The secret reason you´re stuck and can´t move on.

If you have been troubleshooting panic and anxiety for a while you might have heard the following story …

"Chronic stress, anxiety and panic are a result of excess fight-or-flight hormones that get trapped in our body. Animals don't suffer from chronic stress because after they go through a stressful experience, they instinctively shake it off and burn off the excess cortisol and adrenaline " "The problem is that we humans have lost the instinct to shake it off, we feel inhibited by society, and so those fight or flight hormones stay in our body and cause havoc" 

Sound familiar?  Good! It's a really good start, but there's a part missing, and it's an important one… The part is.... (drumroll) … IDENTITY

We don´t just fail to move through stressful experiences because we are afraid of looking goofy.  We fail to move through those experiences because we are afraid of what those feelings say about Who We Are.

 Okay, ready? We're going deep... 

Stressful, traumatic and chronically unsafe situations produce hormonal changes in our brain and body as well as physical sensations, emotions and impulses. The sum total of all of those sensations, emotions and impulses produces a feeling state. That feeling state communicates a story to us. That story says something about who we are. 

To burn off those stress hormones, we need to move back through that feeling state and navigate the story that comes with it. 99% percent of the time, if you feel stuck in a cycle of chronic stress, anxiety and panic attacks and no matter what you do you just can't move on – – it's because your nervous system has made a strategic choice.

Your nervous system has decided it would rather keep all of those sensations and emotions buried, because the alternative  — moving through the story —  is just too overwhelming.Your nervous system has decided that wrestling with all those anxious feelings for the rest of your life is BETTER than facing that scary story about who you are.

Why does your nervous system think that story is so scary? Because that story is asking questions like: 

 "Am I a bad person?"

 "Am I a weak person?"

 "Am I a shameful person?"

And your nervous system doesn't know the answer. It doesn't know who you are. SO…What's the secret to finally and permanently moving on from all those big, stuck, sh*tty feelings? 

Understand your identity and communicate that reality to your nervous system.