How Portland Anxiety Therapy Helps You Stay Engaged Without Burning Out

Therapy for anxiety in Portland offers a place to pause, reflect, and reconnect with your inner steadiness, so you can stay engaged without burning out.

Anxiety therapy in Portland isn’t just about managing symptoms. Counseling also supports you in building the inner resources that allow you to stay engaged with what matters most, without running yourself into the ground. Whether you’re navigating activism, caregiving, high-stakes work, or just the sheer emotional load of being a human in the world right now, therapy can help you show up without shutting down.

Hi, I’m Eric Goodwin. I work with clients across Portland and the state of Oregon who feel overwhelmed by their anxiety, not because they’re fragile, but because they’re deeply attuned. If that’s you, you might already sense how important it is to build a sustainable relationship with your nervous system. Whether you’re looking to find the right therapist or curious about how counseling can help, this blog is for you.

Let’s explore what it actually looks like to stay present, connected, and grounded without burning out.

You Don’t Have to Choose Between Caring and Surviving

For many clients I work with, anxiety feels like a daily tug-of-war. You care deeply about justice, relationships, and community. You want to be informed, involved, compassionate but your system is fried. You’re overstimulated, under-resourced, and flooded with guilt when you try to pull back.

What we often forget is that caring is a nervous system process. And when your system has taken in too much (whether it’s from the news cycle, ongoing trauma, or emotional labor) your brain starts throwing out alarms. These alarms might show up as racing thoughts, a clenched jaw, trouble sleeping, or a sense of doom that won’t go away. This doesn’t mean you’re broken. It means your body is asking for care.

In counseling for anxiety, we begin to make room for both things to be true: that you want to stay engaged and that your nervous system needs more support in order to do so.

The Inner Resources We Build Together in Therapy

When we begin working together, we don’t jump to quick fixes. Instead, we take notice of what is already happening for you. You’ll start to get curious about your own cues. How do you know when you're nearing overwhelm before reaching it? What patterns do you notice when you feel stuck between obligation and exhaustion?

From there, we begin gently developing resources and practices that are actually sustainable not just more self-improvement tasks to drop on top of your already full list. That might mean learning how to slow the body down before you reach panic. It might mean tracking how the inner critic ramps up every time you need rest, and beginning to respond to it with compassion instead of compliance.

This is also where we integrate practices like IFS-informed parts work (where we recognize the different parts inside of you - the helper, the perfectionist, the activist, the exhausted one) and invite them into conversation, not battle. Clients are often surprised at how empowering this work becomes: not only are they more resourced internally, but they also start setting boundaries, feeling more rooted in their values, and recovering faster from moments of overwhelm or imbalance.

From White-Knuckling to Rooted Engagement

Therapy doesn’t remove your desire to show up; it helps you do it differently. Many of my clients find that once they feel more grounded, their anxiety doesn’t have to work so hard. They begin to trust that stepping back isn’t abandonment, it’s intentional and it’s a sustainable strategy. They learn to notice early signals of burnout and respond with care, instead of waiting until the crash.

This shift doesn’t happen all at once, but over time, something powerful emerges: a version of yourself that feels less reactive, more attuned, and more able to choose how and when you engage.

In a world that asks so much of us, this is a radical shift. And it's one that's possible.

A Note for Queer and Highly Attuned Clients

So many of my clients are part of the Queer community and have experienced a lifetime of being hyper-aware of safety, of expectations, of belonging. When the world tells you that your identity is “too much” or that your emotions are inconvenient, it’s no wonder your nervous system is on high alert. And when the headlines reinforce those fears, it can feel unbearable.

I want you to know that this work (building inner safety, learning to soothe the system, and staying engaged in ways that don’t cost you your health) is not selfish. It’s sacred. It’s how we reclaim space for joy, connection, and community care.

Why I Offer Anxiety Therapy in Portland (and Beyond)

Because I know what it’s like to take too much on. Because I see how many of us are carrying the world inside our bodies. And because I believe that therapy shouldn’t ask you to care less, it should help you care better, with yourself included.

If you’re looking for anxiety therapy in Portland that honors your emotional depth, your values, and your nervous system… I’d be honored to work with you.

Author Bio

Eric Goodwin (he/they) offers compassionate, affirming anxiety therapy for emotionally attuned clients across Portland and Oregon.

Eric Goodwin (he/they) offers compassionate, affirming anxiety therapy in Portland and across Oregon for Queer, emotionally attuned, and burned-out humans who want to stay connected to what matters without losing themselves in the process. Eric’s work blends compassion-focused therapy, IFS-informed exploration, and nervous system care, all grounded in deep respect for your humanity. Reach out for your free 15-minute phone consultation by calling (971) 533-5590 or by clicking here.

FAQs About Counseling in Oregon for Anxiety and Burnout

What therapy is best for burnout?

Burnout isn’t just about being tired, it’s about a deep depletion of internal resources that rest alone doesn’t fix. In counseling for anxiety here in Oregon, we don’t treat burnout as a personal failure. Instead, we look at the systems, inner patterns, and expectations that led you here. Therapy that integrates nervous system care (like grounding and self-compassion), parts work (like IFS), and emotion-focused support tends to be the most effective. It helps you understand not just why you’re burned out, but how to rebuild from the inside out without losing touch with what matters most to you

Can therapy really help me feel less overwhelmed when the world feels so intense?

Therapy doesn’t promise to make the world less overwhelming but it can help you care for yourself differently in the midst of that overwhelm. When anxiety therapy is grounded in compassion, mindfulness, and a trauma-informed understanding of your experiences, it can become a place where your nervous system learns that it doesn’t have to carry everything all at once. Together, we’ll explore ways to relate to anxiety that feel less like managing symptoms and more like responding to your needs with clarity and care. The intensity doesn’t always disappear, but your relationship with it can shift and often, that shift brings a kind of relief that feels both earned and sustainable.

What if I’m too burned out to even begin therapy?

This is something I hear often and if you're asking this question, you're already showing up in a way that matters. Burnout can leave you feeling flattened, foggy, or even emotionally numb, and starting something new (even something supportive) can feel like too much. That's okay. We won’t start with homework or pressure or anything that feels like another thing to do. Instead, we’ll begin wherever you are. Some clients need silence and space. Others need language to name what’s been unnameable. Whatever it looks like for you, therapy can be a place where your burnout is not judged or rushed past. You don’t have to be “ready.” You just need a sliver of willingness, and we’ll take it from there, together.

Is this therapy just for Queer clients or activists?

This practice is grounded in LGBTQ+-affirming counseling because I believe too many Queer, Trans, and highly attuned people have had to filter themselves (even in therapy). That said, this space is open to anyone who resonates with feeling deeply, thinking critically, or carrying a sense of “otherness” in a world that often demands conformity. You don’t have to identify in a particular way to belong here. But I do center the needs of those who are often sidelined in traditional therapy, not because others don’t matter, but because this kind of care has been missing for too long. If you long for a therapeutic space where nuance, complexity, and full humanity are welcomed…you’re in the right place.