When Panic Hits

Back in the day, a panic attack could hijack me at any time.

I’d be in a perfectly safe place and suddenly, something would hit that my whole being registered as immediate danger.

With my heart racing, my thinking would narrow into a dense fog. Then my body would flood with a cascade of fear.

Panic tsunami.

That’s why, the other night, re-watching the sensational film “Gravity” hit me hard. It brought up those horrible memories but also reminded me of the vital skills I learned to move beyond panic attacks.  I eventually learned that having reliable practices for calming anxiety was the only way to find my way back to safety when those waves hit.

In the film, there’s a moment where Sandra Bullock’s astronaut character is spinning… breathless, disoriented – fighting the urge to completely lose it.

You can almost feel her nervous system screaming: This is it! You’re done!

And for a beat, panic is right there, ready to take the wheel. (I’ve added the preview video at the end of this, if you want to take a look.)

What moved me wasn’t that she never panics. She does.

But what struck me is that she doesn’t stay captured by it. It’s a master lesson in bringing yourself back from the edge.

She keeps finding the smallest thread of steadiness… the next breath, the next task, the next choice.

Watching her claw her way back from the edge reminded me of what panic really is: not weakness, not drama, but a survival system firing at full volume.

And it reminded me how life-changing it is to learn how to work with that panic surge instead of being flattened by it.

I’ve had students who told me they were afraid to take my courses because the fear/anxiety emotion was always so close to the surface… lurking, waiting for a triggering surge.

It is a scary proposition but, at the same time, it’s an elegant call for learning new skills. New skills that strengthen and condition the nervous system.

When someone tells me they long to release the fear and panic that visits them frequently (often daily) but are unsure they have the wherewithal to move through it, I make the analogy of building up your muscles. You may be weak in the beginning and lifting even the tiniest bit of weight exhausting and causing acute muscle soreness.

But as you keep at it, the muscles grow strong and you achieve a balanced confidence that your body is responding.

Now let’s switch it over to your weakling nervous system.

The “weight” you’re lifting in this scenario is often meeting the distressing experiences that have haunted you for years, if not decades.

And this is where most people either avoid training completely, or go straight for the heaviest thing they’ve got.

Of course that last thing feels impossible. Because it has to be a gradual process – just like building muscle.

A nervous system that’s been living on high alert does not need you to force bravery. It needs training. It needs structure. It needs repetition. It needs a way to meet intensity without being taken out by it. It helps to start by understanding your nervous system and how it responds to perceived threats.

In my emotions work, we start with something surprisingly unglamorous: emotional literacy. If you cannot name what you’re feeling, you can’t work with it.

When fear is just a foggy monster, it wins by default. But when you can say, “this is fear,” you’ve already created a small pocket of space inside the storm. Your thinking mind comes online. You orient. You have a foothold.

This is where the “weight training” analogy becomes practical. You don’t start by throwing yourself into your biggest trigger and hoping for the best.

You start by building capacity in small, tolerable increments. You meet sensation. You name it. You stay with it for a little longer than you normally would. You learn the difference between discomfort and actual danger. You learn how to come back.

That last part matters. Coming back.

And this is why I love the scenes in Gravity where Sandra Bullock’s character is activated beyond what most of us will ever experience. Her fear makes sense. It belongs. But she doesn’t let fear become the only voice in the room. She keeps doing something that is deeply instructive: she orients.

In psychological terms, that is regulation. In spiritual terms, that is returning to presence.

In survival terms, that is staying alive.

In real life, your “catastrophe” might not be spinning in space. It might be a conversation with your partner that suddenly triggers a flood of fear.

It might be a public space that makes your body feel trapped.

It might be an email, a phone call, a memory, a tone of voice.

The nervous system doesn’t always distinguish between now and then. It reacts to what it recognizes.

So the question becomes: can you stay steady enough to recognize what’s happening while it’s happening?

One of the key markers of emotional mastery is not that you never get activated. It’s that you notice sooner, and you recover faster.

We train the ability to stay present inside intensity. The ability to let emotion move, without letting it drive.

And when we add expanded awareness practices, and for some people, carefully integrated plant medicine within a disciplined framework, the work can go deeper. Material that has been locked away can finally be met, processed, and released.

This is what people don’t realize about panic: it’s often not only fear in the moment. It’s accumulated fear. It’s old unfinished stress. It’s the body holding too much for too long.

So if you’re reading this and thinking, Yes, that’s me. I’ve lived with that fog. That surge. That helplessness. I want you to hear this clearly:

You are not weak.
You are untrained in a very specific way.
And training is possible.

The goal isn’t to become fearless. The goal is to become steady. To be the one inside your own experience who can say, “I’m here. I know what this is. I can work with it. I can come back.”

That’s the moment your nervous system stops running your life and starts working for you.

That’s a skill.

Later this month in my online complimentary Elevation Ceremony, we’ll work directly with fear and learn how to meet it skillfully rather than be hijacked by it.

Join me for details and registration here.

With Love,

Becca

P.S. If the intensity of life lately has you more stirred up than usual, and fear has reached a crescendo, this is a beautiful place to begin to soften it. Read more about it and register here.