How would it feel to have a clear mind?

I feel like I can’t calm my thoughts, I just find myself worrying about everything...every little thing just feels like a big deal...
feeling stressed and anxious

All of our sessions are completely unique and individual, but one thing we can tell you is that we never treat Anxiety or stress as a condition or a disease that you 'have' but as a thought pattern that our clients have got switched into.  It is our job together to work out how we will switch it off.

Effective therapy has to be more than talking about the past

So if you dislike labels as much as we do then you have come to the right place.

So who is our typical client who is feeling anxious or stressed?  Usually they are the 'doers' they are busy people, they look after everyone and sometimes forget about themselves.  They have a lot of resources but may just need help finding them again.

There are many different reason why people contact us.  Its unsurprising that in todays busy world more and more people are feeling stretched, overwhelmed and under pressure.   Often they are having a period of uncertainty in their life,   a relationship is difficult, or they have a big project on in work and are feeling worried, stressed and unsure if they will cope with it.  Sometimes they are A-level students who are worried about getting exam work done..

They are reacting to the world around them in a certain way, it is putting up stress levels, their body is responding and releasing  adrenaline and cortisol, which continues the cycle.  Often they feel physical symptoms like feeling disconnected from their body, tiredness and digestive issues.

Luckily they can do something about it, the shorter the time the body has been doing those stress patterns the quicker and easier it is to release.  With the right NLP coaching and different understandings we can help our clients find their resources again, get out of negative thought patterns and return to a better way of feeling.


Anxiety Recovery

One thing we know for sure about Anxiety is the more you practice it, the better you get at it!   Those feeling Anxious have often been feeling stuck in these patterns for a while and are experts at worrying, catastrophic thinking and having black and white reactions to everyday situations.  They don't want to (of course!), but it just seems to happen anyway.  This is because their nervous system is used to having heightened stress responses.  How can we change this?

Our brain is ‘plastic’ it is changing all the time, how can we use that plasticity to get out of old patterns of anxiety and fear?

Often there will have been a series of events that have caused the body and nervous system to get stuck in 'fight or flight' mode.     We need to work out and discover together how we are going to get your body and mind to update your system to restore balance, calm and resilience.

No matter what happened 'back then' it is not happening now, we can help you teach your nervous system how to feel safe again and deal with everyday living.

social anxiety

Imagining life free from anxiety..

So how would you like to feel instead?

At Changeworks we know that when clients have had one panic attack, the fear of having one can often be enough to trigger another.  Panic attacks that come seemingly 'out of the blue'  or those that are triggered by something like a phobia of crowds or small spaces can mean our body was already sitting at a heightened fear response.  Then when our nervous system gets overwhelmed in certain situations, it turns into what we label a panic attack.  We are confident enough to say that we have effective modern interventions for anxiety, panic and overwhelm and that in most cases after a 3-5 sessions our clients are no longer experiencing panic attacks.

The Prospective Mind...

While understanding your own story of the past can be useful, we know that effective therapy must be more than just talking about the past and looking at things retrospectively.  Latest research points at the importance of the 'prospective mind' or thinking prospectively: building up new unconscious responses, patterns and new empowering behaviours in place of the old anxiety pattern. 

All this, and more, is possible.

Change could be just around the corner.

..and so how would you be as a person if Anxiety was no longer an issue in your life?
— Aisling Cowan

Aisling works with her clients at her clinic on the Ormeau Road, Belfast.

Skype sessions also available.