Intrusive thoughts and health anxiety

Counselling Isn’t Meant to be Easy

Why Counselling Can Feel Hard — Especially When You Live With Anxiety

If you’ve come to counselling feeling anxious, there’s a good chance you’re hoping for some relief. You might want things to feel calmer, quieter, or more manageable. You may even be wondering why, at times, counselling feels harder rather than easier.I want to say this clearly and kindly: if counselling feels difficult, that doesn’t mean it isn’t working. Very often, it means you are doing something brave.

Your Anxiety Makes Sense

From a person-centred perspective, I don’t see your anxiety as something broken or wrong. I understand it as something that developed for a reason. At some point, anxiety likely helped you cope, stay safe, or get through experiences that felt overwhelming.Rather than trying to get rid of anxiety as quickly as possible, counselling offers a space where we can begin to understand it — and your relationship with it — with compassion.

Avoidance Is a Understandable Way of Coping

Many people manage anxiety by avoiding situations, thoughts, or feelings that feel too much. Others cope by staying busy, logical, strong, or emotionally contained. These strategies often start as ways of protecting yourself, and they often work — at least for a while.Over time, though, avoidance can quietly shrink your world. Anxiety becomes more sensitive, more intrusive, and more demanding of your attention. What once helped you cope can begin to limit you.In counselling, you’re not asked to force anything. Instead, you’re gently invited to turn toward your experience, rather than constantly pushing it away.

Why Counselling Might Feel Uncomfortable at First

In person-centred counselling, you are offered something many people are not used to: being deeply listened to, without judgement, pressure, or advice. If you’ve spent years managing anxiety by staying in control or staying distracted, this can feel surprisingly exposing.You might notice your anxious feelings more clearly when you slow down. Silence might feel uncomfortable. You might wish I would give you answers or reassurance — especially when anxiety is asking for certainty.None of this means you’re doing counselling wrong. Often, it means that old patterns of avoidance are starting to loosen, and your inner experience is finally being given space.

The Fear of Feeling

Many people worry that if they allow themselves to feel what they’ve been holding back, things will spiral out of control. You might find yourself thinking, “If I let this out, I won’t be able to cope,” or “If I feel it, it will only get worse.”In this space, you are never pushed to go faster than feels safe. Person-centred counselling is not about forcing exposure or digging things up before you’re ready. We move at your pace, guided by what feels manageable for you, moment by moment.Feeling more honestly can take courage — especially if you’ve learned to survive by keeping things tightly held.

Acceptance Isn’t Giving Up

Sometimes people worry that acceptance means resigning themselves to anxiety forever. That’s not what acceptance means here.Acceptance simply means allowing your experience to be what it is, without fighting yourself for having it. When anxiety is met with understanding rather than resistance, it often begins to soften on its own. What tends to keep anxiety stuck is not its presence, but the ongoing struggle against it.You are accepted here exactly as you are — including the parts of you that feel anxious.

When Counselling Feels Hard, Something Important Is Happening

If counselling feels challenging at times, it doesn’t mean you’re failing. It often means you’re beginning to stay with your experience instead of avoiding it — and that is real emotional work.You might feel more aware, more exposed, or more tired after sessions. That can be unsettling. But it is often a sign that something meaningful is shifting.And you are not doing this alone. I remain alongside you, attentive to your pace and responsive to what you need.

What Often Changes Over Time

As counselling continues, many people notice gradual changes:

Anxiety still shows up, but it feels less frightening.
There’s less urgency to suppress or escape feelings.
You begin to trust yourself more.
Your inner world feels more flexible and less controlling.

The aim isn’t to eliminate anxiety completely. It’s to help you live without organising your life around avoiding it.

A Gentle Reassurance

Counselling isn’t meant to be easy, but it is meant to be safe. It’s a place where all of you is welcome — including the anxious parts.If this feels hard, it doesn’t mean something is wrong. It may mean you’re finally allowing yourself to be met, understood, and accepted just as you are. And that, while challenging, is often where real change begins.

January, anxiety and intrusive thoughts

A Gentle Pause at the Start of the Year

If you’re finding the start of the year harder than you expected, you aren’t alone.January is often thought of as a fresh start, a reset, a time to feel motivated and know what you want. But for many people I speak to, it does the opposite. It brings more noise. More pressure. More thoughts and comparisons about what you should be doing differently by now.

The New Year can increase the pressure

If you are suffering with anxiety ( and make no mistake, it can be suffering), the New Year can amplify things that were already there. Thoughts like I should be better than this, I need to sort myself out, or not another year feeling like this can become louder.If you experience intrusive thoughts, you might notice them more when life slows down. The bright lights of December fade, and suddenly your mind has more space to fill. That can feel unsettling, even frightening, especially if you were hoping for the feeling of relief with the start of a New Year.If you’ve spent months or years pushing through stress, holding things together, your body and mind may only now be letting that effort drop. You can suddenly feel fatigue, low motivation, irritability, or a sense of emotional emptiness.This isn’t laziness. It’s not a lack of resilience. It’s a mind and body that needs recovery.

The Pressure to Improve Can Make Anxiety Worse

There’s a lot of messaging at this time of year about changing yourself. Go to the gym, lose weight, be your best self, and think only positive thoughts. This all sounds great, but it can add pressure and a feeling that you are weak and not trying hard enough, when negative thoughts pop up (which they will). I’m not suggesting that making plans for change is not a good thing, but for someone already dealing with anxiety or burnout, that pressure can quietly turn into self criticism. Things can start to feel urgent. Like something you have to get right quickly, or you’ve failed.If everything feels heavy, tense, or overwhelming right now, that’s information worth listening to.To be clear . When I talk about taking a break, I don’t mean giving up or doing nothing forever.I mean, telling yourself there is no need to decide yet. Not pushing yourself into action when your mind and body are asking for rest.Try not to compare your life with others who appear to be doing well. You don’t know what is really going on in their lives.Taking a break is a way of creating safety. It gives your nervous system a chance to settle before you ask it to change. There is no rush, no race to finish first.

About Intrusive Thoughts

If intrusive thoughts are part of your experience, you might notice they become louder when you slow down. That can be scary, and it can make you feel that taking a break is the wrong thing to do.It’s important to know that intrusive thoughts are not messages you need to solve. They’re mental noise, often a result of anxiety, stress, or fatigue. Trying to analyse them, reassure yourself about them, or push them away can keep them stuck. Taking a break means you don’t have to fight with your thoughts. It means letting them be present without responding to them.It sounds simple, but it is not easy, and it’s not something you have to do alone. A counsellor who has a good understanding of intrusive thoughts can help with this.

A Gentler January

January doesn’t have to be about progress. It’s about giving yourself a chance to breathe, a chance to slow down, and to realise you can live with the uncertainty of not knowing what comes next.

You might gently ask yourself:

What am I feeling right now?
What am I still carrying from last year?
What would self compassion look like, instead of telling myself I am failing and not doing as well as others?

If you are feeling overwhelmed, support matters. Counselling can be a place where the slowing down is held with you, not forced, not rushed, and with no judgement.

A Different Way to Begin the Year

Remind yourself that the New Year is just a date. Nothing needs to be fixed in January; Feeling rushed puts your nervous system on high alert and creates more anxiety. You don’t need a plan yet. You don’t need a better mindset. You don’t need to feel hopeful all the time.You can arrive in to this year slowly, carefully, and with uncertainty.Sometimes the most helpful thing you can do at the start of a new year is pause — and let yourself catch up to where you already are.Life doesn't magically change in January. It's a work in progress.If anything resonates with you from this blog. Please feel free to contact me to make an appointment or for more information.

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