When Your Body Knows Before You Do

The last couple of days, anxiety has been creeping in.

That feeling of running – rushing to be somewhere on time, to meet a deadline – except there’s nowhere to be and nothing due. Just this hum of urgency that doesn’t belong to anything real.

I’ve been here before. I know what this is. I’m in my sympathetic nervous system, in survival mode, even when life on the outside looks fine.

So I did what I’ve learned to do: I stopped. I sat in silence. I asked my body – what is this actually about?

And it answered. Honestly and quickly, the way the body always does when you finally get quiet enough to listen.

I’m anxious about my teenager. I’m worried about money. I’m second-guessing my way of living.

Anxiety. Worry. Self-doubt.

I see you. I hear you. I sit with you.

Here’s what I’ve noticed – if I don’t carve out 15 to 30 minutes to actually sit with these feelings, I just think about them. Round and round. Creating more anxiety, more worry, more self-doubt, and then this extra layer on top: irritation at myself. Because I should know better. I should be past this. I’m a nervous system coach, after all.

…Right?

That “should” is its own trap. And I know it. Yet there I was, falling into it anyway.

Maybe I was avoiding sitting with my feelings because I preferred the anger at myself – at least that felt familiar.

Being angry at myself, feeling like a failure, feeling not good enough – that was a space I knew. Uncomfortable, yes. But familiar. And the nervous system will choose familiar over unknown almost every time.

So I picked up a pen. I wrote it all down.

Yes, I’m anxious about my teenager – about his friendships, his choices, whether he’ll find the right crowd or the wrong one trying to fit in somewhere. I’m so sad when I see him sad. I want to tell him not to worry, while I’m sitting there full of worry myself.

I know I can’t live his lessons for him. But I can regulate myself – so that when he’s near me, he senses grounded, rooted love. Not my anxiety on top of his.

So that’s what I did. I regulated. And then I could be there for him, properly.

Small steps. Real ones.