How counseling for college students in Alabama can help you through 2021.
We all thought everything would be back to normal before now. What is the rest of this year going to look like? What is next year going to look like? What if there is a new normal?
Our minds are very good at alerting us to all of the possible negative outcomes in life. We can easily get tangled in the “what ifs”. After more than a year of uncertainty, how can we move toward feeling peace and farther away from feeling anxious?
Our brains crave certainty. Uncertainty about what will happen next generates a threat response within your limbic system. When your brain is under this threat response, it is difficult to focus on anything else- like your studies, your relationships, your future goals.
Uncertainty is painful and information is rewarding. So our brains try to predict. When our eyes see something, our brain predicts. When our ears hear something, our brains predict what comes next.
Our brain uses all our of senses to recognize patterns in the world because it wants to be certain about what will happen next.
Information doesn’t necessarily makes us more adaptive or more effective. Instead, it just reduces our sense of uncertainty.
This is why change is hard for us humans. The only thing certain about change is that it will involve uncertainty. So we prefer things we know, even thought something else could be better, more fun, and even more rewarding.
Needing certainty thwarts finding new creative, out of the box, solutions.
How can counseling for college students in Alabama help you though 2021 and beyond?
What would life be like if you could focus on the present moment, rather than spending your time in your head trying to make predictions and be more certain about what is always going to happen next?
I can tell you, it is pretty amazing.
Kathryn at Empower Counseling will use Acceptance Commitment Therapy to help your college student become more psychologically flexible.
When you are psychologically flexible, you have resilience and know that you can handle whatever happens next, no matter what this is. When your college students knows she is capable of handling whatever happens next, there is no longer this absolute need for certainty.
This will move your student away from anxiety and the state of threat that comes with uncertainty and toward a clear mind, able to focus on school, friendship, and activities.
College students have been hit particularly hard with the emotional and psychological effects of Covid-19. They had much more alone time this past year…time for their brains to work overtime looking for certainty but not finding it.
If your student is not thriving the way she used to….if she is struggling with worry, insecurity, or anxiety….if she is unable to enjoy college the way she wants to, call Empower Counseling. Through Acceptance Commitment Therapy, Kathryn will help your college student change her focus to what she control and what she wants her life to look like. Then Kathryn will help her take action toward the life she wants.
Empower Counseling is a Birmingham area counseling clinic offering individual counseling in-person and online for college students who live anywhere in Alabama. Empower Counseling is convenient to Homewood, Mountain Brook, Vestavia, Hoover and other surrounding areas. Empower offers anxiety counseling, depression counseling, and counseling for difficult life transitions for professionals, young adults, college students, and teens. Call Empower Counseling today at 205-730-6570.