From Panic To Purpose: Rewiring A Life And Career Through Nervous System Care

A suitcase collision in Orlando, a hawk eating a dove on the wing of a plane in New York, and a body that finally refused to push through—this is the moment a career story turns into a nervous system story. We pick up after 2015’s “Owen’s legislation” milestone and follow a series of visceral wake‑ups that reframe anxiety as physiology, codependency as conditioning, and healing as a set of daily, trainable skills. The path runs through panic, a father’s steady presence, and a decisive vow to never have another attack—and then into months of breathwork, outdoor yoga, journaling, grounding, and co‑regulation that reset baseline from the inside out.

That personal rebuild becomes professional fuel. A homegrown workbook and a yoga partnership evolve into Holding Space, a nonprofit teaching six- and twelve-week programs for women navigating stress, overwhelm, anxiety, and depression. A social impact incubator sharpens the model while underscoring a key truth: information doesn’t regulate; practice does. Along the way, PSYCH‑K enters as the missing piece, a subconscious change modality that dissolves the roots of triggers and reshapes attachment without white‑knuckling. The result is surprising ease—behavior changes because the beliefs beneath it change. During the pandemic, virtual Coffee Talks and Fireside Chats bring community, regulation, and relief when the world needs it most.

We land in a full-circle moment, teaching mindfulness and parenting at the Family Sleep Institute while running a one‑on‑one and couples practice focused on nervous system care, codependency recovery, and subconscious rewiring. If your body is shouting no while your mind keeps saying yes, consider this your invitation: practice the tools, borrow calm until you build your own, and watch the story of your life reorganize around safety and choice. If it resonates, subscribe, share with a friend who needs hope today, and leave a review to help more people find their way back to calm.

You can reach us here:

Katie:

Website:
KatieKovaleski.com

Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/coach_katiek/

Linkedin:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/katiekovaleski/


Wavier & Release of Liability and Disclaimer: The information provided by the therapist(s) is not intended, nor is implied to be a substitute for professional medical or mental health advice. The listener is advised to always seek the advice of their health care practitioner or other qualified health care provider with questions regarding medical conditions, or the mental health and welfare of the listener. I (listener) accept that Kathryn Kovaleski is not liable for any injury, or damages, to person or property, resulting from listening to this podcast.

Chapters

• 0:00 Picking Up The Career Thread
• 1:13 Codependency And Personal Patterns
• 6:35 Orlando Fall And The First Panic Spiral
• 11:03 New York Crisis And Asking For Help
• 18:06 The Airport No And A Father’s Yes
• 23:15 Diagnosis, Meds, And A Firm Personal Vow
• 29:10 Quitting Meds And Choosing Regulation
• 34:14 Building A Daily Nervous System Practice
• 41:05 Yoga Outside And Breath As Medicine
• 47:00 Journaling, Processing, And Co‑Regulation
• 53:20 Turning Healing Into Holding Space
• 59:25 Incubator Lessons And Letting Go

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:01

Welcome back to Midlife Mayhem. This is going to be career part two. So last week's episode that dropped was the episode I did with my dad, which was so much fun to do. He was received really well, and so he's gonna be coming back to my house next week so we can record together in person. We recorded the first one via Zoom, so it's gonna be fun to kind of feel like we're in a podcast studio, even though we won't be. It will be at my house. But we shall pretend. So I'm excited to have him back. And today's episode, you know, picks up um where I left two weeks ago. So two weeks ago's episode was really about the first part of my career and becoming an entrepreneur and all the lessons I learned and all the things that happened leading me up to 2015. Um, in the middle of my pediatric sleep consulting career. Owen's legislation had just passed. If you don't know what that means, hop back two episodes ago to listen to the entrepreneur's Quiet Rebellion and you will get context for that because I think I know everything that came before 2015, the context there is important. So we pick up in 2015 after Owen's legislation had passed, and I was appointed the safe sleep director at the Family Sleep Institute, the FSI. Um, I we're gonna shift gears a little bit to talk about my personal life because it plays a big role in what happened next in my career and life in general. So in 2015, I was what I can call in hindsight at the pinnacle of kind of my codependent relationship. So I was always the person who was rescuing, fixing, saving, sort of playing therapist in my personal life while also playing one in real life of my job. And what that looked like was attracting a lot of wounded birds, people who needed help. Like I identified as an empath at the time. I deeply could feel other people's feelings and their emotions and their pain, and I wanted to help them. I wanted to fight their battles with them or for them, fix them, rescue, save them. And so I was attracting a lot of that in my personal life and a lot of friendships, and even romantic relationships. Um, a lot of those ended up being kind of drawn-out situationships. I feel like that term isn't trendy anymore, but that was what they were. Um, kind of faux relationships that were kind of toxic, to be honest. It was like, what am I doing with this person? But I keep going back to them. I was in that loop. Um, and at the time I had a roommate living with me who I'd kind of taken in because she was going through some really difficult times, and I wanted to, you know, help her fix rescue save, be the rescuer. Um, and she was having a lot of really intense, kind of traumatic things happen. And I could just feel myself kind of feeling burnt out. And at that time, with my little knowledge of the nervous system, what that looked like for me was feeling shorter tempered, more irritable, um, more easily irritated. So I was like snappy, um, kind of tired, felt frustrated a lot. Um, it didn't look overt, but inside I could feel that. And I kind of just ignored it, or I straight up ignored it, and just kept pushing through, doing everything I would normally do in my personal life and in my career. And um, I had already had multiple signs in this situation ship that this person was not supportive and really didn't care about me, although he would say that he did. And it all kind of started to unravel. And if you're following along my newsletters or social media, I've been talking about this this week because it is the 10-year anniversary of these like pinnacle moments I had in 2015. And so today, specifically today, December 10th, is the anniversary of these pinnacle moments. So it started in November of 2025. I was in the Orlando airport going to catch a flight. I had been up really late the night before. I was functioning on very little sleep. And as I walked through the airport, someone kind of darted out in front of me with their suitcase and like was not paying attention, and I hit their suitcase and went flying. And I landed, I hit my knee really hard and my head. Um, so hard that like my jeans ripped. Um, I felt very discombobulated. And the person sort of metaphorically, I got a lot of really interesting real-time metaphors happening during this period. Um, no one, the person that hit me didn't stop. They kept going, um, completely unbothered, unaware, did not care. But other people came and helped me, and I got up and I felt kind of shaky, and I went into the bathroom there, and remember just trying to catch my breath and thinking to myself, I feel panicky. Like I feel like I'm having a panic attack. I had only ever had one panic attack prior to that, and it was probably a good seven or eight years earlier. Um, and it was in a very specific situation, and so I had just chalked it up to being overtired and being in that scenario. So my brain hadn't forgotten, my body had not forgotten what that felt like. And so I had the intrusive thought in the bathroom at the Orlando Airport of thinking about having a panic attack and induce a panic attack. And once I thought that thought, like, we were off to the races. I was like, I cannot get my heart rate to slow down, and so I was having trouble catching my breath, my heart rate was racing, I could feel the blood kind of draining from my face. So I got out of the bathroom because I felt claustrophobic in the bathroom. I was like, get me out of here. And I went to the gate agent and talked to her and said, I was like leaning, fully leaning on the desk, and I said, Um, do you guys have a doctor like on staff here? You know, and I said to her, you know, is there a doctor here? And she said, What do you mean? And I was like, Well does the airport have like a like a clinic or anything? Which sounds kind of ridiculous. But at the time, I had never been in an airport and felt like I needed a doctor. And in that moment I felt like I did, and it occurred to me that perhaps there was some sort of like medical clinic situation happening, and she said there was not. Um and she said, you know, you you don't you lost all the blood to your face, like you look quite pale, and I'm gonna help you sit down. So she helped me take a seat, and I I don't remember exactly how it happened, but someone near us was like kind of listening or watching and said came over and said, Hey, I'm a doctor. So he was like checking my pulse, and then at some point within the next maybe five minutes from there, it was decided that they were gonna call an ambulance. And I was like, How is this happening to me? And you know, if you've been at the Orlando Airport, you know it functions as like there's kind of like you take a train to the terminal, and then in the terminal you go down these long hallways, and I thought to myself, like, maybe the ambulance can pull up like to where the planes pull up, and I can just get on there, right? Because I'm that's where I'm at, but the very end, the very end of this like terminal hallway, and like the last gate, and in fact, that's not what happened. They showed up with a stretcher in front of the uh gate agent's desk, and then I had to be wheeled through the entire airport, and it felt like it took an eternity to get there, and I was just mortified. I was mortified, I like didn't know what was happening to me, I was super embarrassed. Um, it I I couldn't get on the plane and go on the trip that I had planned. Um, it was horrible, and so I remember being in the ambulance, and this ends up kind of being an important connection later on. But my mom, who I was really close to at that time, was in Michigan visiting her mom, and I needed someone to meet me at the hospital, and so it was my dad that I ended up calling and letting know um what was happening. He and I like weren't super close at that time, like we didn't have a bad relationship, we just weren't that close. I would have called my mom to come. Um, so I called my dad, and then I just remember being in the ambulance and the EMT, like asking me about um where I had been the night before and who I had been with, and I remember him like listening to me talk about this guy because he was asking me questions and telling me like I don't think this guy cares about you. And I just remember being like, what kind of like you know spiritual crisis am I in? That I'm ending up like we're supposed to be in a plane right now, going on a really fun trip. I'm in an ambulance, going to the ER, and I have an EMT telling me that like my situationship doesn't care about me. Touche universe. And in fact, like this guy did not care about me. Um he I think ended up finding out that I've been in the hospital, like, didn't check in, didn't care. Like if the EMT was right, he was like an angel messenger for me. Um, so I I get to the hospital, they do a bunch of tests, they basically tell me I had a massive panic attack and like I'm okay. Um, and my dad comes and then he takes me home and I recover from that. And then a couple weeks later, I had to go back to the airport because I was flying to Michigan um to see some family there. I got on the plane, no problem, flew up there, had a trip there, came back, like didn't think twice about it. Um I chalked up what happened with the airport and stretcher and hospital to just being really tired and taking a really bad fall. Like I fell really hard, I was already overtired, you know, so I felt anxious, right? I felt disrupted, dysregulated. Chocked it up to that and was like, it was situational. Those were the the circumstances that were present. I responded to them. That was it, that's done. Um, and then so that was all in November, and then at the beginning of December, 10 years ago exactly, um, we were taking a family trip to New York, and at the time I had a strained relationship with one of the family members, and I um was really looking forward to New York and um seeing shows and Christmas shopping and all of the things. Like I I really was looking forward to it, but I also had kind of a sense of dread due to kind of the um issue I was having with a family member, but I didn't really pay much attention to it. I just went ahead and was focusing on I was I was uh utilizing toxic positivity and silver lining everything and being like, but this is what I'm excited about and this will be fun. I'm gonna ignore the pit in my stomach. Like, who cares? It's fine. And that's how I kind of functioned then, right? I didn't really have a connection to being like, we need to look at all sides of the coin. We need to address how you feel and what you feel in your body when you think about a situation because your body doesn't lie, your mind will, and we need to process what's coming up, right? We don't want a toxic positivity everything and silver lining everything. Like we want to be, we want to have a full picture and and processing of the entire situation. And so I went on the trip, and the second day I was there, we were staying in this like little boutique hotel, and I had this little, I mean it's New York, so this little tiny hotel room with a window that faced basically a brick wall because New York. Um, and I went to bed and I woke up at like five or six in the morning in a full-blown panic attack that felt like a heart attack. Like I could not breathe. My heart was racing so fast. Um, I felt super claustrophobic, like, get me out of here, get me out of here. And so I like kind of run down the hallway to the room my parents were staying in, and this is the second time this had happened where 99.999% of all other situations, I would immediately ask for my mom. Um, and I just knew that I needed and wanted my dad. And so he answered the door, and my mom's like, what's going on? What's going on? Like waking from her slumber, and I was like, I just need to talk to dad. And she's like, What is it? What is it? And I'm like, mom, like, no. Um, and of course, she always like intended to mean well, but when it came to feeling the way that I felt, I knew I needed somebody who was really calm. Um, my newsletter this week, I referred to him as my walking Xanax. Like, I just I needed somebody really grounded and calm. And he just said, Are you okay? I said, No. He's like, Alright, what do you need? I'm like, I need to get outside. Like, I need air, I can't breathe. So we go outside, he's asking me some questions, staying really calm, and then called his brother, who's a doctor, um, and said, Here's you know, situation with her. What what what should we do? You know, like, do we really want to go to an ER in New York City? Uh, no, we don't. And his brother said, A lot of hotels have doctors on staff, which I did not know was a thing. File that away if he didn't know that. And he said, Go to the front desk, tell them what's going on, and that she needs a doctor. So they did. And it took a while for the doctor to get there. I mean, at that point, I think my concept of time was a little worked. I want to imagine it was probably like an hour or more. Um, and I stayed outside the whole time. It was like freezing in New York, and I stayed on their patio because I just couldn't be inside like these tight walls. I felt so constricted. Um, the doctor got there, assessed me, determined that I had had another panic attack, and left me with some Atavan, not a lot of it, maybe like four pills, and said, take one of these now, take it easy today, like you should be okay. I said, Okay. So I took one, took it easy. My dad sat with me um like that afternoon. He sat next to my bed reading a book he loves to read, like calm as a cucumber for hours while I rested. Just sat there. Um, and then eventually I went outside, I like to go walk with my mom, and we had plans that night to go to dinner and a show. And again, I I just want to like reiterate how blind I was to my nervous system because knowing what I know now, had that happen now, they're like the plans would be canceled. Like, absolutely not. We're not doing that. Like, we need to really sit down and figure out what's going on. But again, I judge it as situational, um, some sort of fluke um in the system. We walk into this restaurant and it's on like the second floor. We go inside, then walk upstairs that are inside and get to this second floor dining room, and it is just packed. There's so many people in there, the heat's on because it's winter, it's like it felt so hot to me. The lights felt so bright. We're at this table, this circular table, like in the middle of the room, and it's like I can't even pull the chair out because it's so tight. And I just start to pull it out and stop, and I'm like, I cannot do this. I just can't, I can't. And I said, I think my mom was next to me, I can't, and I ran out of that restaurant, like got out of there as quickly as I could. She chased me. We're running down the street in New York City, and I like look over. I remember seeing one of their parking garages, and it was like just cars stacked on top of each other, like like it looked like a machine. And I just remember looking at that, being like, Get me the fuck out of here. Like, I cannot be here, like I cannot be in the city. And she said, like, what do you need? And I was like, I cannot be here. And she's like, We'll go to the hotel. I'm like, I need to get out of New York, like I cannot be here. And she said, Okay, we're gonna go out to the hotel. You're gonna have a shower, I'm gonna get you, you need to eat something because I hadn't eaten that day. You can take one of these pills that he gave you, and you'll stay in my room tonight. And I was like, Okay. So that's what we did, and that felt okay, right? And so then I'm like, I just need to get out of New York. Like, that's what the problem is. Like, something about the city is making me feel really claustrophobic. I can't be here. So the next day we were leaving anyway, and I remember we got to the airport and got through security, and we're sitting at the gate, and we're just sitting there, and I'm just looking around, and I start to feel my heart rate just kind of start to pick up, and I have this intrusive thought of what if I get claustrophobic on the plane and I have a panic attack and I can't get off the plane, like we're in midair. What am I going to do? And that thought like took a such a deep root in my body and my nervous system. Like, it that moment created like one of the strongest sort of belief systems and nervous system responses that I have ever had. And I just sat there and thought, like, I cannot do that. I cannot get on the plane. If that's a potential like outcome in this scenario, like, fuck no, I cannot do this. But I don't say anything. I'm like touching the the Adaban I have left in my pocket, which is not much, and I'm like, how long would this last? If I take it now, this is not gonna be enough. Like, what am I gonna do? Yesterday I took this much, this is how long it lasted. I'm having these spiraling thoughts, and I just like have no other tools, and I'm like, I I can't, but I'm saying nothing. I'm just sitting there, like tweaking inside, right? But on the outside, like I'm just sitting there with my one leg crossed over the other, looking out the window. So we walk up, it's time to wear the plane, we're in line to board, we're facing the plane, so we can see the wings. We're not far from it inside the terminal, and there is a hawk tearing apart, it was either a dove or a pigeon on the wing of the plane, like biblical metaphor. And I was like staring at it, thinking, like, what the actual fuck is happening right now? And I like look at my dad like what? And he's like, It's okay, like it's gonna be okay, you know. Like, look away from the the poor, innocent, whatever, being terrorized. I'm like, that's what it feels like inside me right now. And I just like the closer we got to scanning our tickets and getting on, like, the shakier I got. Like, I can even feel some of that shakiness now talking about it. And I just looked at him and I'm like thinking, and this comes into play later on with like hyperindependence and autonomy and stuff. Like, how do I effectively communicate the terror that I feel inside right now without making a scene? And like, I'm not used to asking for help, I'm not used to showing this kind of level of vulnerability, which at the time felt like weakness and failure and just tons of fear. How do I how do I do that? How do I effectively communicate? There's no way fucking hell I can get on this plane without showing it, right? And so I just kind of start shaking and I take a step back and I said, I have to get out of line, I can't stand in this line. And he followed me and my mom, and I was like leaning against like the wall or the window or something, and I just kind of sank down. So I was squatting down, leaning against the wall, and he's like, What's going on? And I was like, I can't get on this plane. And he was like, I know that was you know scary to see the hawk, and I was like, It's not that, like, I can't do this. Um it was it was such when I like reflect back on it, and it's crazy because it's been 10 years, like to the day, the moment almost right now. I like I will never forget like the visceral nature of that moment, and there's only been a couple moments in my life where while they were happening, I had a sense of how impactful they were. And there's been a couple moments that I can pinpoint to like traumatic moments. This is one of them where it was like nothing's ever gonna be the same, like after this, like everything will be different, and that was that was it. I I like looked at him and I couldn't I couldn't hide, I couldn't hide it. And I I didn't realize at that time quite then um how much I had been hiding from myself too, and just having to say, like, you know, I'm your adult daughter, I'm what thirty two at the time. And like I can't get on a plane, I can't get myself to get on this plane. Like, what is happening to me? And something about like I started to kind of melt down. I started like crying a little bit, and I just I think I probably looked like I was pleading. I was like squatted down, looking up at him, and he's looking down at me, and like I just felt like like at that point we shared a brain. I felt for the first time with my dad that he could fully feel what I was feeling. He's a super left brain dominant person, he's super grounded, he's super logical, and I I had never felt, I think throughout the course of my life and being parented by him, I'd felt kind of like a disconnection because I'm very right brain and I'm very empathic and I'm emotionally driven, and I like we it and I also have a have a heavy left brain too, but I just felt like I never felt like he could really fully feel and get what I was feeling emotionally, and in that moment he did, and I'm gonna be crying about it. It was one of the most important moments like of my life. And at the time, like I could feel that, like I could feel how important it was, but I had no idea what was gonna come in the next decade, and like how important that was. So I know I wrote about this today in a newsletter, and like he left me a really sweet voicemail because he got the the newsletter like forever, my biggest fan, cheerleader, and the voicemail basically said what I just said, like beautifully written, like you're making me cry. Because it was it was so important. That day was so important, and he looked at me obviously very concerned, and knelt down and just said, you know, like I I hear you, like I get it. You don't have to get on the plane, it's okay. Like, I'm going to rent a car and I'm gonna drive you home. And I'm gonna get you whatever help that you need. Like, I don't know what's going on, but I know that like I'm gonna get you home and I'm gonna get you help. And I just felt this like sigh of relief. And like it that was one of the hardest moments of my life. It was the only and I've been through, had been through some really trying hard times in my life, and it was the first time I had ever I sort of felt at the time like my body had failed me, like I couldn't push through it, and and that scared the shit out of me. I couldn't make myself do what I was supposed to or like quote needed to do, which was again on that plane. I could I couldn't get myself to do it, and I had never experienced that before. Uh ever. Um, and it was confusing and it was really scary. And, you know, they rented a car, they drove me home through the night, um, called and got a doctor's appointment the next day, and I went into the primary care doctor, and he looked at me and looked at kind of what I had been going through the last month, and he said, You know, you have like really heightened chronic anxiety, and I was like, No, I don't. And he's like, Yeah, you do. I'm like, No, I had a couple of panic attacks, and they were situational, and one was because I was tired and I fell in the airport, and one was and he was like, Let me explain to you how this works. Like, panic attacks are the culmination of heightened anxiety that gets so heightened that it explodes and you have an attack, you know, and I was like, What? And he was like, and I'll never forget this. He said, You know, the easiest way to calm yourself down when that happens, and I said no, and he said, Use your breath. And I was like, at the time, I'm like, I have no idea about that. What do you mean? Use my breath. He's like, Your bre your breathing is your best tool to help calm yourself down, and I was like, Cool, like uh what? And then he said, I can also give you medication, and I was like, Yeah, do that. And he said, I can give you something you can take every day, and it's gonna keep you from getting to that place where there's a tipping point into panic attack, and I can give you something to spot treat it if you get to that place, and it'll stop the panic attack. And I said, Okay, yeah, give you both. So he writes these prescriptions. I go back home, I took one of the everyday pills that he told me to take, um, and I fell asleep. And when I woke up from this nap, my heart was racing, and I felt like I was having a panic attack, and I was like, What is this? And I remember I was in a townhouse at the time, and I had like two sets of stairs, like a three-story townhouse, and I sat down on the steps at the bottom of the second stairwell, and had my head in my hands, and I remember thinking, like, this is not sustainable, like, this is not a state I can accept living in. So, what are we gonna do? And I remember making this promise to myself that was like this is the last time you're ever gonna feel this. I don't care what we have to do, I don't care what corner of the earth we have to roam or comb, I am going to commit and give everything I've got to eradicating anxiety and never having a panic attack again. Like, I just remember like almost being able to see myself and saying, like, I don't care what the fuck we have to do, girl, like I've got you, and like we're going to master this because this pilladay that's now causing a panic attack is not an option. And I called the doctor and he said, Yeah, sometimes when your body's adjusting, you might have some side effects, and unfortunately, those side effects can mimic the same symptoms you would get in a panic attack. And I was like, No, thank you. And so I made an appointment with a psychiatrist who was trying to put me on like all kinds of things, like a beta blocker to slow my heart rate down, something to help with sleep. He was like a pill mill. Um, and I lasted, I think, 10 days on medication, and then I just intuitively knew that was not the path for me. I just knew it. And I was scared to get off of it. I was scared that I was only on it for 10 days, but I was like, will I go through withdrawal? Am I gonna have a panic attack? Am I gonna become suddenly mentally ill? And you know, I worked myself into like it was a really good example of how high my anxiety was because I had like no control over where my thoughts would go, they would spiral, I would like fixate on something I was afraid of and play it out over and over so that I could quote like get ahead of it. Let's play this out in your mind, and then you'll have a mastery of what to do if it happens. Like, eh, wrong answer, which was like exactly how the anxiety had been created in the first place. But at the time I didn't know that, so I was just kind of spinning out, I was like spiraling out everywhere. Um, got off the medication, nothing happened. Like, I was on such low doses. Um, I like started having like really bad acid reflex on the meds because my body like did not want to be on them. Taking the meds was causing more anxiety. I saw a GI doctor for it. He was like, quit taking these medications, you don't need them. He's like, it like this is self-induced reflux. Like, if your body is saying, I do not want to be on these, don't take them. And that was like a silver lining, like, thank you, GI doctor. So I fully got off all of them. So that lasted that entire thing was maybe two weeks long. Um, and then I thought, well, like, what am I gonna do? Like, I had this intense fear of ever feeling that way again. And so I started seeing a therapist and uh and a coach simultaneously, and then and eventually went down to just the coach, and she's someone that I had known a long time ago, like in my college years. And she, you know, I remember like laying on the floor at my parents' house, talking to her on the phone, and was like, What the fuck is wrong with me? And she's like, I think you're having like some kind of awakening, like you're waking up. I'm like, what does that mean? And she's like, We're gonna kind of reset you, you know. Um, and I'm like, Okay, well, like, how fast can we do that? Like, can we get this wrapped in like two months? And she was like, We'll see. And I, and that was another symptom of like anxiety, right? I was completely impatient. I was like, what do we have to do to get this done as quickly as possible? Like, I'll throw everything at it. And you can't rush healing, you just can't. And I was so disconnected from my mind, from my body, not from my mind. I was fully living in my mind only. I was so disconnected from my body, my nervous system, my spirit. I had no concept of spirit. I did nothing, completely detached. Um, had grown up Catholic, would call myself a recovering Catholic because I had refused confirmation and had no connection to religion at all, and like certainly not spirituality on any level. And I at that point in hindsight started what I now like consider to be like a PhD in the nervous system. I, you name it, I tried it and I tried it consistently. I really did what I promised myself that day to do, which was to explore all options and commit to doing whatever I had to do and spending as much time on it as I needed until I felt confident that I was okay and that I was not going back to that place like I was in the airport. And so, what did that look like? Um, it looked like a really intense, uh, long self-care rituals every day. So, like in therapy and with coaching, I learned like primary tools that are empirically shown to help your nervous system regulate itself, right? So I learned that anxiety, which is a word that I don't even use anymore. Um, I like I I think anxiety is um a triggering word, and I think it's it's it's pointless. It's not not calling a thing what it is. What is anxiety? It's nervous system dysregulation. And when we put the science to it, when we name it for what it is, to me, it dissolves some of the trauma around it, right? Because thinking, oh my god, what if I have a panic attack can trigger a panic attack. Well, why is that, right? Because it's a dysregulating thought. Panic attacks are so uncomfortable and so terrifying and so painful that just thinking the word can start to kick up some of that physiological response and emotional response. Same thing goes for anxiety, in my opinion. I toss that out and now I toss it out with clients. It's like, let's call it what it is scientifically. It is nervous system dysregulation, and it shows up very physiologically and very emotionally, right? So we've got sweaty palms, we've got a racing heart, the blood is like literally pouring out of our head into our limbs, preparing us to fight or flee. Um, nervous system dysregulation is a state of fight or flight. So I learned all about that, and then I started learning about like the empirically proven science-backed tools that help your nervous system regulate itself, and that's what I ended up calling self-care. So I spent a lot of time and many months focusing on only on my self-care for the first three and a half months. That was all I did. I stopped my life, I didn't take clients, I moved in with my parents, um, I needed their support, I wanted that support, and at that point, it almost felt like the awakening part felt like I was like an infant again, and I was being reparented, except this time it was primarily by my dad. And my mom was there the whole time and supportive, but it was my dad that I hadn't felt that deep connection with before that I had felt that day at the airport that never went away, and we kept building on that and building on that. And I finally felt really connected by to him and seen by him and understood, and like I felt safe, like like he was the person my my walking Xanax. I felt really safe with him, and he has a really grounded nervous system. And so, what I learned later on is that when you're around someone with a really grounded nervous system, it's called co-regulation. Being around him helped regulate my own nervous system. I was like borrowing from his. Um, and that's a really cool thing to know, right? If I feel super quote anxious, we now know that's called nervous system dysregulation. Find somebody who's very regulated, who's very calm and soothing. And by proxy, being close to them, geographically close in proximity, will help soothe your own nervous system. And it doesn't detract from theirs, like theirs can stay equally grounded. Like I would feel soothed by him just being in his presence. And so for three and a half months, I like dedicated my life to learning, uh reading all the books, listening to podcasts, working with a coach, practicing, practicing, practicing. So one of the other things was yoga. I had never been a big fan of yoga. Um, and I like the idea of going to a studio and being shut in a tiny room that was probably hot or had been hot an hour earlier during hot yoga and having to learn with all these people around was not something I wanted to do. So, like coming out of New York, I thought I can't be in a city like New York that causes panic. I can't be around a ton of people or in like really busy, people-dense environments, like loud sounds, like I associated all these elements of New York with things that would trigger panic in me. And so I removed myself from situations that had those elements in them. So being in, you know, a hot room full of a bunch of people in a yoga studio was like, fuck no. And so I contacted somebody that I had known who had just gone through yoga teacher training and asked her if she knew anyone who could come to my parents' house and teach me yoga, and she said, I can. I just finished teacher training, like I could do that. This is like December, January, February in Florida, which is the most beautiful time to be outside. And so I started practicing yoga and learning yoga outside in the grass in the park with her one-on-one, and it was transformational because the days that I would practice yoga outside with her, I felt calm the rest of the day. My mind felt at ease. I could control where my thoughts flowed, what I would focus on, and I felt ease. And so I realized like these things actually work, right? I had never really been interested in yoga, and I certainly wasn't doing it in a way that I could feel the benefit of it, but when I needed it, it showed up for me, and it like recognized what my nervous system needed and provided that every time. And yoga is amazing because the mind and body follow each other, right? So if my mind is wild and chaotic, if I can get into a yoga practice where part of yoga is a pranayama, it's the breath work. A huge part of yoga is syncing the way that you're breathing to the movements that you're going through and you're flowing through. And when we start regulating our breath, our nervous system automatically calms down. So, in addition to getting that amazing regulation from the breath, you also get it when the body starts to relax. So as I'm going into deep stretch poses and my muscles are relaxing, my signal that my body is safe turns on, my breath is doubling down on that. I'm coming out of that practice with a regulated nervous system. And the proof was in the pudding, and I was like, okay, this is real. I get it. So then I started getting into the breath work process, practice of it. Oh, I can practice the breathing even when I'm not doing yoga. Got it. I started recognizing and reaping the benefits of that. I started getting deeply into journaling and writing. Um, I had had a variety of different traumas like earlier on in my life, and I had done quote the right things, checked the boxes, gone to therapy, done the things, talked about it. Um, I had not processed it. And so journaling about it helped me kind of go back and really just dump out everything I had felt. I could talk about a situation using my left brain and address like acknowledging it, but I hadn't fully felt all of the deep emotions that were associated with it. Not really, not to a place where I had come to kind of neutrality and peace and non-attachment. And that in hindsight was one of the shortcomings for me, at least with traditional therapy. It's beautiful for bringing acknowledgement and awareness, but it did nothing for me in terms of being able to process and release emotion. Nothing. Um, and that's what going one of the things that going through this, especially with journaling and writing, really taught me. It was like, oh wow, when I write freely, when I'm just pouring out whatever's inside, there's a ton of emotion there, still around these things, right? So I didn't process that. So every day I would do yoga, I would do breath work, I would journal, I would get outside in the sun, I would put my bare feet on the grass for grounding and earthing. Um, I would focus more on hydration and on nourishment. Like I committed myself to these practices and I would spend hours a day doing them. And at first it took half the day to get myself to feel really regulated for the second half, and then it took just four hours, and then it took just three, and then it just took two, and then it took one over a series of three, four, or five months. And so I um practiced the hell out of these things, and I learned all about the brain, and I learned all about how not all of our thoughts are real, and we have two minds, and we have a subconscious where all of our life experiences are stored, and we have triggers, and this is how a trigger is formed. Here's how we can use these self-care, these nervous system tools when we're being triggered that can stop us from getting on the trigger train and riding it for an hour or the rest of the day. And so, my goal was to be able to focus on and work through some of the stuff that I hadn't processed and close the loop as quickly as possible. What does that mean? That means if I'm trying to process a heavy event from the past, this isn't my first like three to four months, if focusing on it and really allowing myself to go there to the like the deep emotional state that existed around the topic, it would take me the rest of the day to recover from it, right? And my goal was to close down the amount of time it took me to recover when I went into these um traumatic memories and these emotionally repressed situations until I could get it from being like, oh, it takes me the rest of the day to recover, it takes me three hours to recover, it takes me two hours to recover, it takes me an hour, it takes me five minutes, it takes me 30 seconds. Like, and I used all of those nervous system tools to be able to do that. I relied on them to not only never have a panic attack again, which I can say I have been successful at. Hey, happy 10-year anniversary to me on the 10th, right? December 10th, my 10-year anniversary of never having a panic attack again, of eradicating anxiety. Like those things can't be done. That promise I made to myself that day, I had no idea how I was gonna get there. None. I just knew that there was no other option for me. Very similarly to getting into entrepreneurship. I knew working for someone else was not an option, therefore, like we're all in on the one option we have. And so as the I was staying at my parents' house through those three or four months, like getting my my self-taught PhD in nervous system regulation. I relied on those tools. They were my medicine. Um, I continued to carry around my Ataban prescription, but I never took them. I think I've taken three Ataban over the last decade, not because I quote had to. One of them I took because I got caffeine poisoning. Um that's a whole different story. Um, one of them I took uh in Mexico to help me sleep after we got held at gunpoint by the police. And they robbed us. Okay. Um, and the third one I took on the first flight I ever took after the New York situation. Um, but after that, I have not taken another one. Um, I can fly no problem, and I'm getting ahead of myself. But I I would carry them around. They were like just in case for me. Um, but I spent those four months really rehabbing myself and really focusing on that. And then through that process, a few months into it, the girl that was teaching me yoga said, Hey, every time we would meet, she would come teach me. I would teach her. I would tell her about what I was learning that week, about the nervous system, the tools I was practicing, um, and how much it was benefiting me. And she had observed me from like my lowest point to three months later, however, it looked, whether it looked like I was thriving or something, it was a very different point. And she said, I've learned so much from watching you go through this and from you sharing with me like what you're learning and how you're like rehabbing yourself. I think that if we combine yoga with all of the tools that like you're using and developing your own like programming around essentially, we can really help women who are like going through anxiety and depression. And I thought, really? Like, I have a job, like I'm a pediatric sleep consultant. And she was like, I think this could be really effective. Like, bring in, I was one of my other things is that like I love organizing material, so I would write, I would like use handouts, I would pull from different things. So I basically had created already an entire workbook based on all the things I was doing and the tools I was using and how I was putting them together and combining things, and like my goal was to figure out what was the most efficient way to do this, and so a lot of it involved like writing and creating my own PDFs and my own basically workbook to like, but it was for me, and so I had all the content ready to go, and so I said, like, okay, whatever, like fuck it, let's give it a shot, and that ended up leading to us um co-founding a nonprofit called Holding Space that um offered six and 12-week programs to women with overwhelm, stress, anxiety, depression, things like that, and we focused on teaching them everything that I had learned and and basically had like self-created this program um that I had no idea I was self-creating. I was doing it because I like I did it to survive, um, basically. And we had amazing success with it. It was an incredible program. Um, I learned so much. Um, the work works. I already knew that it worked, but it was amazing teaching it and watching it help other people and watching them like rapidly move through these transitions and transformation in their own lives, and like it was such a special time. Um, it got me connected with a lot of amazing women in this community that I'm still connected to, and um it was it was amazing, and it it culminated with us um applying to be in this business incubator program called the Rally program. Um, and we had applied one or I talked about applying and we talked to one of the like co-founders about it, and based on the where we were at with our business, he was like, keep working on this for another year, like get your proof of concept and then reapply. So we reapplied the following year. We got in, we're one of five businesses that got in. Um, and it's like the only way I can describe it, it's like a it's a business incubator um for like for social good. You have to have like a nonprofit or a social benefit corp, something that is heavily focused on giving back to the community that has social benefit to it. Um, that's you have to have that aspect of the business. And so we went in there and we were by far the most underdeveloped, like fledgling business, but we had a really good concept and we had proof of concept. And so, like, we end up competing at the end for money. And while we didn't win, I think we got like kind of um unofficially voted most improved because we like grew our business and our business model and scaled it um in such a big way. Like we we came leaps and bounds from where we were at the beginning, and I couldn't get enough of it. I learned so much about business and scaling business and this program, and we were exposed to so many amazing leaders of like huge businesses and huge social benefit corps, like in the Orlando community, and like it was just it was fascinating to me. Like I I loved every second of it. Um, and then shortly after that, we kind of came to a place where it was clear that like as a business partners, we weren't really a good fit to move forward. We had learned and grown so much, and what I didn't know at the time was that like COVID was right on our heels, and our entire business model was based on like in-person classes and physical human contact. Um, and so we decided to take a step back and like you know, pause holding space and and step away from it. Um and that ended up it it ended the holding space career part of it. Um, and that was the right move for both of us. Um, we were there to learn and grow together and and provide an amazing service for the community, and we did that successfully. Our programming, like still to this day, like I view it as rock solid. Like it's an amazing program to help people learn how to rehab their nervous systems and actually do it, right? We can read all the books, but we were in there in real time teaching them different tools every week, having them practice, doing the yoga, being exposed to all different types of it, practicing it, coming back, doing it again. And so it was just it was amazing. It was a really important part of my career and such an eloquent way to demonstrate and reflect that like the universe always has your back, right? Like, I had no idea when I was having, you know, a debilitating panic attack in New York City that this was all going to lead to the creation of this beautiful, amazing nonprofit um that would be launching only five months later. So for me, those three or four months with my parents felt like an eternity. Every day felt like weeks or months because I say that was such a hard time of my life, and it like I felt like I was moving through things so slowly, but in essence, I mean it was three to four months where I had taken all of that like pain, worked through it, created a program from it, and then launched it into co-founded a nonprofit from it, which sounds wild in hindsight, but like again, when I trace it back to like why was that so debilitating? It was debilitating because it was the first time in my life that I had to say I can't, I couldn't force my body to do something and just push through. I literally couldn't. Um, and that again just scared the shit out of me. So I was simultaneously while you know running the nonprofit, I was still a pediatric sleep consultant, I was still teaching safe sleep classes, I was doing all of the things, but I was able to stay regulated. I was able to understand anxiety and where it came from and treat it. And in 2019, I also was introduced to Psyche K, which is the subconscious change modality that I currently practice. And psych was really the missing piece for me. You know, I went through grad school to become a therapist. I had a really deep understanding of family systems, relationships, marriages, like one-on-one therapy and the uh acknowledgement um of our pains, of our worries, of our woes, of our traumas, and being able to speak to them, but that did nothing for my nervous system, right? I knew the power of it, but it wasn't enough. Then I studied the nervous system like to the core, to the cell of my being um for years and um realized that that was my medicine for a long time, but it didn't stop the triggers from coming up, it just made it really easy for me to deal with them. Psych, the subconscious piece was the missing part because it led me to the origins of the triggers and gave me a tool that could actually get rid of the trigger, and I had never experienced anything like that, and I thought, like, fuck yes, I finally it like gave a depth to my life and an understanding to the human experience and the brain that I had knew was out there, it felt like magic. I was like, this is it, this is the thing, this is what life is about. There is so much magic here, and I dove into it and I ended up going through like six certifications with it and the basic, the masters, the advanced, and then redoing them and hosting them. And I went all in on it because it was just it was like hogwarts. Like Harry Potter school to me. I was like, this is fucking fascinating. Like, you want to see some shit that'll blow your mind, go through the advanced psych training. Like, you cannot explain how wild the things that you will see, feel, and experience in the advanced training are. And it's all basic is amazing too, masters is amazing, but I just was lit up by this, and I'm like, okay, like this and this the K in Psych K stands for keys, mind keys. Psych K like makes you feel like you finally have the keys to your mind, and like it opens up like a whole other world where like I sensed was there. I'm like, there's gotta be something more to this. Like, what is this human experience? And I'm like, that's it, this is it. Okay. Um poured myself into that and sensed that I was moving towards like more of a one-on-one practice. So all of our holding space stuff with a nonprofit was group, there were group classes, and I love the synergy of that and how powerful it was. And we did that for like almost four years. Um, and so at this point in my career, I've taught my God, literally, y'all, thousands, thousands of group classes. Um, early in my career, I was teaching like the group therapy at a hospital, then I moved on to group therapy in a school. I taught groups every day, I taught multiple groups every single day for years and years and years, holding space with all groups. Um, yeah, I don't know, probably upwards of 4,000 classes I've taught. So I wanted to get back into the one-on-one space, and Psyche is done primarily one-on-one. So I wanted to start using that. I was like, this is like these, this is the key. So we I need to integrate that. Really started offering that, and then COVID hit, and um, my business came to a screeching halt. I had never worked on Zoom, I like didn't understand what that business model would be like. I didn't feel confident in selling it because I was really unfamiliar with it, and I don't like to offer things I'm unfamiliar with. Um, and so I I pivoted, I like got familiar with Zoom. I started offering really low-cost classes online on Zoom. I think I offered three a week. It was like$10 a person. I just wanted to help people. I knew that the world was in pain and I wanted to help people. So I launched that very shortly after COVID started. Started, I was like, what do we need? Like, we're all kind of at home, and like my roommate and I would make coffee every morning and we would sit in these big comfy chairs and just talk. We would talk about the world, and he was like, got to be home from work for a little while, and we would spend our days having these coffee talk chats. And I thought, like, we should, I should offer coffee talk. So I did. I had a Tuesday, I think it was Tuesday morning at 10 a.m. called Coffee Talk on Zoom, and everybody would have coffee and we would all come in and we would have like group therapy basically, do some nervous system regulation, be able to connect and heal and share as we went through this really uncertain time during COVID. And then I started adding in a nighttime option for people who couldn't attend that because of work. And so I had a 7 p.m. on Thursday nights, it was called fireside chats. Um, and I would offer kind of the same thing. And and I did that for a long time, and I was making like no money off of it. And I remember thinking, like, I I probably need a business loan. Like, how am I gonna survive? Like, what am I doing? And I was trying to outlast COVID. I thought like within a few months things would be open up, in a few months things were not. I didn't really know what to do. Um, and I was like burning through savings, I was living off of savings. I didn't want to take a one of the PPE loans because I wanted to leave that for somebody who whose family wouldn't be able to eat, you know, if they didn't get that loan. So it didn't even occur to me to take that money. Um, and so I was just kind of trying to figure out as I went along, and um, but I was like scared and nervous and financially, and and then probably like six or eight months into that, um, the woman who had coached me during the beginning of my panic attack era reached out and said she was gonna start traveling um because she was bored basically. She was bored where she was, and it was like, I want to come down to Florida, can I stay with you for a week? And I was like, sure. Um, so she came down and we spent a week together talking about business and different things, and she said, like, let's start working together, let's start co-coaching, let's start offering programs. And I thought, okay, she'd been working virtually like via phone and on online and stuff for a long time. And she knew her way around that world. And I thought, like, this is a miracle. Like, this is like gonna be a saving grace for me. And so I joined forces with her. I learned a lot. We created a lot of amazing programming. Um, at that time, starting in like end of 2018 or so, um, so a couple years before that, I had started like an off-again, on-again relationship with somebody that ended up kind of being my greatest teacher when it came to relationships. Um, in hindsight, I would say it was an incredibly toxic, codependent relationship. Um, he was abusive, he had an alcohol problem. Um, and there was also amazing sides to him, you know. Like I got an education and what it was like to be in one of those relationships. And um, that's an entire other podcast. But fast forward to the time when um she came down and we're creating all this programming together, through the end of that relationship, I started to learn about the concept of codependency. Um, because I could not, for the life of me, figure out how to get unstuck from this person that I knew wasn't good for me. I just couldn't figure out how to do it. And um, one day I was like listening to a random podcast, and the person referenced codependency and gave an example about it, and I thought, bingo. And so then I started buying the books and reading all about it and learning about it and being like, this is huge. This is a relationship paradigm that represents generational conditioning and programming and like societal norms. And I mean, it and to this day, codependency is one of my favorite topics because it fits into almost every toxic relationship. And toxic doesn't always mean abusive or involving substance misuse. I'm talking toxic is in one of the primary rules of codependency is the rescuer who loves to fix, rescue, and save, who prioritizes everyone else's needs and wants above their own until they burn out. That was me. That had been me. That is why I had panic attacks. And once my nervous system was regulated and I was in this toxic relationship, experiencing some dysregulation, but like I worked really hard at staying regulated. I got a really big bird's eye view of like, oh wow, this is how people end up in these situations. Um like because my nervous system was so resilient, I didn't burn out, which maybe wasn't a great thing, because I probably stayed longer because of that than I could have. But I learned so much about myself through that relationship, and I was really into codependency around the time that like she showed up at my house, and I was telling her about it, like raving about how important this is and this concept is and how we can apply it to all of these things, and when we use Psyche with it, we can really help people shed this type of behavior for good. We can change our attachment styles. I reprogrammed my entire attachment style through Psyche, which was wild and unintentional. One day in the relationship I'm in now, when we were dating early on, I was showing up in ways that just really surprised me. And I was talking to my bestie co-therapist Natalie, and she's like, Holy shit, like you've you've reprogrammed your attachment style, you're naturally showing up in a completely different way. And I was like, Whoa! And that's what Psyche really feels like. I I show up in a I'm now behaving in a new way, and I don't have to try. It's so fucking cool. So, re-write back with that other business partner talking about codependency. And so we start, she's like, This is great. Let's create a virtual program on it, and a Zoom program so people can show up live and we can teach this. And that's what we did, and we combine it with Psyche. It was super impactful, just as impactful as the nervous system care classes and the nonprofit were, and it was fun. It was great programming, it still is great programming. Um, we did that for a couple years, and then that relationship, business partnership, ran its course. It was another time when I just knew that um it was done. Like I was ready to fully move into being on my own. And uh a mentor of mine during a Psyche K training that I was hosting was the one who actually drew my attention to that, you know, and she pulled me aside and said, You don't need a business partner. I don't, I don't know why you have one. And I was like, What? I had never talked to her about it. I didn't, you know, and she said, Let's let's work with that, let's figure out subconsciously where that's coming from, why you feel like you have to have that person, um, and let's unblock that. So we did right there on the spot, and a month and a half later, I knew that that business partnership was over. Um, and then I kind of went on my way, and so that's gonna lead into my next solo podcast, which is where I'll kind of pick back up. But in another full circle moment in 2020, when COVID hit, I reached out to the head, the owner of the Family Sleep Institute, and said, Hey, like I'm really into mindfulness and nervous system care. I use it with my pediatric sleep clients now, and I think it would really benefit the other sleep consultants to learn. And like she was doing different Zooms and different things for people during COVID, and um said, Yeah, sure, come on, be a guest speaker on one of these Wednesday Zoom, like open, open call kind of things. So I went in, I put together a little presentation on mindfulness and the nervous system and things like that, how you can apply it when coaching parents for pediatric sleep consulting, and people loved it. They were just sending in all these comments about how great it is, they love it, we want more of that. And so, long story short, there, Deb being the angel that she is, allowed me to um start teaching. So I'm now on staff there and I teach um parenting 101 and mindfulness and sleep consulting um each cohort. So a few times a year I go in and teach those classes, and then I offer a continuing education six-week series on it too. And so that was a great full circle moment because my career has so many pieces to it, but in hindsight, they all fit together so beautifully. Starting with the sleep consulting, moving into the nervous system stuff that was initiated through my personal life, and then moving into the subconscious mind and relationship coaching and codependency, um, and and weaving in that all of that, the mindfulness and nervous system and relational stuff back to pediatric sleep coaching. So that's it was really cool. Um, all the pieces really fit together in hindsight, um, and led me to really starting to focus on on my own business, on having my own business, on doing one in one and couples work almost entirely virtually, and really just focusing on the topics that I love the most and how I love supporting clients. Um, and so I'm gonna get Into that a little bit more. I guess it'll be career part three in the next solo episode where I really talk about like what my job is now, how I do my job. Um, but that's how I got here, right? That's how I got here. And I'll talk more in the next episode about the personal part of it, getting out of that other toxic, codependent relationship, um, reprogramming my entire attachment style um so that I was able to find, attract, and be attracted to like the most genuinely nice, healthy, sweetest man I've ever met that I'm now married to. Um, so thank you for listening. If you made it to the end of the episode, I appreciate it. Um, this is one of the most vulnerable posts I I remember 10 years ago on this day. Um, and for the days after, just using faith alone to kind of get me through some of those harder moments and thinking, like, will I get through this? I have to get through this. There has to be something else. Like, imagine your life 10 years from now. Like, there's so many journals I found a few months ago when I cleared out my storage unit because I would write every day and I kept all these journals, and it was like the love I have, the the endless love I have for that girl 10 years ago, like knows no bounds. And I I could read her words in these journals a few months ago, and I was like, oh my god, like if we live in a quantum universe, which I know we do, and there's some sort of parallel universe going on, and she's still at that point 10 years ago, like keep going, keep going. No matter what happens, keep going because you will get to the most amazing place. It'll be better than you can even imagine, but like you have to keep going. And you if you're open to it and you're open to learning, and you're open to feeling all of the things you have repressed and haven't wanted to feel, the right people will come. Support will come find you, like you're being held, and like what you're learning and what you're going through will serve a larger, more divine purpose than you can ever imagine. Um, and that's what I would tell her. When I read those journals, I was like, sort of heartbroken, but also just have this reverence, this reverence for that girl that fought through that, like fought through it. Um, so thank you for listening. If this resonates and you have a similar story, please reach out. You can shoot me an email, you can DM me on Instagram, but um, I I hope it resonates and I hope that it helps. Um, if your story doesn't make sense right now and you feel lost in it, and you feel riddled with anxiety and overwhelm um and stress and uncertainty and all of those things, and and life feels like a rinse and repeat that way, like know that there are other options. You don't have to live that way. Um, and if you need additional help and support, reach out. That's what I specialize in. But thank you for listening and I will see you next time.