Can you start by sharing a bit about yourself? What led you to become a therapist, and what specifically drew you to working with anxiety?

Therapy has very much felt like a calling to me. Looking back, I learned to care for others on an emotional level at a young age. I was always someone who felt things very deeply.  As a child, I witnessed a family member go through a mental health crisis.  And, despite growing up with access to resources, it was still hard to have their needs met. After watching that happen, I knew I wanted to be part of the solution. I wanted to help. But after being a therapist, I now realize therapy isn’t necessarily about helping someone feel better. I think I'm still learning how to define therapy, but I now see it more as witnessing someone as their true self and helping them navigate their life and figure out what’s best for them.  

I’ve done so much personal and professional research on anxiety and healing. I love the idea of helping others through acknowledging and working through my own vulnerabilities. A lot of therapists specialize in mental health areas that have impacted them in some way, and I am no exception. 

 Why This Deck Now? What inspired you to create this resource at this particular time? What gaps in understanding or support are you hoping to fill?

We came up with the idea of the anxiety deck while talking about how I was feeling anxious, and my worries about how anxiety is gonna show up in my kids. 

When brainstorming, I wrote down everything I knew about anxiety- everything that has been helpful on my own path, what I've learned in school, in trainings, doing research,  and what I’ve seen help others firsthand.

I think one of the gaps in understanding anxiety is that the key to reducing anxiety is to actually face it. Confronting our anxieties can feel incredibly scary, and I think a lot of us steer clear of this because anxiety feels bad. Understanding our anxieties can actually make it more bearable in the long run. I love what we wrote on the brochure of the deck that says “anxiety makes us wanna run, but what if we sat with it instead?”. I think our anxiety is there to tell us something, we just need to slow down to listen to it. 

We worked on this deck before the past election cycle in the US, and having this deck available now seems more important than ever. We’re living in an incredibly anxiety provoking, and scary time. There is so much pain. We don’t know what else is going to happen and the policies in the US are constantly changing. How could we not be anxious?

My hope for people to not feel so alone in this. My wish would be for someone to understand themselves better, give themselves some grace. I love the possibility of reaching people that I would never be able to without this deck. That it can provide someone with hope and relief. 

You talk about framing anxiety as “in the moment” versus “out of the moment.” Can you explain what these terms mean and why this distinction is important for managing anxiety?

When we’re in a heightened state of anxiety it’s hard to see things for what they really are. We can’t really think clearly when we’re overwhelmed with anxiety. The 'in the moment'  cards are designed to bring you back to baseline. These are often tangible exercises and prompts you can do quickly. 

When we’re ’out of the moment’ of anxiety, we’re able to think a bit clearer. A lot of the work is best done in this state of mind, when we're not in that panic. In these moments we are able to see things a bit clearer, and to think deeper. Understanding our anxieties from these more in-depth perspectives can really change how we move in the world. 

A fellow therapist told me that anxiety can actually cover up another feeling that is a bit scarier to feel, and that really blew my mind. How can something as awful as anxiety be covering up something else? Why would I choose to feel anxious? After facing my own defensiveness around this idea, I’ve learned it is often true. Anxiety can be more productive and more acceptable to feel than a deep sadness. 

Put simply, different strategies work when we're in different emotional states. 

Anxiety can feel overwhelming, but it’s also something that can be understood and managed. What words of encouragement would you offer to someone struggling with it? How can we normalize these feelings while also learning to work through them?

Anxiety is very treatable. I think by talking about anxiety and how common it is, it can reduce the shame a lot of us feel around it. I imagine most of us have experienced anxiety at some point in our lives. Our society hasn’t really set us up to learn how to cope with anxiety in a way that’s effective let alone healthy for us long-term.As I'm raising my kids, I’m learning that there are ways you can help kids from a very young age deal with their anxious feelings, which is incredible. And this means we can learn as adults too. While there is potentially a lot that is scary ahead of us, I also see and feel a lot of hope.