Hey Reader,

Have you seen the new Inside Out movie?

In case you aren't familiar with it, Inside Out is a Pixar movie that shows how an 11-year-old girl, Riley’s emotions interact and develop inside of her.

The new sequel, Inside Out 2, features a 13-year-old Riley as she hits puberty and a new cast of more complicated emotions gets introduced, including embarrassment, ennui, and—most disruptive of all—anxiety.

What I love about this movie is that you can see how anxiety is just trying to protect Riley by predicting possible outcomes and trying to control the situations around her.

This is exactly what anxiety does in all of us.

Anxiety is a natural response to stress.

When the sympathetic nervous system's stress response gets turned on in your body, your mind automatically kicks into hyper-mode, trying to find solutions to the discomfort you feel in your body.

This hyper-mode can be helpful in problem-solving, but when answers aren’t immediately obvious—as is often the case in life– anxiety takes over.

Part of the problem is that the mind doesn’t always identify the cause of stress and anxiety accurately.

It might seem obvious, sure. Maybe you have a looming deadline, or you’re contemplating divorce and don’t know what your next steps will be. But some people handle these situations with more ease and grace than others.

What’s the difference? Well, there’s usually more going on beneath the surface when it comes to anxiety.

It's undeniable that life’s challenges contribute to the amount of stress and anxiety you experience. But since stress is just as much a physical phenomenon as a psychological one, if the stress in your body is already elevated because of physiological imbalances, external challenges will tip you over the edge into anxiety much more easily.

So when I work with clients who are dealing with chronic stress and anxiety, we don’t linger on the conflict they had with their boss the other day, or what their parent did to them when they were 10. That's what talk therapy is for, and it only scratches the surface.

What I do is help you to identify the deeper imbalances that make those conflicts and challenges feel so overwhelming.

Because once these underlying stressors are addressed, you handle whatever life throws your way much more easily.

To understand the hidden causes of anxiety, I always look at 3 things.

​Click here to find out what they are, plus the 4 strategies I recommend to almost everyone to help them feel better, faster.

I can't wait to see where this takes you!

Warmly,

Katerina

P.S. An exciting update in my life is that I'm looking for a space to open my own clinic, The Embodied Wellness Studio! Stay tuned for more info.

My time at Mill-e-Moto this past year has been incredible, and it's very bittersweet to leave the wonderful community there. But with changes to personal goals, we've decided it would be best for all of us if we part ways professionally.

While I get my ducks in a row, I'll have more availability this summer for online holistic health and wellness coaching sessions, as well as in-home acupuncture and bodywork treatments for select patients.

​Click here to book a coaching session now, or email me if you live in the Tigard/Tualatin/Lake Oswego/Greater Portland Metro area and are interested in exploring at-home treatments.

To celebrate, I'll be offering a 10% discount to the first 5 people who book a session.

I look forward to hearing from you!