What makes me nervous? Bugs that jump—grasshoppers, crickets, frogs. I’m not even joking. I still remember this one moment so clearly. Junior year of high school, summer, windows down, driving my 1969 VW Beetle, feeling free—and then a massive grasshopper landed on my passenger seat, facing me. I can still feel it in my body. That instant panic. The loss of control. The hyper-awareness that it could jump at any moment and there was nothing I could do. I wasn’t just scared of the bug. I was scared of not being in control.

And if I’m being really honest, that’s what still makes me nervous today. Not being in control. Feeling controlled by someone or something else. Not feeling like I have a say. Not feeling safe. Because nervousness, for me, rarely starts in the present moment. It reaches back to times in my life where I wasn’t safe, where I didn’t have control, where my voice didn’t feel like it mattered. And even though I’ve done years of healing, my nervous system still remembers.

So what do I do with that? Because I don’t want to live my life being controlled by fear. Which is probably why I’ve jumped out of an airplane and swam in open water where there are sharks—not because I’m fearless, but because I refuse to be owned by my fear.

Here’s what I’ve learned: nervousness doesn’t mean something is wrong. It means something inside of me is trying to feel safe. So instead of judging it, I meet it. When I feel that familiar wave start to rise, I slow down and remove the shame. I don’t make myself wrong for feeling nervous. No “why are you like this?”—just an honest acknowledgment: this is what’s here right now. Then I get curious instead of reactive. I ask myself what actually feels off—not what should be fine, but what in my body feels unsettled.

From there, I ground back into my body, because nervousness pulls me out of the present. I come back in with deep, slow breaths, feeling my feet on the ground, sometimes placing a hand on my chest. It’s simple, but it works. I also move my body—running has become one of the most powerful ways I release what my mind is holding onto. It clears the noise. And when things feel chaotic internally, I create order externally. I clean. It might sound small, but it’s not. It gives me a sense of control in a healthy, tangible way. It calms my nervous system, and it always has.

But maybe most importantly, I meet the younger version of me with compassion. Because a lot of the time, that nervousness isn’t coming from the woman I am now. It’s coming from a younger version of me who didn’t feel safe, who didn’t feel like she had a voice, who didn’t feel like she had a choice. So instead of pushing her away, I sit with her. And I remind her: you’re safe now, you have a voice now, you have choices now.

And slowly, everything starts to settle.

Because the truth is, nervousness will try to take you out of the present and drop you into a story that hasn’t happened—a future you’re afraid of or a past you’ve already lived. But power is staying here, in this moment, with what’s actually real.

So if you’re feeling nervous right now, start here. Take a breath. Feel your feet. Tell yourself the truth. You are not powerless. You are not stuck. And you are not that version of you anymore.

You’re here. And that changes everything.