Stuck Again? Anxiety Therapy in Portland Can Help You Break Free
Feeling stuck? Anxiety therapy in Portland can help you find your way out of the loop and back into your own life.
Anxiety therapy in Portland can be the first step toward breaking out of that feeling of being stuck, even if your mind has been in overdrive for months. I’m Eric Goodwin, and I help thoughtful, caring people who feel overwhelmed by anxiety, self-doubt, and the weight of the past find relief, clarity, and choice.
Maybe this sounds familiar: you’ve been drifting, waiting for something to shift on its own. You tell yourself it’ll pass, but weeks turn into months. You push through your days, hold things together on the outside, and try to outrun the heaviness that creeps in at night. Inside, there’s this growing sense that anxiety is quietly making choices for you, that somehow, by staying still, you’re losing touch with what you actually want for yourself.
And then there’s that moment, small but mighty, where you realize: I can’t keep doing this.
That moment is why you’re here.
When It Feels Like Life Is Happening Without You
Anxiety isn’t only associated with panic attacks or intense, gripping moments. More often, it hums in the background like static, shaping your decisions before you even know they’ve been made. It shows up as hesitation before you take a step forward, as the little voice that whispers worst-case scenarios, as the tightness in your chest when you think about making a change.
Over time, it can feel like you’re living your life on pause. You want to make a decision about a new job, a move, a friendship, a relationship, but the “what-ifs” swirl until you do nothing.
Months pass. Nothing feels terrible, but nothing feels alive, either.
For some, especially those who’ve experienced rejection or trauma, the drift can feel like safety. It’s a way to avoid disappointment or hurt. For others, it’s just plain exhausting. It leaves you with the sense that you’re watching your own life from a distance, like someone else is at the wheel.
The Fear Beneath the Stuckness
Here’s something I hear often in anxiety therapy in Portland: “I feel like I’m living in my head. I want to really show up when it matters.”
That stuckness often comes from a nervous system that has learned to brace for impact. When you’ve been through experiences where life didn’t feel safe, whether from early family dynamics, trauma, or being part of the LGBTQ+ community in a world that sometimes asked you to shrink or hide, you learn to prepare for things to go wrong.
Your imagination becomes vivid, but it mostly paints pictures of what you need to avoid. And even when the present moment is quiet, there’s a low-grade buzz of “what now?”
The tricky part is, that same creative, thoughtful brain that has been protecting you can also feel like a trap. It spins worst-case scenarios on repeat. It convinces you that staying still is safer than taking a chance.
Therapy Can Be Where That Pattern Begins to Shift
In anxiety therapy, we don’t just try to shove those thoughts away. We work to understand them.
When you slow down with the right support, you can see what’s been driving the loop: the fears, the memories, the beliefs you’ve been carrying about yourself. It stops being a character flaw and starts being a map of how you’ve learned to survive.
From there, change becomes possible, not in one dramatic leap, but in small, steady ways that begin to add up. Little by little, you start to notice that those anxious thoughts aren’t always facts. You begin to catch the moments when your body tenses as if something bad is about to happen, and you learn to soften that automatic bracing. Over time, you start to experiment with responding differently. Instead of being yanked back into the same old loops, you begin to see where there are openings to make a choice and that life doesn’t have to stay in drift mode.
This isn’t about forcing positivity. It’s about learning to choose, rather than watching as anxiety chooses for you.
This Is About More Than Coping
In my work offering anxiety therapy in Portland, I’ve seen that coping skills can be helpful but they’re not the whole story. True healing isn’t about white-knuckling your way through anxiety.
Instead, it’s about building a relationship with yourself that cultivates curiosity and choice.
We work together to understand how your nervous system has been trying to keep you safe, even when it feels like it’s keeping you small. We explore the inner critic that often holds a megaphone and help it to loosen its grip. And we practice choosing what matters to you, even when anxiety tries to pull you back into familiar patterns and thought loops.
For LGBTQ+ clients, that often includes looking at the ways that queerphobia, past rejection, or having to hide parts of yourself has shaped your anxiety. For others, it may be rooted in family dynamics or experiences of failure or disappointment. Either way, therapy creates a space where you don’t have to minimize or explain yourself to be heard.
You’re Not Alone in This
If you’ve been feeling this way for a long time, you may have convinced yourself that this is just “how you are.”
But that’s not the truth. It’s understandable that anxious thoughts can lead you to believe that they are reality. What I’ve learned over years of doing this work is that once people begin to see how their anxiety works, they realize they are so much more than that hum of self-doubt and worry.
I’ve seen clients who once felt like they were drifting through life begin to speak up and step toward what they want. I’ve seen self-trust grow as they take next steps…of their choosing. And I’ve seen them begin to build a steadier confidence in being able to handle what comes next.
How We Work Together
My approach to anxiety therapy in Portland blends mindfulness, nervous system awareness, and compassion-focused therapy. It’s not about pushing yourself to change overnight. It’s about slowing down enough to listen to yourself, to build trust in your own responses, and to learn how to move forward without so much fear.
For many of my clients, therapy becomes a space where they can finally exhale. A place where they can say the things they’ve been holding back. And from there, we start to explore what it looks like to make decisions from a place of clarity instead of fear.
As people begin to understand how anxiety works in their lives, they often notice that self-trust grows in places they didn’t expect. They find themselves pausing before that inner critic takes over, softening instead of tightening, and realizing that the fear that kept them braced for so long doesn’t have to be in charge anymore. What begins as small shifts in how you meet yourself can ripple outward into how you show up in relationships, how you handle those restless nights when your mind won’t turn off, and how you finally start to feel a little more at home in your own skin.
This Can Be Your Next Step
You don’t have to keep living on autopilot. Anxiety therapy in Portland can help you notice the quiet ways anxiety has been holding the wheel, and start learning how to take it back.
The more you begin to see yourself with kindness instead of criticism, the more room there is to notice what’s been hiding underneath the shame you’ve been carrying. For many people, that shift brings a new sense of steadiness and a growing feeling that maybe they do belong, that they don’t have to keep hustling for a place in their own life. Those kinds of changes don’t happen all at once, but they’re some of the most meaningful outcomes of this work.
Ready to Break the Cycle?
Eric Goodwin, anxiety therapist in Portland, helping clients move from stuck and anxious to grounded and clear.
If you’re ready, reach out today. Let’s talk about how anxiety therapy Portland can help you finally feel unstuck. I offer a free 15-minute phone consultation so you can get a feel for what it’s like to work together. Whether we meet in person in Portland or online anywhere in Oregon, we’ll begin by slowing down and listening to your story.
You don’t have to keep drifting. Together, we’ll help you start steering again.
Call (971) 533-5590 or click here to schedule your consultation.
Frequently Asked Questions About Anxiety Therapy in Portland
1. How do I know if therapy can really help when I’ve felt stuck for so long?
It’s understandable to worry that change isn’t possible, especially if you’ve been living with anxiety for years. Therapy gives you a place to explore why you feel stuck and begin to make small, steady shifts. Those shifts may feel subtle at first, but over time, they add up. Many of my clients tell me that they start to feel like they have choices again, instead of living on autopilot.
2. Will anxiety therapy make me stop feeling anxious forever?
The goal isn’t to erase anxiety entirely, it’s to change how you relate to it. Anxiety is part of being human. What we can do is quiet its hold on your choices, reduce its intensity, and help you find steadiness so that anxiety no longer runs your life.
3. What if my anxiety comes from past experiences with rejection or queerphobia?
That makes a lot of sense. When the world has told you to hide parts of yourself, anxiety often grows in that space. You don’t need to leave those experiences at the door here, they matter. We can talk about them at your pace, without judgment. And if you’re not sure where to start, that’s okay. It’s my job to help create a safe, affirming place to explore those layers.
4. Is anxiety therapy only for big, intense panic attacks?
No. Anxiety therapy is for anyone who feels stuck in worry, second-guessing, or the quiet background stress that never turns off. You don’t have to wait for things to get unbearable before you reach out. Many of my clients come in because they’re tired of living half-present, even if their anxiety isn’t explosive.
5. Do you offer online therapy for anxiety if I’m not in Portland?
Yes. I offer secure, confidential online therapy throughout Oregon. Whether you live in Bend, Eugene, Ashland, the Gorge, or a small town, therapy can happen from the privacy of your own space. For some people, that makes getting started much easier.