1 Big Mistake You Should Stop Making Now, How to Turn Anxiety into Excitement, & How to Avoid the Onset of Anxiety & Panic Attacks
By: Elise Pearce
Tags: Self Love, Confidence, Anxiety Relief, Panic Attack, Anxiety

1 Big Mistake You Should Stop Making Now, How to Turn Anxiety into Excitement, & How to Avoid the Onset of Anxiety & Panic Attacks

SPOLIER ALERT: you will experience increased confidence, self-worth, ease of prioritizing your time, & an expanded capacity to love yourself & others if you follow the steps outlined in this article Elise Pearce Dec 27, 2020·8 min read

Elise Pearce - Occupational Therapist, Yoga Teacher, & Mindset Coach

I was just waking up after not quite four hours of sleep. Big day today! I needed to hurry as I was heading to represent a state organization at a national conference. I has just finished getting dressed up, doing hair and make-up, and was heading to the kitchen.

My body began feeling odd.. quite uncomfortable really. What’s going on? I wondered, why am I feeling so weak?

Motivational thoughts rushed into my mind: You’re just tired, but you’ve got coffee! Just push through it. People are counting on you!

I reached for my lunch bag while reminding myself how important it was to pack this meal — not worth being limited to only the unhealthy options that will be available there.

My heart started to beat faster and faster until it felt like it was pounding obnoxiously in my chest. What’s going on? I don’t like it.

I opened the fridge and noticed it was getting harder to breathe.

What is going on with me? That inner-voice, quite faint but still present, reminded me, Focus! Pack this lunch. You’re on a tight schedule!

But I couldn’t. I couldn’t think. My breathing was getting shallower and I was having to breathe more rapidly to get enough air. That weakness then set in more persistently all over my body. I felt completely drained. Everything started to feel a bit fuzzy.

Am I having a heart attack? I struggled to go as quickly as I could through the heart attack signs and symptoms, but even that seemed to take forever. No, I don’t think it’s a heart attack. Is this.. anxiety?

There I was. Standing in the kitchen. My lunch bag in hand and just staring into the fridge. I would get waves of hurry, pack your lunch!, but I just couldn’t. I couldn’t focus. I didn’t know what to do to next in order to get lunch packed.

It’s like I was stuck in time.

This led right to my first experience of a full-blown panic attack. Unfortunately, It wasn’t my last one either.

I was determined to manage my anxiety and STOP experiencing panic attacks

I am an occupational therapist with a passion for mental health, and by that point in my life — I’d worked with hundreds of clients and helped them with anxiety! Never, though, had I experienced it myself.

I intellectually knew that I was in control of my own thoughts. I had learned so much about the brain. I’d helped so many people recover from brain injuries as well as de-escalate their own anxiety and panic attacks.

Why, then, can’t I stop my own anxiety and panic attacks from reoccurring?

My husband is a professional musician. He’s a singer and guitarist and has appeared on stages on national television performing to millions of people on multiple occasions now. He rarely gets nervous, but I knew he’d gotten nervous before these big televised shows. So finally I asked him how did he manage to calm his nerves: “Just turn the nervousness into excitement,” he would say.

“How?” I asked. “You just have to get your mind right. It’s not easy, but you can do it.” This answer of his would leave me hopeful (that if he could do it, I could do it!), yet also super frustrated — because I still didn’t know HOW to do it.

Had only I taken my husband’s advice literally at that point in my life, it would have saved me a lot of time and energy.

I Figured It Out, & I’m Sharing What I Learned

I did it, y’all! It took me years to figure out how to manage my anxiety, but I am now able to successfully de-escalated those sensations and avoid panic attacks — without medication!

I don’t want anyone to feel like there is no way out.

I want to help others get to this point in there journey in as little time as possible.