Dr. Chinwé Williams ( Twitter @DrCuwilliams, Instagram @dr.chinwewilliams) is the founder and owner of Meaningful Solutions Counseling & Consulting. In addition to clinical work, Dr. Williams is an invited speaker and has presented or co- presented at numerous conferences at the local, state, national, and international levels. Dr. Williams has written several articles and blogs in the areas of mental health, parenting, trauma therapy, wellness, and self-worth.
Show Notes:
What we discuss with Dr. Chinwé Williams
- Chinwé tells us what it's like to be a therapist during this season in history, talking about the confusion and disorientation people have encountered.
- We discuss what anxiety is and how we can walk through it. Chinwé notes how stress relates to anxiety. Stress is usually linked with stimuli, issues or events that we are worried about. Anxiety is a different category. 1 in 5 people experience anxiety. It's more persistent, not always linked with an event, occasion, or stimuli.
- We talk about whether anxiety is getting worse among the generations. How have work demands and technology and our lack of slowing down impacted anxiety in this world?
- What does it look like to walk through anxiety? Anxious thinking tends to be toward the future in a "what if this happens / doesn't happen" sort of way; racing thoughts, overthinking, irritability, anger.
- How should people respond to others who are walking through anxiety? If they haven't experienced it, they don't know what it's like. It can be frustrating. Anxiety doesn't respond to logic, so we can't tell our kids and loved ones to just calm down.
- Chinwé explains the importance of breathing when coping with anxiety. When we are anxious we tend to breath in shallow ways which can cause us to feel light headed, dizzy, disoriented, and can cause panic attacks. This changes the nervous system's response.
- We explore the role of faith in walking through anxiety. Anxiety is not always tied to sin, many people who are exercising their faith deal with anxiety. There is an area of hyper-religious coping that isn't always helpful when walking through anxiety. Across all faith traditions, the research is clear that having and exercising faith does reduce the stress in your life and helps you put things into proper perspective.
- Chinwé's book that will be released later in 2021 will be communicated through all The Farther Along social media, website and e-mail list.
