Dear Anxious of London

Dear Anxious of London,

I am writing to you as an East London-based integrative psychotherapist who wants you to know - you are not alone! I know you are wondering if London is the right place for you, if it holds what you need and want for your future or whether it was a terrible mistake moving here at all. I know because so many of my clients feel the same and I want you to know it’s OK to ask yourself that question. London can be so many confusing, wonderful, terrifying things - all at the same time. It can also be completely different depending on the weather, the economic situation, your own mood and thought processes and what is happening in your relationships within and outside of London.

Wherever you call home, whether you were born and raised here or whether you arrived two weeks ago, London is going to challenge you. By its very nature, as one of the world’s largest and most dynamic cities, it is a place where things happen, where people come together and where ideas and concepts mingle, merge and clash, where things are happening all the time - except when they don’t…

Sometimes it might feel like it’s just you, alone, in your bubble, isolated, anonymous, an outsider to everything happening around you.

Big cities can be full of opportunity but I know they can also be full of loneliness. Sundays can seem endless when everyone else looks like they’re enjoying autumn walks and cosy cafes together and you’re trying to fill the time before the Sunday blues and Monday anxiety really kick in.

Even if you’re not out there seeing it then social media - especially Instagram and the like - make it impossible to get away from seeing ‘everyone else’ living, progressing, hitting those milestones that loom large over you, perhaps obscuring what it is you really want.

And that’s where we come in, the therapists, holding a space for you to bring what you need to talk about, to look at, to release the pressure of always having to have the answer to “What are you doing with your life?”, to allow you to be honest, to confront those patterns that feel inevitable, to challenge those deep beliefs, the messages we absorb along the way. We, the London therapists, are here to create that safe space inside the busy, hectic city that allows you to stop for a moment, to think, to take your time and be curious about how you feel and to start to make the world the shape you want it to be. London might be a part of that shape, or it might not. Your housing, your job, your friends, your hobbies, they might be connected to being in London, or they might not.

With a therapist, you can open up the possibilities and get into the roots of what is important to you - not what you feel you ‘should’ be doing or what you believe might look good to others - but into the heart of what matters to you.

A part of yourself brought you here, to the idea of therapy, to this article, and it is that part of you that is harnessing your will, your energy to shift this anxiety. That part of you wants you to find out what it is - and where - it is you want to be. If that turns out to be London then it could be a London you never realised existed before and if it turns out that it’s somewhere else, then you will go there with more of an idea of what you would like to have in your life, with curiosity and openness.

London therapists are here to help you find a space to work out how to move forward with your anxiety, your worries about the future and harness that power of the compassionate self to move into a place that works authentically for you, wherever that may eventually be.

Yours sincerely,

A London therapist London, Greater London, E15

Written by Charlotte Garratt de Corisepa

Charlotte Garratt de Corisepa is an integrative therapist and coach based in Stratford, East London. She was born in London, raised in the Home Counties and has lived in California and worked in Peru before returning to London where she enjoys working with clients in private practice to help them shape their lives with curiosity and compassion.