MAKING PEACE WITH ANXIETY, STRESS, AND FEAR:
How to calm all these variations of fear is one of the greatest questions I have been asking myself — both personally and professionally — over recent years. Working as a psychologist on this island of Ibiza, and sometimes feeling frightened or insecure myself, I have researched and explored this topic deeply, seeking answers first through a scientific understanding of how the nervous system functions — a subject that has always fascinated me. Studying what the stress response looks like in the body, what happens, which hormones and organs are involved, and how and why this affects our behaviour.
Being also a great lover of nature, the scientific explanation that points to an animal, instinctive response has always made profound sense to me. Because ultimately, we are human beings with ancient nervous systems that react in exactly the same way as when we were less evolved animals. I believe it is important to have this information — without necessarily going into every detail — and to let it help us understand that when our brain perceives a threat (whether real or imagined, present or anticipated in the future), our body reacts just as it did when we were animals, as though our life depended on it.
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL EXPERIENCE OF STRESS AND ANXIETY
Today, the majority of the stressors in our lives are not threats to our physical safety — but they are threats to the integrity of our ego, or the image we project to others, and therefore to their acceptance of us — or put another way, to their love for us. Which is, in reality, connected to our physical survival, because without love and emotional bonds, human beings — as the social creatures we are — cannot survive. This is why the fear of what others will think of us, or of disappointing someone, becomes for our nervous system a matter of life or death — and it reacts accordingly, as though everything were at stake.
The part of our brain that governs this reaction was one of the first to develop in our evolutionary process. It did so with one purpose: to keep us alive — to fight if we needed to and felt we could, to flee if we sensed we couldn't win, or to freeze and shut down if neither fighting nor fleeing seemed like a viable option.
This last response explains why we so often feel blocked in life without knowing why. What may be happening in many of these cases is that, depending on how we perceive the situation, we feel we cannot "FIGHT" — for example by standing up for ourselves, complaining, setting boundaries, or saying NO. But we may also feel that "RUNNING AWAY" — which would mean showing our fear, our doubts, our insecurities — leaves us in a vulnerable position where we will be judged, rejected, and so on. So if neither option feels safe, we freeze. We shut down. And much of this can happen in a fraction of a second, as our mind rapidly analyses and weighs all of this information.
In the same way, the judgements or threats we perceive may not exist directly in the present moment — but our nervous system has stored information from past experiences in which we once felt this way, and so it reacts in exactly the same manner.
I explain all of this because, beyond understanding the physiological aspect, I find it deeply interesting to explore how this translates into the psychological and bodily experience of the person living it.
If we truly understand this, we can begin to see ourselves as small creatures reacting to life based on information from past experiences — some of which we no longer even remember — and that all of this response happens in the body, instantaneously. It is from this place that we can intervene, which is why a psychocorporal — or body-centred — therapeutic approach feels so important and beneficial to me.
A COMPASSIONATE AND HUMAN APPROACH TO PSYCHOLOGY
If we can understand and observe that all of this is happening to us, perhaps we can begin by stopping judging ourselves for reacting in a natural, instinctive way — just as we don't judge ourselves when our stomach digests food or when our heart beats. Directing anger at our body for reacting and "doing the work of keeping us alive" makes no sense at all. So the first step is to recognise that a part of us — the most primitive part — is feeling fear. And that's all right. It feels fear. Let it.
If, instead of getting angry, we can look at this part of ourselves with kindness and understanding, perhaps we can begin to attend to what it actually needs.
First, by noticing what we are feeling — whether it resembles anger (perhaps tension in the jaw, the back, the hands, a rise in body temperature, and so on), or whether it resembles fear (anxiety, agitation, a knot in the stomach, a need to move or to run), or whether it feels more like shutdown (disconnection from sensations or emotions, dizziness, numbness, a sense of being elsewhere). All of these can be different expressions of a response to a perceived threat.
One approach that has been widely studied in cognitive behavioural psychology — particularly in the treatment of phobias — involves gradually exposing the person to small doses of the stressful stimulus, progressively increasing their tolerance, their sense of control, and their confidence in their own capacity.
These techniques also work through repetition: by repeatedly and safely exposing ourselves to what frightens us, the system learns and records a new experience that contradicts the original fear trigger — and the same stimulus gradually ceases to be perceived as a threat. I find this technique enormously useful for specific phobias that significantly limit a person's daily life.
However, I often find that people rarely have just one phobia. The phobia may be the most limiting thing in their day-to-day life, but their lives may equally be filled with subtler forms of fear and insecurity across many areas.
It is from a broader perspective — offered to me by Humanistic Psychology, which sees the person as a whole rather than as a collection of isolated symptoms or disorders, and in particular by Gestalt Therapy — that I find myself wanting to explore what is causing the person's nervous system to react in this way.
THE INNER CRITIC AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO THE STRESS AND ANXIETY RESPONSE
In this exploration, I often find that very fearful people — those who frequently experience stress, tension, or anxiety — share something in common beyond external stressors or traumatic experiences: a highly demanding inner critic that adds pressure to every situation involving a challenge, or any situation in which their "ego-image" might be questioned, judged, rejected, or unloved — and therefore their sense of belonging and survival feels at stake (this is how our nervous system experiences it).
This also helps us understand why, faced with the same challenge, some people respond with enthusiasm and curiosity while others experience outright panic. Perhaps those in the first group were encouraged throughout their lives and development — allowed to make mistakes, to fall, to get back up, to wet the bed, to colour outside the lines — without being judged, and without ever feeling that love or acceptance was withdrawn as a result.
Those for whom even a small challenge triggers intense internal struggle, suffering, tension, or pressure, on the other hand, tend to have a powerful internalised inner critic. At an unconscious level, they feel that what is at stake when they make a mistake is their very survival — understood as no longer being loved or accepted. This is why their system reacts with such intensity and stress, trying to control everything possible (and even the impossible) in a desperate effort to succeed — because success feels like the only thing that guarantees they will continue to exist and belong.
This may sound extreme when read on paper. And yet, for many of our nervous systems, this is precisely the programming we carry — and the experience it generates in the body is entirely real.
Our rational mind will not be able to calm fear, because the fear circuit is very primitive in evolutionary terms and does not depend on our prefrontal cortex — the part responsible for reasoning, which developed later. However, by understanding this, we may be able to connect with compassion and understanding towards ourselves, our nervous system, our body, and the way it is wired. Above all, so that we can soothe the part that adds yet more suffering — the part that judges us, criticises us, makes us feel ashamed.
This is why I believe that when working with fear, stress, and anxiety, alongside learning to relate to what stresses us in a safer way, we must also be able to recognise and quieten the part of us that criticises and judges us — and which, in many cases, represents the real threat.
This is why part of the therapeutic process — as I understand psychology — involves receiving the frightened part of ourselves with compassion and without judgement, pressure, or threat. As we might with a small animal, or a young child: listening to its fear, soothing it, accompanying it, and helping it feel safe.
SAFETY AND TRUST AS ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS IN THE TREATMENT OF STRESS AND ANXIETY
SAFETY is one of the key aspects of managing fear, stress, and anxiety. But how do we make ourselves feel safe? And how do we do that if we never had a model to follow?
This is where a psychotherapeutic process is, in my view, enormously valuable. The therapist can offer a new model — one that receives mistakes with compassion rather than judgement, that can gently bring awareness to what is happening without the person feeling diminished. A model for learning to treat yourself with kindness rather than criticism.
This, alongside other therapeutic approaches, can help the person gradually practise treating themselves with understanding, support, warmth, positive inner dialogue, and self-trust — encouraging themselves rather than criticising, and so on.
When we transform the critical, judging part into one that encourages, we reduce the degree of internal threat — and that original, instinctive, "immature" part can begin to feel safe, and to trust that another, more "adult and mature" part will take care of it, protect it, and support it through whatever arises, regardless of the outcome. As a result, reactivity to events, decisions, and the reactions of others gradually diminishes.
This is also why TRUST becomes another vitally important element. For our system to trust us, we must show it that it can. That means:
Treating ourselves with warmth, understanding, and compassion.
Accompanying ourselves through the process, giving ourselves permission to feel and express whatever we are feeling.
Supporting the recognition and expression of our truth in each moment.
Reminding ourselves of all the resources we already have. Reminding ourselves of all the times we have managed, succeeded, and come through.
Reminding ourselves that there are resources, forms of support, and solutions we don't yet know about — and that they may be available to us.
Supporting ourselves through the process and, above all, committing to being supportive and understanding with ourselves if things don't go as we'd hoped. This is so, so important. Whatever happens, we will be there for ourselves. We will be our own best teammates.
Only then can our system truly relax — knowing it is not jumping into the void, but that there is an inner net of support and love that will hold it at every step.
What we do in these psychotherapy sessions is offer you a model, and help you build that net — so that you can extend it into your everyday life.