Paper Boats Guided Meditation for Teens With Anxiety
Anxiety therapy for teenagers in St. Louis, MO
When you’re a teen with anxiety, or anxiety-driven anger, you need help learning how to calm the storm. Your thoughts and feelings can swirl up and become huuuge waves of anxiety, anger, stress, and tension. You might experience thought spirals, where one small worry turns into a huge, catastrophic fear. Or you might notice yourself getting angry, sharp, and mean to the people you love, even though you don’t want to. It’s almost like you cant help yourself.
Having anxiety, and anxiety-driven anger, can feel really hard and really overwhelming. That’s why CBT for anxiety is so important.
(Curious to learn more about this? Check out Kelsey’s book, When Anxiety Makes You Angry, for all of her tips on managing your overwhelming anxiety that looks like anger.)
You need to have a ton of coping skills to manage your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors (all part of our cognitive triangle!) We need you to be able to take a step back, explore what thoughts are going through your head, and recognize how those thoughts are impacting you emotionally. That way, you can tell yourself something different, or use a skill to help lower your emotions elevator and feel more in charge of your big reactions - instead of feeling like your reactions are in charge of you.
When I provide therapy for teens, I want to help with the cognitive triangle, but I also want to give you tools to calm down and slow the big rush of anxious, angry, overwhelming thoughts.
I want you to have a ton of relaxation skills so that you can help your body stay calm, which makes it so much easier to calm your thoughts and your reactions.
So with that in mind, today we’re going to practice my Paper Boats Guided Meditation, excerpted from my book, When Anxiety Makes You Angry.
It’s impossible to stop our thoughts from happening. When we try and stop them, it actually can make our thoughts feel STRONGER. It’s like going ice skating and then pushing against the wall. You push and push and push, and the wall pushes you right back. The harder you fight your thoughts, the harder they’ll fight you.
So what if we gave up the fight? What if we just let that wall bump us and go in a different direction instead? What if we simply opted out?
Paper Boats Guided Meditation
Take a listen to today’s meditation, and feel free to download it to use anytime you need for your personal use.
Remember, there’s nothing wrong with your thoughts. Even when they’re linked with anger, or anxiety, even when we don’t like them, it’s okay to have these thoughts.
But if anger and anxiety feel really too big for you, or feel hard to calm down, you may benefit from anxiety counseling with a trained therapist.
Further reading:
Spotlight on: Kelsey Torgerson Dunn
Anxiety Therapist, Author
My approach focuses on building relaxation skills, digging under the surface, and helping you honor how you’re feeling (even when you’re feeling anxious, angry, or inadequate). I want to help you move forward with your life with clarity and confidence.
LEARN MORE ABOUT WORKING WITH ME.
Compassionate Counseling St. Louis provides specialized anger management and anxiety therapy in St. Louis for kids, teens, and college students. We love helping with thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. We work in Clayton, MO and serve kids, teens, and college students throughout St. Louis City, St. Louis County, Ladue, University City, Town and Country, Webster Groves, Creve Coeur, Kirkwood, Richmond Heights, and Brentwood. You can set up your free phone screening to see if we’re a good fit for your needs right on our website.
