Healing My Nervousness, Anxiety, and Overthinking Habits
I’ve reached a point in my life where I believed I had done so much healing—where I truly felt capable of handling anything that came my way. Yet, a simple event unexpectedly triggered my anxiety and overthinking patterns once again.
The Triggering Event
It happened one evening after my husband and I returned from a really relaxing sauna session. As we approached our house, we found that one of our neighbours had parked their car partially blocking the shared driveway. There are four houses that use this driveway, and ours is located right at the very back. We barely managed to squeeze through the narrow gap to reach our home — and I was seriously peeved. I was even more frustrated when the car was still there when I had to leave the house for work early hours of the morning.
Beyond Frustration: The Panic Response
I wasn’t just frustrated — I felt a wave of panic and fear.
But what unsettled me most wasn’t just the inconvenience — it was the fear that this might become a regular thing. I often leave the house in the evenings, and the thought of coming back to find the driveway blocked filled me with anxiety. I didn’t trust my ability to safely navigate such a tight space, especially at night. On top of that, the neighbours I suspected of parking there are rough, and I honestly just didn’t want to have to confront or deal with them at all.
Old Coping Patterns
The past version of me would’ve spiraled — caught in an endless loop of stress and overthinking. My mind would’ve raced through every possible solution: drafting an angry letter, preparing for a confrontation, even considering having the car towed. I would’ve spent the entire day consumed by it, obsessively trying to figure out how to fix the situation, just to regain a sense of control and safety.
Choosing to Process First
But this time, I knew I needed to process my emotions first. I had to acknowledge the panic and fear I was feeling — not push it down or ignore it. I told myself it was okay to feel this way. That I was allowed to feel unsettled, anxious, even scared. Instead of jumping straight into “fix-it” mode like I used to — drafting letters, planning confrontations, running through worst-case scenarios — I chose to sit with what I was feeling. To let the emotion be there without immediately reacting to it as a problem that needed solving.
Creating Safety Through Self-Permission
Acknowledging my emotions — and giving myself permission to actually feel them — calmed me down. I’ve learned from experience that when you say to yourself, “I’m allowed to feel this,” you’re sending a signal of safety to your nervous system. You’re telling yourself that there’s nothing wrong with you for feeling this way. And that simple recognition helps quiet the internal alarm bells. It shifts you out of crisis mode, because your body no longer feels like it’s under threat just for having a feeling.
The Fear Kept Returning
But I had to do this many, many times — because the panic, nervousness, and fear kept showing up. It wasn’t a one-time fix. Again and again, I had to remind myself that I was allowed to feel what I was feeling.
Clarity About What I Truly Wanted
I also asked myself honestly: What do I want right now? And the answer was clear — I just wanted this whole situation to resolve on its own. I didn’t want to get involved. I didn’t want to confront anyone or make a fuss. I just wanted it to stop.
Inner Conflict Between Desire and Logic
But the moment I admitted that to myself, I felt my stomach tighten. My body tensed up in resistance, because logically, I didn’t believe it was possible. My mind jumped in: This is the kind of problem that repeats. It won’t magically go away unless someone steps in and does something. That clash between what I wanted and what I believed was possible stirred up even more discomfort.
Allowing Both Truths to Exist
So I had to acknowledge that resistance too. I had to give myself permission to think those thoughts and feel that discomfort, without trying to logically talk myself out of it. Instead of pushing it away, I said to myself: I understand what my logic is saying. I understand that part of me believes this problem won’t go away unless I take action or confront the neighbours.
And at the same time, I gave myself permission to want what I truly wanted — for the whole thing to resolve on its own. Not because it made logical sense, but simply because that’s what I wanted. I allowed both truths to exist: the logical fear that I’d need to take action, and the deeper desire for ease, for things to work out without my involvement. And somehow, just making space for both helped ease the internal conflict.
How Emotional Processing Shifts Brainwaves
When you process your emotions in this way — by pausing to feel them rather than jumping straight into logical reasoning or problem-solving — something shifts. Instead of analyzing, overthinking, or trying to talk yourself out of what you're feeling, you simply observe your thoughts and emotions, and give yourself permission to feel them as they are. And that alone helps you calm down.
You're no longer operating in the beta brainwave state — the one associated with fight-or-flight, stress, and heightened mental activity. Instead, you begin to move into an alpha state: calmer, more grounded, more introspective. It’s a frequency where healing and integration can happen, because your nervous system isn’t on high alert. You’re simply present — and that’s often enough.
For Some, It Starts With the Body
Of course, I also understand that for some people, reaching this state of self-allowing isn’t easy. It’s not just a mindset shift — it’s a physiological one. When your body has been living under chronic micro-stress for years, your sympathetic nervous system — the part responsible for fight-or-flight — can become so overactive that it constantly signals danger, even when there’s none.
In these cases, the first step isn't just mental — it's physical. You need to begin rewiring the body by practicing exercises that stimulate and strengthen the parasympathetic nervous system, which helps calm the stress response. Whether it’s deep breathing, vagus nerve stimulation, restorative movement, or nervous system regulation techniques, these practices help bring the body out of survival mode, making it possible to access that calmer, more introspective state — where self-awareness and emotional processing can actually happen.
What Helped Me Personally
For me, it took time. I personally did Body & Brain exercises consistently for a full year before I really began to notice a difference in my nervous system. Through that daily practice, my body slowly learned what it meant to feel safe — not just mentally, but physically. Over time, that inner safety became strong enough that I could simply allow my feelings and emotions to be there, without the heavy resistance I used to feel.
It’s not about never getting triggered or anxious again — it’s about creating the conditions, both in body and mind, where you no longer need to fight yourself. Where you can feel what you feel, want what you want, and know that’s okay.
A Deeper Insight Through Alpha State
As I began to calm down from the triggering event, something unexpected happened — I had a sudden insight that struck right at my heart. It came to me only because I had entered a more relaxed brainwave state — the alpha state — where introspection and deeper understanding can arise.
The insight wasn’t something profoundly new, but it landed on a deeper level than before. I realised that the panic and fear I feel whenever something goes wrong in my life — even small inconveniences — isn’t just about the event itself. It’s something I absorbed subconsciously from my mother.
Understanding the Origin of My Pattern
Growing up, whenever things went wrong, my mother reacted like the world was about to end. Everything became urgent, dramatic, overwhelming — and as a child, that made me feel incredibly unsafe. Without realising it, I developed coping mechanisms to try and prevent anything from ever going wrong: over-planning, over-worrying, imagining every possible scenario so I could stay one step ahead. And when problems did appear, they had to be solved immediately — because to my nervous system, experiencing a problem meant I wasn’t safe. I couldn’t relax until the issue was resolved.
The Grounding Voice of Safety
And then, in the stillness of that moment, I heard a quieter, more grounded voice within me — the logical part, but not the frantic, problem-solving logic I was used to. It said simply: Whether the car is still parked there or not, you are safe. No one is actually hurting you.
It wasn’t trying to override my emotions, but to gently reorient me. To remind me that the danger I felt wasn’t happening now — it was a memory, an echo from the past, surfacing in the present. And hearing that brought even more relief. I didn’t need to force anything to change in that moment to be okay. I could hold the discomfort and know I was safe.
The Release
The relief I felt in my solar plexus was so major, it caught me off guard. It was like the kind of release you feel after finishing a huge exam — a deep exhale from somewhere inside you that had been holding on tight for too long. I suddenly felt so drained, like I needed to lie down and take a nap. That’s how much energy had been tied up in trying to protect myself from something that wasn’t actually a threat. My body had been bracing for impact, and now that it realised it was safe, it could finally let go.
Gratitude for the Trigger
What had started as a problem… no longer felt like one. By allowing myself to fully process the intense emotions — the fear, anxiety, and worry triggered by this seemingly insignificant event — I uncovered something valuable about myself. It wasn’t just about the car or the driveway. It was about the patterns I had been carrying for years, the roots of my over-responsibility and urgency to fix.
And because of that, I felt gratitude — gratitude for the lesson, for the insight, and for the chance to meet myself more deeply in a place I hadn’t looked before. That one moment of disruption became an invitation to heal something old, and I’m thankful I listened.