Are you living with anxiety? Is your mind forever projecting its worries, concerns, fears, and limitations? Maybe you’re always comparing yourself to the success of others, letting everyone else’s opinions dictate how you feel about yourself, experiencing social anxiety or avoiding people, or having symptoms such as a racing heart, panic attacks or headaches?

If anxiety is affecting your day-to-day life and you’re finding it difficult to cope, we want to help you make a profound and positive difference. Quest for Life provides a range of residential programs and online courses to help manage and reduce anxiety symptoms.

The Quest for Life Foundation provides in-person and online support for people living with a range of challenges including anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress, illness, or grief.

We hold regular 5-day Residential Programs at the Quest for Life Centre in Bundanoon in the beautiful Southern Highlands, NSW, with programs tailored towards anxiety and other life challenges. Our program facilitators and counsellors have the skills and experience to teach you a range of useful tools and strategies to tangibly improve your day-to-day life and help build your resilience and peace of mind for the future.

Join a small group of people living with anxiety or other challenges for a life-changing week at our Healing Your Life residential program held continuously throughout the year. If your individual experience of anxiety is linked to post-traumatic stress, you may find more benefit from attending our Moving Beyond Trauma program.

Browse our entire list of programs here or speak to our experienced programs advisors who can suggest the best residential program for you.

Online course: Befriending Anxiety

If you can’t visit us in Bundanoon but would still like help with anxiety symptoms, our online course Befriending Anxiety covers much of what we teach during our residential programs and is accessible from the comfort of home.

Befriending Anxiety is a self-paced online course delivered over 4 video modules to assist you to manage your anxiety and live free from its debilitating effects. Learn practical, evidence-based tools and strategies to reduce your symptoms and live a more calm and peaceful life.

This course can be purchased as a gift for someone who can’t attend the Quest Centre in person, or by employers who want to help improve employee wellbeing in workplaces.

What is anxiety?

• Anxiety is your body’s natural response to stress. It’s a feeling of fear and apprehension about what’s to come.
• Sometimes the feelings dissipate by themselves after talking with family, friends or colleagues.
• But when these feelings continue and begin to interfere with everyday life, work and relationships, then it’s time to find help, as these feelings can be difficult to come to terms with on our own.
• Speak with your GP or other trusted and qualified health professional, and attend Quest for Life’s residential Healing Your Life program.

Anxiety symptoms to look out for

While everyone experiences anxiety differently, here are some common signs and symptoms of anxiety

• a racing heart
• faster breathing
• muscle tension or aches especially neck, shoulders and back
• sweating or feeling dizzy
• shaking
• insomnia
• ‘butterflies’ or feeling sick in the stomach.
• worrying about things a lot of the time
• being unable to relax
• avoiding places or people, like school or parties
• spending less time with friends and family
• having trouble concentrating and paying attention
• feeling annoyed, irritated or restless
• difficulty getting to sleep at night and waking lots during the night
• panic attacks
• headaches and migraines

Immediate help

• Call 000 if your life is in danger
• For crisis support 24/7, call Lifeline on 13 11 14
• Beyond Blue’s website contains many useful forums and resources

Connect with Quest

If you’re on Facebook, you can connect with Quest from the comfort of your own home in a variety of ways including through online group participation or by watching our weekly wellbeing livestreams.

Join the Petrea King Meditation Group to join and hear from Quest Founder and CEO Petrea King most Monday nights from 7.30pm-8pm.

@Home with Quest is our free wellbeing livestream each Wednesday at 11am on Facebook LIVE. Join the stream to hear from an experienced Quest facilitator who will explore techniques to manage anxiety and fear, strategies for self-care, deep relaxation, and the things we can all do to help ourselves and others.

Quest Connect is our monthly wellness livestream hosted on the first Sunday of each month on Facebook LIVE from 2-3pm. Join the stream to take a deep dive with a Quest facilitator into a topic around easing anxiety and restoring resilience.

Toolkit

Some of these practices can help you to calm your mind and improve your wellbeing and can be found on our toolkit page:

• Keys to help you sleep better
• Meditation practices

You may also find some of Petrea King’s Podcasts useful to listen to.

Articles about anxiety

• Anxiety: What helps me most, by Petrea King
• Easing children’s anxiety: A simple practice
• Magic happens at Quest, says Merilyn
• Animals Helping Humans Heal
• Ways to prioritise your mental health
• The upside and downside of perfectionism

How Quest for Life can help

It takes strength and resilience to work through anxiety, and Quest for Life can help through our residential programs, online courses, and workplace programs.

• Our Befriending Anxiety online course provides practical, evidence-based tools and strategies to reduce your symptoms and live a more calm and peaceful life.
• Our 5-day residential Healing Your Life program provides you with a wealth of practical skills and strategies for overcoming anxiety in a confidential and safe environment.
• Our Workplace Health & Wellbeing Program delivers research-based holistic health and wellbeing approaches that equip staff and managers with tools required to operate in today’s dynamic and stressful environment.

NDIS participants

Quest for Life is a registered NDIS Provider of NDIS Services. Our Residential Programs can be funded by the NDIS for NDIS Participants with disability including Parkinson’s Disease.

Please call the Quest Programs team on 1300 941 488 or complete the contact form at the bottom of this page. The Programs Team will assist you to decide which program to attend and provide you with information regarding costs and how to use your plan to access our services. Quest can communicate with your plan manager and support coordinator and assist you in the booking process.

Anxiety resources

• Wellbeing books Including Your Life Matters by Petrea King – a guidebook for life
• Meditation CDs including Be Calm, Sleep, Learning to Meditate

Quest for Life knows how to help. Our internal research results show that participants feel better after attending our programs and that this improvement increases over time. On our programs, you’ll be nourished, educated and supported to create an environment for profound healing.

If you are living with anxiety, please reach out to us via the Contact Form below to start a conversation with one of our Program Advisors, who can answer your questions or find the most appropriate program for your needs.

“It’s now 9 months since I did Healing Your Life, and daily meditation has transformed my life. I want to thank you all at Quest. With attention to self-care and keeping track of how I am going throughout the day, I’ve been able to live without anxiety for the first time in years.”

– Mary