Juniper Counselling Centre
155 Terence Matthews Crescent, Unit 3, Suite 200 K2M2A8 Ottawa, ON, Canada

One of the most harmful responses to anxiety is avoidance. When a person avoids the source of their anxiety, they feel relief. However, the next time they face a similar situation, their anxiety will be worse. Safety behaviors are subtle actions used to avoid anxiety in social situations. Although safety behaviors provide some relief, they make anxiety worse in the long run.

When we notice our anxious symptoms, there is an immediate belief that we can't cope with the situation, and therefore we become more anxious. This is the start of the vicious cycle of anxiety where we then begin to avoid those things to reduce the discomfort.

Anxiety disorders are a serious mental health illness. They cause distress and greatly interfere with one’s ability to live their life. Remember, for someone with anxiety, ‘just relaxing’ feels impossible.

Anxiety is meant to capture your attention and stimulate you to make necessary changes to protect what you care about. Sometimes our anxiety response goes into overdrive and makes us fearful of everyday events or experiences.

Checkout these five ways to help initiate, prioritize and improve your relationship with yourself by nourishing your soul.

Self-love for the body may sound strange, but we must attune to our bodies and give them what they need. After all, they are the only bodies we have.

Approaching our well-being from a holistic lens can ensure that we are meeting the needs of our mind, body, and soul. How do you practice self-love for the mind?

You are the centre of your universe and will be with yourself for all eternity. How do you want to show up for that journey?

We hope you can rest comfortably within who you are, and can be kind with yourself today.

Mental health check-ins can help you prioritize yourself and make your needs the most important consideration.

A friendly Friday reminder!

Figure out what replenishes you and make time for it in your life.

Deep breathing is a simple but effective method of relaxation. It forces us to address shallow chest breathing that contributes to feeling anxious and depletes our energy.

There is a tendency to doubt your ability to grow during difficult times, even when it is something you have done before.

Limit your exposure to distressing media and the news. Over exposure to disease-related content can impact levels of anxiety.

Feeling connected to other people is a basic psychological need. We are hard-wired biologically to be in connection with each other. When we lack connection, we suffer feelings such as loneliness, meaninglessness, and isolation.

The pandemic has challenged us in so many ways over the course of 2020, and for many of us, it is now threatening the way we celebrate our holiday season. Starting tomorrow, we will be rolling out daily suggestions of how to cope with disappointment, change, and how to overcome feelings of isolation. We wish you all resiliency and joy as you celebrate in new and creative ways.

There are no straightforward decisions this holiday season, let’s go easy on each other!

The most important thing when teaching techniques to children is to model how to preform the exercise.

Supporting children can be a process of creatively blending practical information with an engaging approach.

It appears that in the year 2020 abnormal is the new normal. In order to meet our psychological needs, we need to practice great flexibility and creativity. Our tolerance level for flex needs to be at an all-time high. For example: If creating a gingerbread house with all the cousins is a family tradition, consider creating one per household and setting up a Zoom share for the kids to display and applaud each other hard work. It might not feel the exact same, but tradition and family connection is being preserved.

Before self-regulation comes co-regulation. The most precious gift we can offer an emotional child is our presence. Its all about connecting rather than punishing.

You don’t have to be fine. There are people who will support you.

A friendly reminder that what we see is not always how one feels. Emotional miscues are used to keep emotions hidden from others.

Attending to, and expressing primary emotions leads us to what we actually want/need. Primary emotions help us seek out a meaningful connection with others.

While emotional avoidance can be effective to temporarily suppress difficult emotions, the emotions that you are trying to evade will likely grow harder avoid. Emotions resurface in an attempt to serve their function.

Emotional avoidance is often used as a means to cope, however, emotions have important purposes. Emotions serve to provide information about yourself and what is going on around you.