A few weeks ago, someone pointed out to me that while I often share insights through newsletters and social media, I rarely talk about the actual results of doing the practices I recommend. And she was right. I haven’t actively shared that part of the journey. I’m not even sure why, but I’m grateful it was pointed out to me.

As I’ve been struggling these past few days, I realized this is the perfect moment to share, not from a place of perfection, but from the middle of it. Because the truth is, the work we do is not a quick fix. It’s simple, yes. But it’s not easy. In fact, it’s some of the hardest work you’ll ever do, yet the most rewarding.

Years ago, I was someone who suffered from severe panic attacks and anxiety. I was on antidepressants, and every time a difficult period came, I would spiral again. I couldn’t stand in line at the store. I couldn’t walk down the street without feeling like I was in a war zone, always on high alert, like bombs were about to go off around me. It was one of the scariest places I’ve ever been.

It took me nearly a decade to overcome the panic attacks. The anxiety lingered longer. It would vanish for a while and then suddenly reappear. I had no understanding of what was happening, and I perceived to be powerless.

Even as the panic attacks faded, I lived with this underlying anxiety coming and going, a hypervigilant energy in my body. I experienced the perceptions that something was about to happen, and I was constantly in my head. I couldn’t sit still. I was always running, trying to escape the feeling, keeping myself busy with ten things at once. Eventually, I would crash. Burned out, sick, and exhausted. I was not consciously living in my body.

Seven or eight years ago, something began to shift through different practices I had learned. I began to understand that real healing didn’t come from outside of me, but from creating space to meet myself more fully. Not by analysing or fixing, but by slowing down, turning inward, and simply feeling, sensations, and then slowly emotions. And that path isn’t paved with quick fixes. It takes consistent, daily practice: grounding, spending time in nature, journaling, softening, slowing down, not running, and learning to accept all parts of yourself, whilst unlearning old survival mechanisms. This is also why therapy is so important.

Our bodies give us messages throughout the day, and if we can receive those messages with curiosity and compassion, life becomes so much easier.

For me, the healing didn’t come from reacting to the panic, that never did any good. It came from creating space after the trigger. Learning to recognize the trigger. Learning to pause, and to be with whatever sensation came up without trying to figure it out. Staying in my body, not in my mind.

As Viktor Frankl said, between stimulus and response there is a pause. And in that pause lies our freedom.

But how do we find this pause? How do we recognize our triggers?

I did it all. Compassionate Inquiry, IFS, mindfulness, meditation, prayer, various therapies, yoga, countless ceremonies. But the most profound shift came from the simple, mindful grounding practices I returned to again and again, especially when combined with therapy.

The biggest change came from creating a small pause. Over time, that pause grew larger and more spacious. Within it, I began to discover the thoughts, emotions, and patterns that had been driving my reactions.

And in that awareness, I found freedom. The ability to choose. To either react from a trigger, or recognize it and work with it.

Because, as we know, 99 percent of our triggers have very little to do with others, and much more to do with our own past experiences.

Grounding looks different for everyone. There isn’t just one way, because we’re all different.

For me, it began with being alone in nature. Becoming aware of the sounds of birds, the smell of grass, the touch of my feet on the earth. I am forever grateful to my therapist at the time. After I shared this experience with her, excited that I had found the answer, she gently asked me whether I was using nature to escape, like one can do in meditation. Slightly disappointed, I returned to nature with mindfulness attention, and learned that even in nature, I was not present at all. To be honest, it was quite shocking to learn. I started to make tea, and just sit in a field in Malta, really focussing on being present with feeling, and what felt completely alien to me at the start, became a constant present that I still can return to.

That’s how I started grounding myself. Slowly, consistently. And now, after years of practice, I can ground even while speaking with others. I know some of you have seen me do this in sessions. And I can honestly say, it’s the greatest gift I’ve ever given myself. One I deeply wish for others to discover too.

For someone who used to live in anxious energy, always running, this is a massive change. That’s why I’m sharing this now. Because I know many of you struggle in similar ways.

Lately, I’ve felt that familiar burnout energy again. Not extreme, but present. I noticed the clenching of my jaw, a slight breathlessness, the hypervigilance. It’s been a mix of moving house, attending a retreat, and personal inner processes that have come up. I’ve been tired and emotional, with a heavy feeling in my chest. But now I know this too shall pass. It’s part of the process.

Still, I was activated. I needed to pause.

Right now, I’m sitting beside a body of water. There are birds around me, trees, a group of curious cows. I feel the sun on my skin, the scent of the river in the air. I slow my breath, and the anxiety lifts. I give it space. I let the energy move through me. And I remember I’ve crossed some of my own boundaries recently. I’ve done too much. And that’s okay. Sometimes life asks more of us, and we step up. What matters is having the awareness, and the pause, to return to ourselves.

What’s different now is I don’t identify with the anxiety. I don’t give it all my power. I observe it. I don’t shame it. I breathe through it.

That’s the magic. The power of the pause. That sacred space between trigger and response. That’s where your freedom is.

So if there’s one thing I could recommend to anyone on this path, it’s this: learn the power of the pause. Ground yourself. Go inward. Taking responsibility for your inner world with curiosity and compassion. Don’t seek quick fixes. Seek your truth.

Even today, just an hour before recording this, I felt that anxious energy very strongly. And now, standing here, I feel peaceful. Almost meditative. If you’d told me twenty years ago that I’d be able to do this, I would have laughed.

But this is why I’m so passionate about this work.

I believe the power of the pause is something we all need. To discover what’s been hidden or avoided. To return to what’s real. And to build from that place of truth.

To give ourselves back what is, and always has been, our birthright: freedom and joy.