Anxiety Archives - Page 2 of 2 - Jeremy Mast, MS, MDiv, LMFT

Why You Don’t Take Better Care of Yourself When You’re Stressed

Posted on July 12, 2015

“You’ve got a lot going on.” Sound familiar? I’ve been hearing this a lot lately. The Missus and I were thrilled to welcome our first child into the world just over four months ago, and we couldn’t be happier. Of course, having a baby has been a significant and sometimes difficult adjustment for our family. I also recently began studying for the California MFT licensing exams, and I’m starting an intensive process to become trained in the treatment of sex addiction. Sometimes, seasons in life come along and create tornadoes of stress in our lives, and chances are you’ve experienced seasons like the one I’m going through now. So how might we respond to our stress in a helpful way?

When You’re Not Waving but Drowning

Posted on October 14, 2014

in Anger, Anxiety, Authenticity, Depression, Healing

by Jeremy Mast

When I was in high school, I had a wonderful creative writing class in which I first encountered a poem entitled “Not Waving but Drowning” by British poet Stevie Smith:

Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

3 Ways to (Really) Have Happier Holidays

Posted on December 19, 2013

in Anxiety, Depression, Healing, Relationships

by Jeremy Mast

It’s that time of that time of year, isn’t it? Christmas is fast approaching, and for many, the nor’easter of financial stress, family conflict, and migraine-inducing holiday preparations is becoming more intense. As the lines at stores get longer, the holiday travel more hectic, and the planning for festivities more frantic, St. Nick is the only one who’s got time to check his list twice. Amidst the yuletide chaos, much of the holiday spirit is lost, so much so that we frequently speak of Christmas as a season that must be “survived” or “saved.”

On (Emotional) Shackles & Freedom

Posted on July 4, 2013

in Anxiety, Couples, Depression, Family, Healing, Marriage, Relationships

by Jeremy Mast

Today, of course, is the Fourth of July, the holiday during which America remembers its adoption of the Declaration of Independence on this day in 1776. We celebrate that after declaring our independence from Great Britain, we at last gained hard-won freedom after the long years of the Revolutionary War ended in 1783. Though that war is over, Americans still battle in many conflicts throughout the world.

A different kind of conflict, however, churns within each of us, regardless of nationality: Each of us fight for our innermost desires and longings to be recognized and understood in our most intimate relationships.

Piglet on the Couch: Anxiety as Inner Conflict

Posted on May 5, 2013

in Anxiety, Healing, Relationships

by Jeremy Mast

Some months ago, I stumbled across “Winnie the Pooh,” a 2011 film featuring many of my favorite childhood friends, while wading through the vast waters of Netflix’s streaming library. My delight upon being reunited with these characters inspired me to integrate my training as a therapist with my affection for Pooh and his friends by writing about Eeyore, Ashdown Forest’s sad, gloomy, and lethargic grey donkey. In that post, I explained that depression results from one’s inability to manage depressive feelings.

Continue reading

Eeyore on the Couch: Depression & How Therapy Can Help

Posted on March 7, 2013

in Anxiety, Counseling, Depression, Healing

by Jeremy Mast

A few months ago, I was surfing the vast wave of entertainment in my Netflix streaming application when I discovered a veritable gold mine of nostalgia: “Winnie the Pooh,” a 2011 film featuring many of my favorite childhood friends. In the long years since I had last seen them, I was delighted to find that Winnie the Pooh’s appetite for honey had not waned a bit, that Tigger was still nearly manic with unbound energy, and that Piglet was still occasionally conquering his fears despite being a “very small animal.”