Anxiety Therapy for Women in California | EMDR & IFS
Because anxiety doesn't come from nowhere. Yours has a root.
You Just Want It to Stop
You're not falling apart. You're functioning really well from the outside. But inside you're exhausted. You spiral for hours about a conversation that's already over. You rehearse what you're going to say before every difficult interaction and then replay it for hours afterward. You people-please, over-apologize, and edit yourself constantly. Somewhere along the way you learned that keeping everyone comfortable was how you stayed safe. Otherwise, you’d be anxious and stressed with no solution. And no amount of deep breathing, meditation apps, or ChatGPT rabbit holes is making it stop.
This anxiety was not born but created. For many women, it started a long time ago — in the home they grew up in, with the people who were supposed to make them feel safe. If you grew up in an environment where moods were unpredictable, emotions were dismissed, or love felt conditional on your performance, your nervous system learned to stay on high alert. And it hasn’t relaxed since.
If any of that sounds familiar — if you grew up walking on eggshells, feeling responsible for a parent's emotions, or being told you were too sensitive every time you had a feeling — there's a name for what you experienced. You don't have to claim it today. You don't have to be certain. But understanding where your anxiety came from is the first step toward actually healing it rather than pretending you’re okay for the rest of your life.
You've been managing long enough. Therapy with me isn't about adding more coping tools to an already exhausting toolkit. It’s not like your life is in shambles. Your mind and body are simply reacting out of habit to people and situations that have made you feel small and helpless before. Using EMDR and IFS, we go to the root of where this started. And we heal it. Not just cope with it. Actually heal it.
You Ask Yourself, “Why am I…?
Spiraling for hours about a conversation that's already over?
Apologizing before anyone has a chance to be upset with me?
Afraid to share my opinion in case someone disagrees?
Constantly monitoring everyone's mood in the room?
Asking ChatGPT what I should do instead of trusting myself?
Feeling responsible when someone around me is upset?
Exhausted from performing to win the approval from others?
Doom scrollig my algorithm looking for answers that never quite land?
Tell Me If This Sounds Like Your Story
You remember asking for something simple. Respect, a boundary maybe. A moment where you said "that hurts" or "please don't do that", and instead of being heard, you were punished. Criticized. Shut down. Suddenly you were the ungrateful daughter, the difficult one, the one who didn't appreciate everything they did for you.
Then came the silence. Not the peaceful kind but the kind that filled every room in the house. The kind where you could feel the temperature drop when your parent walked in. Where you learned to read the room before you said a single word. Where you watched, and waited, and calculated your every move just to avoid setting it off again.
“You were the ungrateful daughter…”
And then one day — nothing. They acted like it never happened. No conversation, no resolution, no acknowledgment. Just back to normal, as if you'd imagined the whole thing. So you told yourself maybe you did. Maybe you were too sensitive. Maybe you asked for too much. It was easier to blame yourself than to accept what was really happening.
So you got smaller. Quieter. More careful. You stopped asking for things. You stopped saying how you felt. You learned that keeping the peace was safer than telling the truth. And your nervous system learned something it still believes today: that conflict is dangerous, that your needs are too much, and that the safest thing you can do is make yourself as agreeable as possible.
That's not anxiety. That's a wound. And it has a name.
This Is Why Coping Skills Were Never Going to Be Enough
Coping skills treat the smoke. EMDR and IFS go to the fire.
Deep breathing, meditation, positive affirmations…they help you get through the moment. But they don't touch what's burning underneath. Because your anxiety doesn't live in your thoughts. It lives in your nervous system. In the part of you that learned, as a child, that the world wasn't safe.
EMDR helps your nervous system learn to sit in the flames without getting burned, processing what got stuck so the fire doesn’t consume you. IFS helps you discover the parts of yourself caught in the fire. The part that desperately wants to put it out, and the part that would rather keep burning than detach from the parent who started it.
Together they don't just reduce your anxiety. They heal what created it.
Therapy that makes you say,
“That makes sense!”
Reclaiming Who You Were Meant to Be
Imagine facing something uncertain and feeling equipped to handle it. Not because you planned for every possible outcome, but because you finally trust yourself to figure it out.
You'll spend less time in your head. The spiraling, the replaying, the endless "what ifs" will lose their grip because your nervous system stopped treating every moment as a potential threat.
You'll stop outsourcing your sense of self. The need for external validation stops. No more checking other people’s moods, reassurance-seeking, or asking ChatGPT what you should do. You'll start to trust that your own instincts are worth listening to.
You'll take up space without apologizing for it. You'll share your opinion in a room full of people without rehearsing it three times first. You'll disagree without your heart racing. You'll be authentically, unapologetically yourself, even around the people who used to make you shrink.
You'll be able to sit with uncertainty without it unraveling you. Not every unknown will feel like a threat. Not every silence will feel like punishment. Not every imperfect moment will spiral into proof that you're not enough.
Clients often tell me the biggest surprise isn't feeling less anxious but realizing how much of themselves they had abandoned just to feel safe. And then slowly, session by session, finding their way back to themselves.
Part of You Wants to Close This Tab. Another Part Is Still Reading.
Notice that. That tension you're feeling right now is not weakness or indecision. That's two parts of you doing exactly what they've always done. One part learned a long time ago that it's safer to stay small, stay quiet, and not get her hopes up. She's trying to protect you. She always has been.
But another part of you stayed on this page. She read every word. She recognized herself in the silent treatment, in the spiral, in the exhaustion of performing fine when she's anything but. She's the part that started this Google search in the first place. She's the part that's been quietly wondering if things could actually be different.
That part is right. And she deserves to be here.
You don't have to have it figured out before you reach out. The free consultation is just a conversation. No pressure, no commitment, just two people figuring out if we're a good fit. Let the part of you that's still reading make the next move.
FAQS
What others have wondered about anxiety therapy:
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Anxiety is your body’s way of remembering. Even though nothing is happening now, your nervous system is holding onto something that has already happened or what may happen in the future. The anxiety is preparing you to handle the next distressing situation.
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Healing takes time. Often, people find relief in each session as they start to put pieces together. In between sessions, you may still feel anxious as more questions arise—this is normal. But therapy is tailored to your needs, even if it takes a long time to see change. While anxiety therapy is designed to help you improve, there are no guarantees.
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Weekly, usually the same time and day each week. When we both have agreed you’re making and sustaining progress, we will discuss scaling down to every other week until you’re ready to complete therapy.
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Not at all. Many of my clients are high-functioning women who look fine on the outside but are exhausted on the inside. You don't have to be in crisis to benefit from therapy.
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I use a combination of EMDR, Internal Family Systems (IFS), cognitive tools, and psychoeducation to help you understand where your anxiety comes from and how to manage it effectively.
More questions? Check out my FAQs page.
Areas of Expertise
Stress
Overthinking
Poor boundaries
Perfectionism
Relationship challenges
Women raised by narcissistic parents
Trauma
Repeated patterns in dating
Codependency
Finding your hobbies and interests