Paper Boats Guided Meditation for Teens With Anxiety
Anxiety therapy for teenagers in St. Louis, MO
When you’re a teen with anxiety, or a teenager with overwhelming perfectionism, it can feel like you’re caught in a storm. Thoughts and feelings can spiral into overwhelming waves of worry, anger, or stress. In our anxiety therapy for teenagers in St. Louis, we focus on coping skills to help you stay grounded, especially through practices like cognitive defusion, a powerful tool from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). We also provide online therapy in St. Louis to support teens no matter where they are.
(Curious to learn more about this? Check out Kelsey’s book, When Anxiety Makes You Angry, for all of her tips on managing your overwhelming anxiety that looks like anger.)
The Paper Boats Guided Meditation: Practicing Cognitive Defusion
This meditation helps you “let go” of thoughts without fighting them, building the skill of cognitive defusion. Defusion is all about noticing thoughts as they come up—without judging them or letting them take over. When you picture your thoughts floating away on a paper boat, you’re practicing this powerful ACT skill to detach and refocus, which can bring a sense of calm and clarity.
Why Cognitive Defusion Helps Teens in Anxiety Therapy
Many teens find it tough to manage anxiety on their own. Cognitive defusion practices like the Paper Boats Meditation allow teens to become observers of their own minds. Practicing this regularly can make it easier to navigate anxious or intense moments with greater ease, and we provide online therapy in St. Louis to make it easy to build these skills wherever you are.
If you’re searching for compassionate, effective anxiety therapy in St. Louis, or you need help managing big emotions, reach out to us. We’re here to help you ride the waves of your thoughts rather than being pulled under.
So with that in mind, today we’re going to practice my Paper Boats Guided Meditation, excerpted from my book, When Anxiety Makes You Angry.
It’s impossible to stop our thoughts from happening. When we try and stop them, it actually can make our thoughts feel STRONGER. It’s like going ice skating and then pushing against the wall. You push and push and push, and the wall pushes you right back. The harder you fight your thoughts, the harder they’ll fight you.
So what if we gave up the fight? What if we just let that wall bump us and go in a different direction instead? What if we simply opted out?
Paper Boats Guided Meditation
In this exercise, you’re going to imagine standing by a lake. Each time a thought surfaces, place it on a paper boat, watch it float away, and remind yourself it’s just a thought. You can do this as many times as needed, without fighting against the thoughts or trying to stop them. This approach helps you feel less entangled, shifting away from spiraling worries or stress. Give it a listen and download your personal copy below.
Remember, there’s nothing wrong with your thoughts. Even when they’re linked with anger, or anxiety, even when we don’t like them, it’s okay to have these thoughts.
But if anger and anxiety feel really too big for you, or feel hard to calm down, you may benefit from anxiety counseling with a trained therapist.
Further reading:
Spotlight on: Kelsey Torgerson Dunn
Anxiety Therapist, Author
My approach focuses on building relaxation skills, digging under the surface, and helping you honor how you’re feeling (even when you’re feeling anxious, angry, or inadequate). I want to help you move forward with your life with clarity and confidence.
LEARN MORE ABOUT WORKING WITH ME.
Compassionate Counseling St. Louis provides specialized anger management and anxiety therapy in St. Louis for kids, teens, and college students. We love helping with thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. We work in Clayton, MO and serve kids, teens, and college students throughout St. Louis City, St. Louis County, Ladue, University City, Town and Country, Webster Groves, Creve Coeur, Kirkwood, Richmond Heights, and Brentwood. You can set up your free phone screening to see if we’re a good fit for your needs right on our website.
