about it differently isn't the same as listening to what it's trying to communicate.

What if your body holds something that thinking alone can't reach?

Your nervous system is always trying to protect you, even when its way of 'helping' feels like the problem itself. Anxiety carries information - sometimes about what matters deeply, sometimes about experiences your body never fully processed. The goal isn't eliminating anxiety entirely. It's changing your relationship with it, learning to listen to what it's communicating rather than fighting it.

The paradox is that when you stop trying to make anxiety go away and instead work with what it's showing you, it often finally softens.

Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom. — Søren Kierkegaard

How somatic anxiety therapy works

Most anxiety treatment works from thoughts downward—identifying distorted thinking patterns, challenging catastrophic beliefs, and reframing your perspective. This is valuable work, and I use these cognitive approaches as well. What makes my practice distinct is that I also work from your nervous system upward.

When your body is stuck in threat mode, your mind will find things to be anxious about. As soon as one source of anxiety recedes, the anxiety often attaches itself to the next thing. Changing the underlying nervous system state changes your anxiety baseline rather than problem-solving one situation after another.

Anxiety lives in anticipation—your mind spinning through worst-case scenarios, trying to control outcomes that haven't happened yet. But your body exists only right now. When you return attention to sensation—the temperature of the air on your skin, the weight of your body in the chair, what's actually here—you interrupt the future-focused spin and come back to what's tangible, what you can work with in this moment.

We're gradually expanding your window of capacity: the range where you can experience sensations and emotions without becoming overwhelmed or shutting down. Anxiety pushes you into hyperarousal (racing heart, spinning thoughts, panic) or shutdown (numbness, exhaustion, disconnection). We build capacity to stay present with discomfort without getting flooded or collapsing.

We'll work with what's happening in your body as we talk. For example, you might notice tightness building in your chest when discussing certain topics. We'll take the time to explore it, moving toward the feelings with curiosity rather than suppressing or dissociating from them. You'll learn to listen to your system's guidance about how long to stay with the discomfort before consciously moving away for a time.

We work at the edge of what's bearable, not diving into the deep end, building tolerance gradually so your nervous system can integrate experiences without becoming flooded. As a result of this process, your nervous system slowly learns that activation doesn't have to mean overwhelm. You may find that you can view your anxiety from a firm and steady place outside it.

As we do this work, insights often emerge spontaneously about what the anxiety is protecting, what you need, or what matters to you. We're not going on a problem-solving mission. These understandings arise naturally when your nervous system feels safe enough to communicate them.

I work with Somatic Experiencing® principles, which you can read more about on my counselling page.

What becomes possible

This isn't about never feeling anxious again. Anxiety is part of being human, part of caring about things, part of being alive in an uncertain world. This is about fundamentally changing how anxiety moves through you.

I've witnessed long-standing physical tensions beginning to release—tightness in shoulders that seemed permanent, chronic knots in the gut, jaw clenching that had "always been there." Sometimes these patterns disappear entirely, even if just for moments, showing they're not immutable conditions but held patterns that can shift.

Panic attacks decrease in frequency or stop altogether as your nervous system learns it doesn't need to sound the alarm so loudly.

You develop much greater tolerance for the sensations that used to feel overwhelming. You can feel your heart race without immediately spiraling into catastrophe. You can notice tension without it taking over everything.

You build capacity to stay present during difficult conversations, in situations that used to trigger immediate anxiety, with uncertainty that used to feel unbearable.

Self-perception changes. You're no longer someone fundamentally anxious or broken, but someone whose nervous system learned to protect in ways that became overwhelming. There's tremendous difference between "I am anxious" and "I am experiencing anxiety."

Is anxiety therapy right for you?

This approach is particularly helpful if:

You've tried breathing exercises and challenging thoughts, but the anxiety keeps returning.

You understand your anxiety cognitively, but that understanding hasn't changed how it feels in your body.

You've done talk therapy and gained insight and perspective, but you've plateaued. Something still feels stuck.

Your anxiety shows up as much in physical symptoms as worried thoughts.

You're tired of managing symptoms and ready to address what's underneath. You want to live a bigger life, not just develop more coping strategies.

Whether you experience intense panic attacks or persistent background worry, whether this is recent or something you've lived with for years—this work is for anyone whose body holds anxiety that thinking hasn't been able to fully reach.

I offer both counselling and Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy (RCST®), and we can explore which approach—or combination of approaches—might serve you best.

Ready to explore anxiety counselling in Nelson, BC?

The best way to know if this approach fits is through conversation. I offer a free consultation where we can discuss what you're looking for and whether body-centred work aligns with where you are.

I work with clients in Nelson, Castlegar, Trail, Kaslo, and throughout the Kootenays, with both in-person and online counselling available for BC residents and some other provinces.