Discernment Anxiety

Problem and Goal

When faced with a big vocational decision, Ella felt panicky and overwhelmed. She came to therapy wanting to achieve peace in discernment.

What triggered her mixed feelings and indecision? Major life decisions requiring deeper self knowledge of desires and dreams.

Inwardly, she got trapped in hyper-analyzing, doubting, and using all kinds of mental calculations to figure out the "right vocation," or what God would want her to do.

Outwardly, she coped by forcing her heart to go along with whatever narrative/script was expected, smiling and nodding on the outside without taking any time to check with her deeper feelings (judged as untrustworthy).

Underneath her ruminating and robotic "obedience", she felt trapped and alone with indecision, ultimately believing: My heart is incapable of making decisions. In her body, whenever her defenses weren't enough to keep the emotional wound at bay, it would bubble up in feelings of panicky overwhelm. These strong feelings were signs of something unresolved in her subconscious, implicit memory system.

Finding the Root Cause

Using the floatback technique, we uncovered both unmet needs and unresolved memories. From the ages of 5 - 7 she felt a lack of affirmation. Her likes and interests were never explored or given any heed. Later, memories came up where she was pressured to make decisions too soon, or pressured to simply do what her parents thought was right, rather than given time to process her own feelings.

Integrating Defenses

To lessen her panicky feelings, she was able to reframe her anxious ruminating as a sign of the deeper wound.

(An anxiety loop is a great way to defend from facing deeper hurts, and may require thought-stopping. See the resource on anxiety control techniques here).

She wrote a letter to the "hyper-analyzer" to replace the false control of obsessing with the genuine control of paying attention to her dreams and desires.

This brought up the other defense, which taught her to distrust her own desires, and to find approval by doing what is expected (being a pleaser / high achiever). She told this part of her that she was tired of getting this type of approval, and that it could never help her find her true vocation. She was free of parental pressures and was in a place to finally pay heed to her own desires, which were better formed than she realized.

Healing the Core Wound

We used EMDR to process all the major instances where she felt trapped and pressured to "do what was expected", despite feeling unseen, alone, and unloved.

It was here that she came to the core wound, which she imagined as a young 5-7 year old girl who had spent a long time feeling unaffirmed in her feelings and desires. She was able to meet the unmet needs by pondering times and people in her life where she felt seen, loved, and delighted in. She imagined giving her young self plenty of time and space to process her complex, sensitive emotional responses. This simple exercise brought her immense relief - lasting relief.

Finally! Peace in Discernment

Ella was finally able to replace anxious ruminating with a genuine discernment of her heart's deeper desires. She no longer felt trapped by indecision and a driven need to do what might seem right on the outside. Her panicky shakiness resolved into peace and joy when discerning big life decisions.

She tried out her new approach with an actual life decision that had been looming, and found that her decision was very "out of script," and surprised many people in her life, even herself.

Spiritual Significance

Ella was able to reframe her life decisions according to a more spiritually mature framework, one that allowed for authentic emotion to inform her relationships with God, self, and others. Although her big decision surprised her, she reveled in the sense of peace, joy, and adventure in discernment that had been missing in her spiritual life.