Overcoming Adversity: Wendy Leeds' Path from Anxiety to Healing
- Wendy Leeds
- Nov 12
- 3 min read
I was featured in Anna Maria College Alumni Magazine (September 2025), which gives a little background on why I do the work I do. The text of the brief article is below, or you can download it here.
Wendy Leeds, MA ’08, CAGS ’10, lives in Medfield, Massachusetts with her husband and their dog, Myles Standish. A two-time graduate of Anna Maria College, Wendy found in its faith-based, service-oriented community the perfect place to pursue her passion for healing and helping others. She earned her master’s in Counseling Psychology in 2008, and returned the very next fall to earn her Certificate of Advanced Graduate Study (CAGS).
Wendy’s journey, both physical and emotional, has been marked by extraordinary challenges and even more extraordinary resilience. After a lifetime of coping with anxiety, her breast cancer diagnosis marked a turning point. While the physical treatment was grueling, Wendy recalls that the emotional burden was even heavier. The anxiety and fears that she kept bottled up inside took a significant toll on her wellbeing. That experience led her to immerse herself in research about anxiety, exploring the works of Susan Jeffers, David Burns, Norman Vincent Peale, and many others. “I realized I wasn’t the only one who was anxious all the time,” Wendy explained, “Even better, I realized there were other people who had come up with methods to actually deal with anxiety day-to-day.” Wendy was able to implement the therapeutic techniques she read about and gained control over her anxiety.
Fueled by this insight and a desire to help others, Wendy enrolled at Anna Maria. “I spent my next four empowering years at Anna Maria College surrounded by people who shared both my deep interest in healing and my passion for helping people,” she said, “I finally felt like I had found my life’s purpose.”
Two days after receiving her CAGS, Wendy faced another blow when she was diagnosed with leukemia. Instead of suffering in silence like she had previously done, Wendy shared her self-doubts and fears with her Anna Maria support system, which became an important part of her recovery. When leukemia returned in 2019, she found herself once more leaning on the faith and connections formed at Anna Maria.
A defining memory from her time on campus was her internship at the Interfaith Counseling Center in Providence, where she served alongside Professor Hollis Burkhart and Sister Jackie LeBeouf. There, Wendy discovered the deep connection between spirituality and therapy, an insight that continues to shape her work today.
Wendy now dedicates her work to supporting others with anxiety through her books Calm & Sense: A Woman’s Guide to Living Anxiety-Free and Solving the Anxiety Equation: The Formula to Free Yourself from Fear, and her podcast Anxiety Connection.
In the digital age, Wendy cautions Anna Maria students to stop comparing themselves to the superficialness they see on social media. These comparisons can make the younger generation feel like they do not “measure up” and result in anxiety.
Instead, Wendy’s message to current students is one of empowerment: “There’s nothing wrong with you. You are perfect just the way you are. You so much more than that image on a screen…I promise you, no matter who you are, or where you are in your life’s journey, you have something important to offer the world. You have the power to make a difference.”
To learn more about Wendy’s work, visit wendyleeds.com.
Originally published in Anna Maria College Alumni Magazine (September 2025 edition). Syndicated here with permission.
About Wendy Leeds:
WENDY LEEDS is a psychotherapist with a mission to help people learn to manage their anxiety. Aside from being a Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC), Wendy knows from personal experience how anxiety can limit your life. She has published two books on the topic: Solving the Anxiety Equation: The Formula to Free Yourself from Fear (Calm Day Publishing, 2025) and Calm & Sense: A Woman's Guide to Living Anxiety-Free (Calm Day Publishing, 2020). Her podcast, Anxiety Connection, streams on every podcast app.
For easy links: https://wendyleeds.com/links
Solving the Anxiety Equation: The Formula to Free Yourself from Fear is designed to take the mystery out of what makes us anxious. It's a hands-on approach for getting to the root of our anxiety – then creating a step-by-step individualized plan for healing that anxiety.
Solving the Anxiety Equation isn’t about numbers. It’s a way of describing anxiety that’s clear, concise, and easy to understand. It's a holistic approach, with tools and techniques for dealing with anxious thoughts, negative beliefs, and physical symptoms of anxiety.
Calm & Sense: A Woman's Guide to Living Anxiety-Free is designed as an "anxiety handbook" with a broad range of tools and techniques for dealing with anxiety.
It includes psychological approaches and physical techniques to address your anxiety anytime, anywhere – along with feasible lifestyle changes to help avoid anxiety triggers.
Comments