Feeling Anxious or Overwhelmed

🔎 Client Situation: Feeling Anxious or Overwhelmed

Use the following techniques during sessions to help your client regain calm, clarity, and control.

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⚡ Techniques & How to Use Them

1. Box Breathing / Coherent Breathing

• How: Inhale for 4, hold for 4, exhale for 4, hold for 4. Repeat.
• When: To calm the nervous system at the start of a session or during peak anxiety.

2. Thought Dump / Brain Dump

• How: Let client speak or write all thoughts in their head. No judgment.
• When: When their mind feels cluttered or racing.

3. Chunking Down

• How: Break big worries or tasks into small, manageable steps.
• When: When client feels overwhelmed by everything at once.

4. Circle of Control (Covey Model)

• How: Identify what they can control, influence, and what’s out of their control.
• When: When anxiety stems from external or uncertain events.

5. Progressive Muscle Relaxation

• How: Guide them to tense and release muscles from head to toe.
• When: To reduce physical tension tied to emotional stress.

6. NLP Dissociation

• How: Have them observe themselves from a third-person perspective.
• When: When emotions feel too intense or overwhelming.

7. Naming & Normalizing Emotions

• How: Invite them to name their feelings. Validate them.
• When: To reduce shame and regain emotional balance.

8. Mindfulness Body Awareness

• How: Shift attention to breath, posture, sensations.
• When: When anxiety causes disconnection from the body.

9. Reframing Overwhelm as Excitement

• How: Ask: "Could this anxious energy also be anticipation or growth?"
• When: For performance-related anxiety.

10. Visualization (Calm Future)

• How: Have them imagine handling the situation with calm and confidence.
• When: To shift mindset from fear to capability.

11. NLP Anchoring (Resource State)

• How: Recall a moment of calm. Anchor it with a gesture.
• When: When client needs quick emotional access to calm.

12. Metaphor (Milton Model Style)

• How: Use calming metaphors (e.g., "a tree in the wind").
• When: When logic fails and emotions need soothing indirectly.

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🔎 Powerful Questions

• "Where do you feel this in your body?"
• "What’s one small thing you can control right now?"
• "What would it look like to be kind to yourself in this moment?"
• "If this feeling could speak, what would it say?"