Is This Anxiety or Something Deeper? How Therapy Helps You Untangle Your Inner World

Inner world
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Sarah Draper

I'm a BACP Qualified Counsellor based in Needham Market, near Ipswich, UK. In this blog I share insights about person-centered counselling.

Table of content

  • 3:32 min

  • Jul 2025

We often use the word anxiety to describe a wide range of uncomfortable feelings — nervousness, dread, overthinking, overwhelm. It’s become one of the most common reasons people seek counselling today.

But here’s the thing: anxiety is often the surface ripple, not the whole story underneath.

If you’ve ever wondered, Why do I feel this way?, or Why does this keep happening?, therapy might help you go beyond symptom management — and into true self-understanding.


The many faces of anxiety

Anxiety can show up in all sorts of ways:

  • Racing thoughts or constant worrying
  • Avoidance of certain people, places or situations
  • Over-preparing or perfectionism
  • People-pleasing or fear of conflict
  • Feeling like you’re “on edge” all the time
  • Trouble sleeping or relaxing

These are real, valid experiences — but they’re often protective responses. Your mind and body might be trying to keep you safe, based on past experiences or beliefs you didn’t even realise you were carrying.


So, is it just anxiety — or something deeper?

You might be surprised how often anxiety is tangled up with other, deeper parts of our emotional world:

  • Unprocessed grief: Loss we’ve never truly had space to feel.
  • Old attachment wounds: The way we learned to relate, cope, or survive in childhood can shape how we handle relationships and stress today.
  • Shame and self-criticism: A harsh inner voice can drive anxiety without us noticing — always pushing us to do more, be more, prove something.
  • Trauma (big or small): Difficult events from the past, even if they don’t seem “traumatic enough”, can live on in the body and mind as chronic tension or unease.

In other words, anxiety is often the signal — not the root.


How therapy helps you make sense of it all

As an integrative counsellor, I won’t just give you a checklist of anxiety “fixes”. We’ll work together to explore what’s really going on — at your pace, in a space that feels safe and non-judgemental.

Here’s what that might involve:

🔍 Getting curious, not critical

Instead of trying to “get rid of” anxiety, we’ll explore what it might be telling you. What’s triggering it? When did it start? What does it want to protect you from?

🪞 Looking at patterns

We’ll gently look at patterns in your thoughts, behaviours, and relationships — not to judge, but to understand. You might notice you always shrink in certain situations, or feel driven to prove your worth. These patterns often come from early experiences.

🧰 Practical tools, tailored to you

We can bring in CBT-based techniques to manage spiralling thoughts or physical symptoms, but always in the context of your wider story — not as a “one-size-fits-all” fix.

🌱 Making space for all of you

Sometimes anxiety is covering up sadness, anger, grief, or fear that’s never been fully met. In therapy, we can hold space for those parts of you with compassion and care — not rush to fix them, but truly hear them.


You are not broken — you’re responding

It’s so important to say this: you are not weak, failing, or flawed for feeling anxious. You’re responding in the best way you know how, given your history, environment, and internal wiring.

But you don’t have to stay stuck in those responses.

Therapy helps you reconnect the dots — and in doing so, loosen the grip that anxiety can have over your daily life. It’s not about “eliminating” anxiety, but changing your relationship with it. Understanding where it comes from, how it protects you, and what it might be covering up.


Final thoughts: you’re allowed to look beneath the surface

If you’ve been coping alone — holding it all together, or dismissing your struggles as “not that bad” — this is your invitation to go deeper.

You don’t have to figure it all out before reaching out for help.

Sometimes the first step is simply saying, I don’t want to feel like this anymore. From there, we can begin the journey of understanding — together.


If this resonates with you, and you’re curious about exploring the roots of your anxiety in a warm, supportive space, feel free to get in touch. You deserve to feel heard, not rushed. Understood, not labelled.

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