Anxiety and depression are two of the most common reasons clients come to our intensive counseling retreats. If you are like many, despite gaining some relief from anti-anxiety or antidepressant medications, you still struggle to escape their grasp.
Medication is often not enough. You still feel the pain of either anxiousness that won’t go away and/or the misery of not having enough energy or motivation to get through your day. You want lasting relief – and if you’re watching this video, you are looking to uncover the root causes to get it.
Hi, I’m Sandy Waite, a therapist at Syrona Counseling Retreats, and in this article, I’ll share with you what are often the root causes of these painful feelings and how therapy can help you find your way back to feeling like yourself again.
What are Anxiety & Depression?
We now know that anxiety is when your internal alarm system overreacts and/or can’t settle down. And we know that depression is your body cutting back on your interest and energy, leaving you with a debilitating lack of motivation.
Here at Syrona, we stay current with the latest science and research so we can help you understand the root causes of anxiety and depression.
It is worth noting that both anxiety and depression are “normal” human experiences. And, anxiety and depression are often linked- if you have depression it is also likely you have or have had anxiety and vise-versa. But while they are natural responses, what they aren’t are emotions.
Emotions are really valuable because they are messages- they guide you to take action. Take anger – this emotion shows up when under threat – and prepares you to protect yourself (this is the fight response). And fear- this emotion prepares you to run.
Anxiety, however, isn’t really an “emotion.” It is a signal from your body that something is going on, but you don’t always know what it is. Once you identify the feeling, then it’s no longer anxiety, it is an emotion.
So, if you grew up not being in touch with your feelings, you are at risk for feeling a lot of anxiety when life starts hitting you with emotions you aren’t prepared to feel.
Depression is the other side of this coin.
Solving emotional issues and life problems is a big withdrawal of energy from your body budget. If effort will help, then your body will engage.
If more effort isn’t going to change anything, then your body withdraws energy and motivation.
So, depression happens when your body loses hope that there is any action to make – any fix – to what is bothering you. So it turns inward to conserve energy.
There is much more to say about both anxiety and depression but this is a start in understanding what causes these painful conditions.
How Does Therapy Help Anxiety & Depression?
A major factor in relieving anxiety and depression is to be good at identifying and listening to your emotions.
Therapists have a saying – “good therapy is not about feeling better, it is about being better at feeling”.
To help you get better at feeling, our intensives focus on why you learned to manage your feelings the way you do.
If you are like many others, you didn’t learn good emotional skills.
You might have learned to push uncomfortable feelings under the rug, leaving anxiety as the only messenger – and depression a sign that your body is getting tired.
Once we understand how you relate to your feelings, we help you become a master at emotions! We know a lot about how to help you identify, feel, and manage your emotions, so you don’t just have to push them aside.
You learn what to DO with them, so your body can now work properly. You don’t have to stay in a state of high alert or low energy and motivation.
Anxiety and depression are painful and debilitating conditions. They are also normal responses to life – but – when they get stuck, you lose the ability to feel joy, interest, and other positive emotions.
Life looks gray and feels dull when you are spending so much time fighting just to get through your day.
You don’t have to live like this. If you want to explore the core underlying reasons for your anxiety and/or depression, contact us today. We would love to work with you.
