January 1st is a time for resolutions.

In fact, we originally posted this series on insta and facebook on the New Year’s Eve. But the reason we want to check in with you now, mid-Jan, is to see how those goals are going. Plus, we couldn’t resist posting on 1/20/2020!

If you’re like most people, you’ve probably dropped that resolution you made at the start of the new year. This is ok! It’s super common! But there’s a way to make sure your goals stick. And we’d love for you to pick up the mantle and give it another try.

To make your goals more attainable, and to increase your follow through, make your goals SMART - specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time sensitive. We will be talking more about each step below to really break down how to make your goals and resolutions easier to follow through on.

Great for kids, parents, and college students - especially when you have perfectionism and anxiety and a high drive to succeed (hi, is this you? If so, we’d love to work with you!)

Meditation is an important component of anxiety work for teens. This week, check out our rainbow aura meditation, plus I’ve recorded the script so you can just lay back and relax!

College and highschool students have to deal with a lot of stress.

School stress, performance stress, life stress, future stress… It’s a lot to handle.

And when you’re dealing with stress, it’s really tough to know how to let it go.

Stress is important. It’s a healthy emotion.

It lets us know that we have things that need to be addressed. It can motivate us to get things done. But at a certain point, that stress reaches a place where it’s not longer healthy. It starts to get in our way. It can even have an impact on our health, physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Today’s meditation is focused on letting go of stress and over-control.

Meditation is great for kids, teens, and college students with anxiety. It’s important to help you let go of control.

When you’re an anxious teen looking for therapy, you’ll probably come across the letters CBT a lot. What do they mean? And how is CBT used in anxiety therapy?

CBT stands for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and is an evidence-based treatment for anxiety and anger management issues.

Our anxiety specialists are trained in and incorporate pieces of CBT into their work with kids, teens, and college students at Compassionate Counseling St. Louis.

Anger and anxiety can go hand in hand, which is why our team is full of anger management AND anxiety therapists in St. Louis.

Our therapists have specialized training to identify and treat anxiety-driven anger, a specific anger subtype due to underlying anxiety issues.

Anger can often mask what’s underneath the surface.

Because anger leads to really big reactions, parents, and even other therapists, aren’t always looking for another explanation for the behavioral reactions. But stress and anxiety can lead to outbursts, too, and rarely if ever is a person just angry. There’s usually something else going on.

Relaxation techniques are a huge part of anxiety therapy.

Kids and teens need to be able to calm down in order to move to the deeper, important work of therapy, whether that therapy is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, like ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy), or if that is a more trauma-informed therapy, like TF-CBT or EMDR.

Meditation has many, many benefits.

And a big one that we focus on here at Compassionate Counseling St. Louis is stress reduction.

When meditation is used as a relaxation tool, we want to focus on our physical clues that our body is relaxed.

This warm light guided meditation is great for anxious kids and overwhelmed adults.

And like many meditations, it can apply to anyone who is really noticing a lot of stress being held in their body.