Therapy for Anxiety in Durango, Colorado

For women who strive, overthink, people-please — and are ready to start living more grounded & authentically

You may look calm and capable to others. You get things done. You manage responsibilities.
People admire how dependable and thoughtful you are.

But if you’re honest with yourself… you don’t feel calm on the inside.

Your thoughts don’t stop.
You replay conversations long after they’re over. You pick up on other people’s moods.
You worry about what might go wrong.
You anticipate others needs before your own.

This feels like anxiety that works hard — anxiety that keeps you performing, controlling, overthinking, people-pleasing, achieving — yet also leaves you exhausted, unsure of yourself, and disconnected from your own inner compass.

Nervous System Regulation & Polyvagal Insight

Anxiety can feel like something happening to you — but you can learn to understand how it happened.

Polyvagal theory teaches us that the nervous system shifts through states of safety, mobilization, and shutdown. When your system is stuck in persistent mobilization (linked to fight/flight responses and vigilance), you live with:

Tension
Hyper-awareness
Difficulty settling
Persistent urgency

Therapy helps the system learn safety through repeated, lived experience — not just ideas. Over time, your body starts to shift out of reactivity and into regulation. This change looks like:

Fewer moments of overwhelm
More tolerance for uncertainty
Greater connection with intuition
Less defensiveness around resting
Stronger internal sense of safety

When your body feels safer, anxiety begins to diminish naturally.

What Changes When Anxiety Stops Running the Show

Many women fear that letting go of anxiety will make them less capable or less motivated.

But what actually changes is:

Your purpose becomes chosen, not enforced.

When you work from a place of regulation, you can:

Pursue ambition without chronic tension
Care deeply without losing yourself
Show up competently without excess rumination
Lead with intuition, not fear

You still achieve — but now it is in alignment with you instead of driven by anxiety.

This is nervous system healing.
This is self-trust.
This is healthy power.

How I Can Help

My approach is relational, contemplative, and somatic.

Instead of just talking about symptoms, we explore:

How anxiety shows up in your body
Where patterns originated relationally
How perfectionism and people-pleasing function in your life
How your nervous system learned to stay alert
How to build new capacity for regulation, rest, and intuition

Together, we build a therapeutic space that supports:

Nervous system healing and regulation
Stronger self-trust
Clearer intuition and decision-making
Healthy boundaries and interpersonal presence
Integration of identity beyond performance

This work is not about fixing you.
It’s about helping your nervous system remember it can settle.

Anxiety Doesn’t Have to Rule Your Life

High-functioning anxiety is common among thoughtful, capable women who learned early to adapt to demands for safety, performance, and connection.

You are not alone.
Your patterns make sense.
And you can learn to feel calmer, more grounded, and more yourself.

Therapy offers space for regulation, integration, and growth that feels sustainable — not forced.

If you’re ready to explore therapy for high-functioning anxiety, I invite you to reach out and begin the conversation.

You don’t have to carry this alone.

Contact

You may struggle with…

Perfectionism

Despite accomplishments that would impress others, it still never feels like enough.

Nervousness

Even when nothing is wrong, your body feels alert, tense, or primed for the next challenge.

Overthinking

Your mind goes over the same scenarios again and again — worried about what you said, what you should have done, or what might happen next.

Self-Doubt and Seeking Reassurance

You find yourself asking others for answers you don’t trust in yourself.

People-Pleasing

You give generously — emotionally, mentally, practically — often at the cost of your own needs.

Difficulty Relaxing

Rest feels hard to do and sometimes even guilt-inducing.

Why High-Functioning Anxiety Can Feel So Debilitating

Anxiety isn’t just a bunch of thoughts.

It’s a nervous system experience.

Often, women with high-functioning anxiety learned early on that calm came from vigilance — from doing the “right” thing, being responsible, anticipating what others needed, and preventing conflict or disappointment. This shaped not only your thinking patterns but also your nervous system’s default state.

From a polyvagal perspective, your system may spend a lot of time in a state of subtle activation — neither relaxed nor shut down — like a car idling at high RPMs. The body stays alert for threats that may no longer be present in your life, but the nervous system keeps you prepared as if they are. This can look like:

Chronic tension
Difficulty settling your body
Rapid thoughts
Heightened sensitivity to uncertainty
A sense of urgency that never fully goes away

This pattern is not a personal failing — it’s a learned survival strategy — but it does shape how your system responds to life now. Healing high-functioning anxiety means helping your nervous system learn new ways of safety.

What Anxiety Therapy Can Help You Do

Therapy isn’t about becoming someone without anxiety.

It’s about shifting how your nervous system responds to life.
It’s about helping you trust yourself more than your fear.

When anxiety is approached at both the nervous system and relational level, the results can be transformative:

You begin to notice:

Your thoughts don’t control your actions as much
You can make decisions without endless second-guessing
You can say no without spirals of guilt
You can rest without self-criticism
You feel calmer in your body, not just your mind

Therapy helps you relate to yourself and your nervous system differently instead of letting it run you — and that’s the foundation for self-trust, intuition, and authentic living.

What This Work Looks Like

In our work together, therapy is both relational and somatic:

We slow down enough to notice what your nervous system is doing.
This is not about forcing calm — it’s about feeling what’s here and working with your body-state to anchor safety and regulation over time.

We explore patterns rather than symptoms and get to the root of healing and growth.
Perfectionism, overthinking, and people-pleasing are not isolated habits — they’re interconnected expressions of how your nervous system learned to keep you safe.

We connect present experience to relational history.
Your early attachments shaped your internal expectations — and these expectations continue to show up in your patterns of thought, emotion, and nervous system activation.

We help your nervous system learn that safety is possible.
Grounding, awareness, somatic regulation, and nervous system work become central — because anxiety lives in your body, not just your mind.

My Approach

My work is influenced by Kimberly Rose of the Colorado Ecotherapy Institute, Erin Henry of Rewild Therapy and Wellness, and Jon Young of Connection 1st, whose teachings have deeply shaped my understanding of nature connection and relational practice.

Rooted in Gestalt therapy, Ecology, Depth Psychology, and Duey Freeman’s Attachment and Development model, my approach integrates relational awareness with ecological consciousness.

Ecotherapy with me is not about using nature as a backdrop for therapy—it’s about engaging with nature as a living partner in the healing process. We honor the wisdom of the land, the cycles of the seasons, and the archetypal forces that shape human experience.

Together, we might explore:

Slowing down and re-attuning to your sensory and multi-dimensional awareness
Gentle movement and mindfulness practices that bring you into presence
Playful experiments and curiosity-driven exploration
Nature-based rituals or simple rites of passage to mark transitions
Reflection on dreams, symbols, and archetypes that connect psyche and Earth
Practices for grounding, regulation, and reciprocity with the natural world

This work is both personal and collective—an invitation to return to right relationship with yourself, your community, and the more-than-human world.

What to Expect

Ecotherapy sessions can take many forms depending on your needs. Some take place outdoors in natural settings near Durango, where we engage directly with the land. Others occur in-office or online, incorporating the principles and practices of Ecotherapy even when we’re not physically outside.

I offer individual sessions, group therapy, and community workshops that support eco-grief, right relationship, and reconnection. Through this work, you may find yourself:

Feeling more grounded and present in your body
Developing a deeper sense of belonging and purpose
Reconnecting with joy, creativity, and wonder
Living more in tune with your natural rhythms and values

Contact

Ecotherapy FAQ’s

In my opinion, ecotherapy is for everyone. As a human on a living planet, we are undeniably interconnected with the world and all of her beings. Many of us are separated from nature and have a severed relationship with the natural world, causing a lot of distress, dissatisfaction, isolation, and loneliness. Coming back to our roots, as human animals, it essential for human health & wellness. This can look different for everyone and ecotherapy still considers your personal goals, growth, and development as an individual operating in a collective.
No. While ecotherapy often includes time outdoors, it is not limited to being outside. Sessions may take place indoors, outdoors, or move fluidly between the two. Nature can be engaged directly (such as walking, sitting, or noticing the land) and indirectly (through imagery, natural materials, sensory awareness, or reflection). Together, we choose what feels supportive and accessible for you.
Ecotherapy can be tailored to your unique situation, adapting to a wide range of physical abilities, comfort levels, and sensory needs. Sessions are paced collaboratively and can include online, in-office, outdoors, sitting, walking short distances, or more physcially demanding activities, such as hiking, backcountry, and wilderness settings. Accessibility and safety are always prioritized.
Nature-based therapy can support concerns such as nervous system dysregulation, trauma, depression, anxiety, stress, life transitions, grief, identity exploration, relationship patterns, and feeling disconnected from yourself or the world around you. Many people find it helpful for cultivating resilience, clarity, self-trust, and a deeper sense of belonging.
Ecotherapy includes conversation, but it also emphasizes direct experience, imagination, connection to other beings, the elements, & eco-ancestors, embodiment, instinct, intuition, soul, spirit, and relational processes. Rather than focusing only on talking about problems, ecotherapy invites you to notice what is happening here and now, allowing new awareness and patterns to emerge through lived experience.

Begin Your Journey of Reconnection

Ecotherapy invites you to slow down, listen, and remember your place in the great turning of life.

If you’re ready to explore a more connected and meaningful way of being, I would be honored to walk alongside you.

I offer individual therapy, group sessions, and workshops in Durango, Colorado, and online throughout the state, where we can weave the principles of ecotherapy into our work together.

You’re welcome to schedule a free 15-minute consultation to see if this approach feels right for you.

“Whenever we touch nature we get clean. People who have got dirty through too much civilization take a walk in the woods, or a bath in the sea. Entering the unconscious, entering yourself through dreams, is touching nature from the inside and this is the same thing, things are put right again.”

— Carl Jung

Recent Blog Posts

Blog

Healing is a Spiral