Episode
103. Let's REWIRE...Anxiety
- Published
- Sep 29, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 1306
- Processing state
not_requested- Canonical source
- https://www.theschoolofmom.com
Actions
POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/mothering-ourselves-mindfully-7036456/episodes/103-let-s-rewire-anxiety/transcription-requests
Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/mothering-ourselves-mindfully-7036456/103-let-s-rewire-anxiety.md
Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.
Summary
In this second episode of the Let's REWIRE miniseries, I'm talking about one of my favorite topics: anxiety. What if anxiety isn't the enemy? I explain why we don't want to get rid of anxiety, why I actually worry more about people who have none, and how to tell the difference between anxiety that keeps you safe and anxiety that keeps you from living. I also share the Yale study that shows how much our own relationship with anxiety shapes our kids, a personal story about the dead trees in our yard, and the timely message about playfulness from an ancestor session that changed how I think about rumination. Key Points The anxiety pattern: thought loops, catastrophizing, rumination, and trying to get a certainty we'll probably never get Why anxiety thinks it's being responsible, and thinks you're irresponsible if you don't play out every outcome Anxiety is here on purpose. We wouldn't be alive without our ancestors' anxiety Why I'm done arguing about whether anxiety is "technically" an emotion, because it's happening in our bodies either way How anxiety lives in the sympathetic nervous system, and why staying stuck there wears us down The close relationship between anxiety, perfectionism, and the shame underneath them "We work locally and we act globally": when we work with one pattern, we work with many You're not causing your daughter's anxiety. She was born with a nervous system. What you model is how you relate to it The Yale SPACE study: training only the parents worked just as well as CBT for the anxious child Anxiety thrives on avoidance, and why over-accommodating our kids' anxiety backfires Anxiety means you care about something. Where is it pointing you? Turning anxiety into purpose and action (like finally cutting down the dead branches over our yard) The two p…