You know that tightness in your chest when you wake up? The one that's already there before you've even opened your eyes? Your mind starts moving—everything you need to do, everyone waiting for a response, all the ways you're not measuring up.
That's anxiety—and if you're here, you already know it.
Here's what's interesting: we actually have more free time now than people did fifty years ago. But we feel more overwhelmed than ever. It's not really about how busy we are. It's about what we're carrying.
Your nervous system can't tell the difference between an urgent message and actual danger. So it treats everything like a threat. And you end up living in a constant state of bracing.
Take a moment to notice your belly right now. Is it round, full, and relaxed? Does the oxygen reach from your lower belly through to your chest? Chances are you're breathing in a state of bracing.
Anxiety doesn't always show up with panic attacks. Sometimes it looks like perfectionism—the belief that if you just work hard enough, you'll finally feel safe. Sometimes it shows up as procrastination, avoiding the thing because you're afraid of what it might reveal about you. Sometimes it's just this low-grade disconnection, like you're performing your own life but not actually living it. Sometimes it just looks like being stuck.
Emily's story
I'd like to talk about one of my clients. I'll call her Emily.
Emily walked in with her shoulders back and made direct eye contact, but her hands were busy—pulling at the end of her sleeve, then smoothing it back up.
"I don't know where to start," she said. "I just feel stuck."
She had a good job as a marketing manager and a steady relationship. But she woke up every morning with tightness in her chest. Her mind raced through everything she needed to do, everything she wasn't doing well enough. She couldn't sleep. During the day, she was exhausted but couldn't seem to get anything done.
Her boyfriend had stopped asking her to dinner because she was always too tired. Her friends had stopped reaching out. There was this unsettling disconnectedness to everything. A pointlessness. Like she was going through the motions but nothing actually meant anything.
Maybe some of this sounds familiar.
Finding out where she actually was
We didn't start by trying to fix anything. We started by noticing where she actually was—not where she thought she should be.
"Where do you feel the stuck-ness in your body?" I asked.
She put her hand on her chest. "Here. It's tight."
"Just notice that. You don't have to do anything with it right now."
You can't know where you're going until you know where you actually are.
What changed
Emily started sleeping through the night. She stopped answering work emails after 9 PM. She told her boss she needed help redistributing some projects. We taught her nervous system to notice when her inner knowing signalled that she needed to pause.
Over time, the words that came out of her mouth became more aligned with how she felt inside. And she felt calmer. She learnt that waiting until she felt less afraid meant never starting. She learnt to move while scared instead of waiting for certainty.
"I still feel overwhelmed sometimes," she said in one of our last sessions. "But I'm not drowning anymore. I know how to be with it now."
"What's different?"
"I think I just realised how anxious I was all the time. Like, constantly. And I kept trying to work harder or be better to make it go away, but that just made it worse."
She looked out the window. Tired, but smiling softly.
"Now I can feel when the anxiety is running the show. And I stopped seeing it as something I had to fix."
If this sounds familiar
Maybe you recognise yourself in Emily's story. We begin by noticing where you actually are—not where you think you should be, but where you are right now, in your body, in your life.