Anxiety can make you feel like things are about to spiral out of control at the drop of a hat. You feel overwhelmed, powerless, and on edge all the time. Anxiety leaves you feeling struggling to make decisions, be productive, concentrate on tasks, or relax after a long day of work. Anxiety can also take a toll on your relationships and make you less patient, less understanding, and more irritable than normal.

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Anxiety is rooted in an unrealistic fear that makes us worry that the things that are important to us will fall apart. Our fears exist to cue us into the feeling that something doesn’t feel right. However, anxiety does more than that – it turns our fear into worries that you can’t control and can even morph the worry into panic. Anxiety can feel like a flood of thoughts and feelings, or like something bad is always looming in the background. It can make life harder than it needs to be, and there are tools to help you learn to cope with it.

Depression changes you. It leaves you feeling numb and makes it hard to remember a time when you had energy and didn’t feel fatigued and apathetic towards things you love doing. It causes you to avoid spending time with friends and hide how you feel from your family because you don’t want to be a burden or let them down. When you’re depressed, you feel like you have failed and are unworthy of love and connection.

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Depression can make life seem overwhelming and leave you struggling more than normal. It’s also hard to deal with because it can be caused by a variety of things… it can be situational and related to something that’s happening in your life right now. Or, it can be connected to a trauma or something that happened in your life a while ago. No matter what the cause, depression can make living your daily life feel impossible, lacking ofOr, it can be hereditary and run in your family. It can even be some combination of all of those causes.

Adjusting to change can be difficult, as even positive life transitions tend to cause some stress. Over the course of a lifetime, a person can expect to experience a significant amount of change. Some of these changes, such as marriages, births, and new jobs, are generally positive, although they may be accompanied by their own unique stressors. Other major life transitions, such as moving, retirement, or entering the “empty nest” phase of life may cause a significant amount of stress. Those who find themselves experiencing difficulty coping with life transitions may find it helpful to speak to a therapist in order to become better able to adjust to changes they cannot control.

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Changes, and especially difficult changes, can influence personal growth, and dealing with a change successfully may leave one stronger, more confident, and better prepared for what comes next in life. In other words, even those changes that are neither expected nor wanted might still produce some beneficial outcome.

Trauma doesn’t affect everyone in the same way; a less intense experience may be processed by talking through the event with a loved one. This may involve recounting the story in detail, often repeating it many times.When the traumatic event has left a deep scar, quality of life is diminished by feelings of helplessness, inability to cope, feeling overcome by emotions and perhaps even by what seems to be ‘unreasonable’ fear or anxiety. These painful emotions must be processed thoroughly, as they do not go away on their own.

 

The guiding principles of trauma recovery are the restoration of safety and empowerment. Recovery does not necessarily mean complete freedom from post traumatic affects but generally it is the ability to live in the present without being overwhelmed by the thoughts and feelings of the past. Trauma recovery is best to be looked upon as a process that is worked on over time and in intentional stages. 

Conflict is a normal, and even healthy, part of relationships. After all, two people can’t be expected to agree on everything at all times. Since relationship conflicts are inevitable, learning to deal with them in a healthy way is crucial. When conflict is mismanaged, it can harm the relationship. But when handled in a respectful and positive way, conflict provides an opportunity for growth, ultimately strengthening the bond between two people. By learning the skills you need for successful conflict resolution, you can keep your personal and professional relationships strong and growing.

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When you can recognize the legitimacy of conflicting needs and become willing to examine them in an environment of compassionate understanding, it opens pathways to creative problem solving, team building, and improved relationships. When you resolve conflict and disagreement quickly and painlessly, mutual trust will flourish.