When your world feels like it’s crashing down and panic takes over, how do you find your footing? In this episode, Shelby shares practical tools and mindset shifts for alienated parents facing sudden bad news, helping you move from overwhelm to grounded resilience.

Main Talking Points

• Why panic and catastrophizing are common for alienated parents (3:00)
• Understanding trauma responses and the “doom spiral” (3:30–6:00)
• Separating fact from story: how your mind creates suffering (6:40–7:00)
• Immediate grounding techniques for moments of crisis (8:00–10:00)
• Scheduling “worry time” to regain control (10:20)
• Cognitive reframes: giving equal airtime to positive, negative, and neutral outcomes (12:00)
• How setbacks can actually mean movement and new opportunities (16:00)
• Lessons from Eckhart Tolle’s “The Power of Now” on living in the present (19:40)
• Letting go of problem-identity and reclaiming your power (21:25)
• Building emotional resilience and self-compassion (29:00–end)

Notable Quotes

• “Catastrophizing happens because your brain is trying to create safety through certainty—even if that certainty is negative.” (5:20)
• “Trauma can confuse fact versus story. The story you tell yourself today is what causes the wound now.”(4:20)
• “It is impossible to have a problem when your attention is placed in the moment.” —Eckhart Tolle (20:50)
• “Setbacks also mean movement. Any new news means new opportunities, new possibilities, new choices for you.” (19:15)
• “There are no problems unless you create them for yourself by taking them on as yours.” (27:00)

Key Takeaways for Alienated Parents

• When bad news hits, your brain’s panic is a normal trauma response—acknowledge it, but don’t let it take over.
• Separate the facts from the stories your mind creates. Write them down to see the difference.
• Use grounding techniques: focus on your body, deep breathing, and the 5-4-3-2-1 senses exercise to return to the present.
• Schedule a specific “worry time” so anxiety doesn’t dominate your day.
• Give equal attention to possible positive and neutral outcomes, not just the worst-case scenario.
• Remember: setbacks often bring new options and movement, even if they feel like the end at first.
• Embrace the present moment—most suffering comes from living in imagined futures, not the now.
• You are not failing if you get triggered; the real skill is pausing, grounding, and choosing your next step with clarity.

Episode Transcript

 You are listening to The Beyond The High Road Podcast with Shelby Milford, episode number 164. Stay tuned.

  📍 📍 Welcome to Beyond the High Road, a podcast dedicated to healing your heart and life following the grief of alienation. I'm your host, Shelby Milford, a twice certified life coach specializing in post-traumatic growth. If you're experiencing the effects of alienation and you're ready to heal, then this show is my love letter to you.

Stay tuned. 

Hey guys, what's happening today? Happening this week, y'all. Today we're gonna be talking about and jumping right in. Um, we're gonna be talking about when the shit hits the fan. Um, I want, I'm bringing this up today because I don't know that it's gonna be super long.

I'm, I do have a rough outline and then I have some notes and I've got a couple quotes that I wanna read to you. but I, I wanna. Talk about this with you today because it seems like, well, it's the holiday ish. We're getting, we're approaching the holidays season here, and I know that there probably are more family events going on, also because the courts are usually pretty much useless.

Between in the United States anyway, between Thanksgiving ish, a little bit beforehand through the new year, you know, and then outside of the, the US I'm not so sure about. But this just seems to be the time of year when the shit kind of hits the fan.  It this morning.

I had, um. Two clients that were going through some stuff like in their minds, like 9 1 1, emergency, going on bad news or news, I, I should say, there was another one the end of last week, there's just been a lot. It feels like there's been some, emotions running high, and so today I wanna talk about the moments when everything feels like it suddenly changes. You know, like when the therapist drops a bombshell, or the courts throw a curve ball your way  You get some kind of news that you were dun, dun, dun scared of getting. 

The second that something materializes, there's some new news, maybe there's no news all of a sudden, and what you're doing in your brain is like  panic.

catastrophizing worrying,  your stomach is doing. rollercoasters loops,  what do you actually do when it all hits the fan? most of us, I know for me, before I had these tools, I would freak out. I would spend days, weeks, sometimes longer in freak out mode. 

You know, and we just came off talking about, um, drama and chaos, right? And so I know I gave you all those tools, but I want to make this episode.  And please, if you haven't listened to any of the Drama Chaos episodes, it might be really helpful for you to do so.  I give you tools at the end of each episode when one of them I'm giving you cognitive tools and another one I'm actually giving you grounding tools, and exercises to calm your nervous system.

But here, I wanna just address when the shit hits the fan. This is more, I would like it to be a resource for you to come to like when something happens, as opposed to the ongoing drama.  So usually when we get some sort of email, some message, some news coming our way, we immediately go into catastrophizing, 

what if this, what if that, what about this? Oh my gosh, this means blank, blank, blank for the rest of time with my kiddo. Or this doesn't mean, or I'm never gonna see them again. You know how that goes.   so let's talk about trauma responses and why catastrophizing happens. Alienated, estranged parents,  we are primed for fight, fight or flight, even after predicting an event. Our nervous system, the, the nervous system in general, still treats it like a catastrophe. 

Because it reactivates old wounds and chronic stress, old unprocessed wounds  there I, the way that I'm saying that I'm already wanting to argue with, because old wounds let's just say unprocessed wounds. I have a problem with like old pain when people say, oh, I've got a bunch of old pain, or I've got old wounds.

Because really in the now and today, there are no old wounds. There's just stuff that maybe has been unprocessed in the past, but it's the story that you're telling yourself today that is actually causing the wound and today,   But anyway, so even after, because we're so prime for fight or flight.  When a negative event occurs, the mind leaps to worst case scenarios. Catastrophizing fortune telling and telling yourself,  it's all over, or I'm losing hope.

I'm gonna give up. Fuck this. Basically, what is this all for? None of this is working.  That's what the brain will go to. And it does this. Let me just say right now that that   📍 📍 doom spiral, it's just your brain trying to create safety for you because it feels unsafe, because the the future.

what we don't know up there feels so unsafe and uncertain. So now that doom spiral is your brain's way of trying to create safety through some sort of certainty,  right? Like, this is gonna happen. That's gonna happen. I'm gonna lose hope. This the whole thing's blown up. Why did I even try?

None of this works anyway, that's a way to be certain. In a negative sense so that your brain avoids whatever pain might be if it actually doesn't work. So it just sort of calls it out beforehand ahead of time. Do you know what I'm saying? But what that end ends up doing is you guys probably already know, is that , sell yourself short.

You cut yourself off before. Like the miracle happens, or before you follow it through and see what happens.  And by the way, what are you judging as working or not working? We've talked about that before, right? Like when you're telling yourself all my efforts there for nothing.

None of this is working. What do you mean none of this is working? Have you not grown during it? What? What are you using to judge as like the baseline? 

Because that will send you into always into loops because if it's just not working, nothing's working, then of course it's easy to cut yourself off. But maybe if you look back you task your mind to look at what has been working, you notice that a lot of things have actually changed for you, and maybe you're not.

Tasking your brain to seeing all the possibilities that might be open up even from whatever bad news comes. Okay? So trauma can confuse fact versus story,  fact, which is what is actually happening, the, the neutral events of the circumstance versus the story that you create about it,  

Doing so will make it hard for you to focus on the real evidence when you emotions run high because you're too busy, like living into the future. You've already gone all the way up to how everything is gonna end in your mind. Probability is trying to create certainty and safety, right? So, it makes sense. The whole reason I just said all that stuff is catastrophizing happens. It makes sense that you do it or that your brain offers it to you because it's a way for it to create an environment of knowing. But that knowing is actually painful for you. And it's not actually real knowing.

It's all just made up. It's a facade. It's like masquerading as some sort of truth, but many, many, many times it's not, you know, your predictions. I, me,

I'm gonna jump right now into your immediate tools. And interrupting the spiral. It's really helpful for you guys if you are got the news and all of a sudden you're,   📍 📍 📍 📍 📍 oh shit. Oh my gosh, this is exactly what I didn't want to happen. This means yada, yada, yada. When you start on that, I want you to drop into your body and notice the physical sensations that are happening, 

and turn, whatever stories you have. Let them float away for just a few moments.   📍 📍 📍 📍 📍 Bring yourself into the present

notice your feet on the ground. Maybe stomp, clench your fist clench and release your fist, maybe shake your hands like I talked about in one of recent episode.   📍 📍 📍 📍 📍 Shake your hands and look in a mirror. You can go ahead and state out your worries while you're doing this.

Set a timer for five minutes. And you're reciting to yourself, making eye contact with yourself in the mirror, what you believe the problem is right now. 

And then after your time is up. When the catastrophic thought hits again, which it will  📍 📍 📍 📍 📍 say it out loud if you can audibly, but say, stop and then name your thoughts. I'm having the thought that blank, blank, blank, whatever your thought is. This is a story that I have created in order to.

Cultivate a sense of safety or whatever. This is the story I'm telling myself based on past evidence, but then stop yourself and don't go off onto another tangent. Okay? You can also say, this is a thought error.

 This is a thought that I'm thinking coming from unprocessed trauma. This is common. It's normal. My brain is actually braining in, the proper way. It's doing exactly what it's I've told it to do from the past, and now it doesn't work for us anymore.   📍 📍 📍 📍 📍 then you can use any of the grounding techniques that I've talked about before in any of the, the most recent episodes you can use deep breathing. Doing that alone, which is mindless to just take a deep breath in. Hold the breath for count. Exhale longer than your inhales, will always bring you back to the present moment and calm your nervous system.

It's the easiest one you can do. And then 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. senses, exercise. And then you can do, um, box breathing. Inhale for four. Hold for four, exhale for four, and then inhale. Exhale for four. If you wanna do that, this will help you to reregulate yourself and bring you back into the present moment.

  📍 📍 📍 📍 You can schedule your worry time. I've talked about this before, like once a day, depending on how much is going on for you, whether that's once a day, but you tell your brain, tell your body, Hey, listen. I know that right now we have all these stories about what might happen in the future, or  try to figure out what's gonna happen next because our brains will believe that it's so important to figure out the what's next.

Actually, not that planning isn't important, but I promise you that figuring out what's next when you're in that worry state, you have never actually figured it out. And I'm gonna explain that here in a second. But, so you don't wanna spend all of your time throughout your day worrying because when you worry, notice what you do and what you don't do from that place.

Whatever thought that's causing you to feel worried will end up probably paralyzing you, keeping you in a standstill, Of going back and looking at your past and basing your future on what's happened in the past and keeping you at in a shutdown, and it's, it's causing more pain inside of you, so you won't actually get anything really done. But if you schedule your worry time, then your brain can't really have any objections because it's already taken care of. Like, nope. Our worry section is actually at 5:00 PM today when we're done with all of the other stuff, and it's for.

Five minutes, 10 minutes, whatever you wanna set. 10 minutes is kind of long. Actually, I would even just say five minutes. We're going to address all this stuff at 5:00 PM or whatever time you decide. And then that way you, your brain is really what it is. Doesn't feel like it's getting shorted or it's not gonna have the objection.

Like, you need to figure this out. Now. You know you're taking care of that.  📍 📍

Alright, so fact versus story. move in quickly today. I wanna talk about your cognitive reframes. When you're in the, oh shit, the world is crashing around you place,   📍 📍 📍 📍 📍 take five minutes to write down the facts. What has actually transpired? What's actually happened,

  📍 then you write your story so what actually happened? Bullet points. Then write down the story, the predictions, the fears, your interpretations. Write that somewhere else and notice if there's in the facts, if there's any inflection, tone, adjectives. I mean, I would pull out all the adjectives and leave it To the Very, very basic because that'll help you. Otherwise, most adjectives when we're doing this exercise will be activating and they actually then add to a, a story rather than being factual. Okay, so write down both of those and compare the two.  And then ask yourself, what real evidence do I have that this could get worse? 

Now when I say this, I know that many of us are like, look at what's happened before. I couldn't predict that. I would never have predicted all of this craziness happening. And so of course your brain now wants to work overtime to consider all the options. Options that maybe seem so  out of this world crazy. whatever might happen. because you thought that, and we all thought that alienation was so out of the realm of possibility, So I get it, but

when you're only focused on the dun, dun, dun, really negative side of things, then again, notice what you get done, what you don't get done, and how you behave from that place. When we're acting, coming from fear or thinking like sort of looping on fear, it usually doesn't work out well for us.

We usually go into a place of panic and then either overly act and do something that we regret or we don't act, and we regret that. Okay, so instead, what evidence do I have? This will get worse, and what else could happen? What might happen, perhaps something else could happen or perhaps nothing happens, you know?

I've talked about giving equal airtime. Like if you're gonna spend five minutes in the negative, then spend five minutes in the positive and maybe five minutes in the gray area that you, of things you just really haven't even considered yet.

Who, who knows? You know, there's neutrals that could happen, or like the nothingness, you know, maybe nothing happens. How could that be good for me? So the reason I talk about the 50 50 and giving equal airtime to both sides is first off, then you're not just living only in the negative, but also so many times that what we perceive as some huge setback. In the beginning when it first happens, we're like, oh my gosh, this is the worst case scenario.

Can't believe this happened. This just means I'm gonna lose hope. This means that everything's screwed. What was all my effort for la, la, la? All that stuff, right? Because we're coming from, like I was talking about from the beginning, we're coming from trauma brain. That maybe still haven't fully processed through things.

So it's immediate reaction. It's always ready to go off and switch right over into catastrophe mode, you know, makes sense but oftentimes those setbacks, they seem like setbacks at first can also mean movement. Any sort of stop or shift. , Is going to promote change, and it's also going to bring on, with change comes new options, new possibilities, and oftentimes coming from trauma, we don't consider that because that's the unknown and what, it's all gonna be bad,  but what if it's not?

What if this change this? What seems to be the worst thing ever? Like, um,  this morning, of my clients, , she had gotten, an email from the reunification therapist and reunification therapist said, you know what? In fact, I met with. One of your kids and, it did not go well.

he was not cooperating. And so I'm gonna go ahead and. Make my assessment, the written assessment and submit that to the judge and I probably won't be able to.  she's taking herself off the case basically, which I read the email that was sent to her and I was like,  fantastic movement, because otherwise they were gonna sit in this little reunification dance for the next year, is what the therapist was saying  until she could get some progress under the belt of her son.

And mom. But who knows whether that was gonna happen and it was going, it's all up in the air and really, dependent on whether the sun wanted to cooperate. We already knew he didn't. Right?  So to me, this was like great news. Okay, she's cutting this short doing mom. A favor doing everybody a favor, and now she's gonna go submit her assessment to the judge and the judge isn't gonna take that lightly. 

I'm not saying that every judge, we don't know what the judge is gonna do with it, but because this is now, therapist is put an into this  now mom is gonna have a different set of choices in front of her. About what to do next. she's not gonna be in limbo for all this time.  So where my client was like, forget it, nothing's working.

I'm losing hope. I'm never gonna see my son. I was like, you know, that may not be the case here. Like it could be jumping the gun. And even if it was the case, even if none of this was working, you know, with the therapist and with whatever, and even if she , isn't gonna see her son for a little while.

Nothing is ever really forever, you know, and nothing is so bad.  And I know this is our children we're talking about. I know because I've been here before and every day, every week, every month is a month longer that you haven't seen your kid. And if your kids are young, I know this because I was, this happened with me.

from the time that my daughter was, really four, until. She left at nine. There were always these threats. And there any time spent away from her, especially when they were trying to keep me from her, I was missing out on big milestones and big things, and it was really scary, you know? And so I want you to know that I completely understand that.

But when I was in the spiral. Nothing is working. This is all crazy. Nobody's helping me. I can't get answers, all of that. It caused me to act out in ways that I now can look back on and say, Hmm, I probably could have, uh, found my power way earlier on. It's okay that I didn't, I needed to go through what I went through in order to get here and speak with you guys today.

But also I created a lot of suffering for myself. I didn't have to all because I was jumping the gun on my own situations. My own dun, dun dun 9 1 1. You know?  And so in the moment, stop and remind yourself, as I just reminded you a second ago,   📍 📍 that setbacks also mean movement. So if you've been in this waiting game that any new news means new opportunities, new possibilities, new choices for you,  so the other day I started well, I guess it's been a couple weeks ago now. I wanted to reread a book that I read a while this some years ago, back when I was in Texas. the reason I wanted to reread it is because when I was, the space I was in back then, I was not able to.

Hold my attention to something for long periods of time. And so it was a difficult read then for me. But it's Eckhart Tolle's book the Power of Now. And I know a lot of his work 'cause I've watched a lot of his videos and I've read other things from him. But sitting to actually read or listen to either one, and I actually am doing both for this, was so difficult back then.

So I came back and I've been listening to. Power of now again. And it's amazing how many things are setting in and how simple some of his, concepts really are. Especially when we're talking about the power of now. The book itself and the whole concept. I was maybe it was last week or the week before I was talking about it, but   📍 📍 when we're living in the future, we.

Take steal today from ourselves, right? And in the future is all things that are nothing that we can do about now. And so  when we're worrying about the future, we create suffering for ourselves, And so I wanna read you. most of it is direct quote, and some of it is a little bit paraphrased just to shorten it so I could get the point across to you guys, but I'm gonna read you an excerpt, from his book. Okay.  It is impossible to have a problem when your attention is placed in the moment, a situation that needs to be dealt with or accepted.

Sure. Why make it into a problem though? The mind unconsciously loves problems because they give you an identity of sorts. this is normal and it's insane.   📍 📍 A problem means that you're dwelling on a situation mentally without there being a possibility or intention of taking action now, and that you are unconsciously making it a part of your sense of self. 

So  claiming that you have problems or this is a problem in your life, you may as well just bring it on, tuck it in your back pocket permanently, and make it part of you. It brings on this identity like I'm an alienated parent. I am suffering. I've been suffering at the hand of my ex. These are problems that we put onto ourselves, and I don't mean to trivialize what's going on with you, but I want to help you to solve your suffering in the moment what something comes up, when you make a problem out of it, you end up taking that on as yours.

And when we're talking about the actions of the alienating parent, I know that you don't wanna take them on as yours, as your property. Do you hear what I'm saying? So it would be really helpful for you, hopefully if that, uh, resonates with you. You don't want that to happen, for you to not deem anything as some problem.

That is yours. 

So you become so overwhelmed with your life situation. I'm continuing now. Back to Eckhart Toll. You become so overwhelmed with your life situation that you'll lose your sense of life, of being, because you're so focused on up there or back there or over there, that you lose your sense of living, being in your own life.

You're carrying the burden of a million things that you will or may have to do in the future instead of focusing your attention on the one thing that you can do now, when you create a problem, you create pain. All it takes is one choice. No matter what happens, I will create no more pain for myself, I will create no more problems.

He goes on to say, although this is a simple shift, it's also very radical.  To say, you know what? Forget it. I'm not gonna take any problems on it anymore. The no, nothing has to be a problem anymore. Instead, I'm going to deal with what I need to deal with in the moment when it happens, which is very radical, right?

But it also simplifies. Everything so that you don't make it your business to worry about what the ex is doing or what that they might do, or how they're thinking about you or what's going on. Now, it's one thing to make plans a plan of action, right? For what might happen in the future. But when you do that in the now, because you're proclaim, okay, I'm going to deal with this situation, this is are the possible ways that I would do it.

Coming from calm energy presence, and it's another thing to have that rushed. I need to get it done now. I gotta figure it out. I gotta do what I gotta do because that is causing you suffering. Okay?   Eckhart goes on to say. You won't make that choice unless you are truly fed up with suffering. Okay? If you create no more pain for yourself, then you create no more pain for others. You'll also no longer contaminate the beautiful Earth.

And I paraphrase that with the negativity of problem making. Okay? So the buck stops here. If you decide that you're not going to create problems and you're not gonna,

perpetuate any more suffering for yourself and take on, decide that what they are doing is causing you suffering. Instead, what they're doing is. Them squawking over there, right? And I know that I'm oversimplifying this, but I'm doing this on purpose. When they make noise, they write emails, they, whatever.

You could just picture that as them squawking them doing them because of the thoughts that they're thinking, okay? And then that way you're free, your mind and your whole body up. You create space to act in the now without that emotional tie, like that rope that's pulling you as if they're, puppeting you because of whatever they're squawking about.

You don't have to be attached to them anymore if you don't want or attached to anything outside of you anymore that you don't wanna be. Nobody else needs to dictate your emotional, health, your emotional being.

He goes on to say, like, think about any real problems that, I'm gonna paraphrase most of this, but, um, in life or death situations, the mind stops and something infinitely more powerful takes over. If you're like . In immediate danger, right? A car is coming at you, um, and you're walking on the sidewalk.

You're gonna know what to do most of the time and you're not really thinking your instinct something bigger than you takes over. You're not up in your head thinking about it. And when you were walking on the sidewalk before, you weren't thinking about all the ways that cars could hit you, but in the moment you will know what to do, you will get out of the way.

He says, this is why you hear reports of normal people carrying out the most courageous deeds during true emergency. Right. They're normal everyday people that do superhero things that you would never even think about because they didn't have time to think themselves, and he says, I've paraphrased this in any emergency. You either survive or you don't. Either way, it's not a problem.

Regardless, in those real life situations, you're just acting on instinct and acting probably coming from something much bigger than you and energy that takes over you. Do you know what I'm saying? Like that superhero sort of energy.

So remember that to all my overthinkers out there who feel like they can think their way out of all of their problems, there are no problems unless you create them for yourself by taking them on as yours. Otherwise, there are things that go on, and you can either, accept it or you can deal with it. Those are really the two options. Do I need to deal with this or do I just need to accept whatever it is that I'm saying I don't like, or that is emergency? It's one of the two. It doesn't have to be your problem that you take on in the moment.

How do I behave here? And that frees you up for the next moment and the next moment. So that's basically what I just described to you there in the, what I read from Eckhart Toll's book is you building emotional resilience by embracing from his book the Power of the Now. Letting go of all that happened before all that might happen later, and focusing right here, right now, so that you can be in each moment, be truly there and free of all of the chatter, all of the noise up in your brain that presents all of these problems to you.

This morning, my client's email that she received. It, it doesn't have to be a problem. In fact, in my mind, it's a, it's a plus. You know, like I said, new opportunities, new choices, movement is happening with the case. Now. We're finally going back to the judge. They are, you know, so something is going to materialize that's different than what we've been getting, what she's been getting.

You know? So you, you don't have to make it a problem. You don't have to make it the end of the world, the end of the relationship, the end of anything. Right. Most of the time when something happens and we feel like our, the shit's hitting the fan or the world's crashing down around us, it's just because of the stories that our brain is offering us coming from trauma, and you can remind yourself of that in the moment to ground you.

Okay,

So that's pretty much it, but I just wanna remind you that you have some compassion and self-compassion and. Like enter a space of curiosity become the watcher of your thoughts.

Like, imagine yourself, like get real meta. Imagine a tiny version of you sitting down in a movie theater seat with a thing of popcorn. Uh, legs kicked up, feet kicked up, and watching your thoughts as they come up for you. Right? Well, that's interesting. This is what my mind offering me right now.

It's saying that this is the end that I need to lose. Hope that we're not gonna have a relationship anymore it doesn't have to be the truth, the end all be all, or a big deal. It's just a story that my mind is creating, coming from trauma. It's not that you're failing when you get triggered too.

This is not wrong that you've gotten quote unquote triggered or that you're activated, right? Your mind and body are acting and doing exactly what they've learned to do based on whatever's happened in your past. You are using tools and you've equipped yourself with the 9 1 1 emergency. Protocol that isn't working for you anymore. Likely, you know the real skill is learning to pause Ground yourself and choose your next step with more clarity and less fear. And you do that by bringing yourself to, right now, becoming the active participant, listener, watcher.

Of you and your own thoughts and the stories that you're telling yourself. Okay? Picture yourself kicking back and watching you in a very curious, fascinated sort of way. Okay? Not like the peanut gallery or anything. So the questions I'll leave you with is, after a crisis, if it's even a crisis at all, or after some sort of event, which facts can you prove?

What stories did your mind create and how did your body respond in the moment? What actions did you take after you told yourself the story? So did those stories ever come true? I'm sure there will be times where you're like, yeah, they absolutely did, and it ruined my life. But did it ruin your life?

You know, did it. Here you are. Here you are. And who's to say What you're gonna create coming from here forward, especially if you start embracing the power of now. Okay, so shit will blow up in all of our lives again, and it's gonna feel like it anyway, but that just means change. That just means something else is around the corner.

It doesn't have to be the end. All right? So. Lemme know if you have any questions. Please, please always, as always, reach out with any requests that you might have for any future episodes, any stories or, or questions, any follow up at all, shoot me an email. Okay? And that's all I have for you. Y'all have a lovely week.

Talk to you later. Bye-bye.

 Thanks so much for listening today. If you like what you're hearing and you'd like to hear more, please make sure to click subscribe wherever you're listening or watching. Also, for bite-sized clips and tips, be sure to find me on TikTok or Instagram. See you next week.

Timestamps

• 0:00 – Introduction & why this topic matters
• 3:00 – When panic hits: real-life examples
• 4:20 – Trauma, catastrophizing, and the “doom spiral”
• 8:00 – Grounding techniques for immediate relief
• 10:20 – Scheduling your worry time
• 12:00 – Fact vs. story: cognitive reframes
• 16:00 – Setbacks as movement and opportunity
• 19:40 – Lessons from “The Power of Now”
• 21:25 – Letting go of problem-identity
• 29:00 – Building resilience and self-compassion

• • 32:00 – Closing thoughts & resources