Heart racing before meetings. Dreading inbox notifications. Convinced every "can we talk?" message means she's getting fired. Priya's job wasn't toxic. Her nervous system just couldn't tell the difference between danger and deadlines.
Priya is 29, a marketing analyst at a company she actually likes. Good team. Reasonable hours. No toxic boss. But every morning, she wakes up with a knot in her stomach. Every Slack notification makes her heart jump. Every meeting invite triggers a spiral: "What did I do wrong?"
She knows it's irrational. Her performance reviews are good. Nobody is mad at her. But her body doesn't believe her brain. The anxiety isn't about the job. It's about something deeper that work just happens to trigger.
She's tried breathing exercises. They help in the moment but don't stop the pattern. What she needs is to understand why her nervous system treats every workday like a survival situation.
"Boss just sent a message that says 'quick sync today?' and my hands are literally shaking. It's probably nothing. It's always nothing. But my body is acting like I'm about to be fired. I've been here two years with good reviews. Why does every small thing feel like the end?"
"The sync was fine. She just wanted to brainstorm about Q2. I spent four hours anxious for literally nothing. But here's what I noticed: the anxiety started the moment I saw her name in my inbox. Before I even read the message. It's not about what the message says. It's about the possibility of bad news."
"Realized something today. This feeling is familiar. Not from this job. From childhood. The 'someone's disappointed in me' feeling. The waiting to find out if I'm in trouble. Work just happens to have the same structure: authority figures, evaluations, vague messages that could mean anything."
I've tracked your anxiety spikes this week. Here's what triggers them:
The pattern isn't about work. It's about uncertainty + authority. You've mentioned your childhood had a lot of "waiting to find out if you're in trouble." Your nervous system learned that uncertainty means danger.
So my work anxiety is actually childhood stuff?
Your nervous system learned certain patterns early: authority + ambiguity = potential danger. Work has the same structure. Your body is responding to a pattern, not to your actual job.
The good news: once you see the pattern, you can start interrupting it. The reaction is automatic. The response doesn't have to be.
How do I interrupt it?
When the anxiety hits, try naming it: "This is the old pattern. My nervous system thinks I'm 8 years old waiting to get in trouble. But I'm 29 and my performance reviews are good." You're not trying to make the feeling stop. You're just not letting it run the show.
"Got a 'can we chat?' message from my boss just now. Heart rate spiked immediately. But this time I caught it. Said out loud: 'There's the pattern. This is old fear, not current danger. My reviews are good. I'm not in trouble.'"
"The anxiety didn't disappear. But it didn't spiral either. I replied calmly. Turns out she wants me to lead a new project. Not fired. Promoted."
This week you've had 6 anxiety triggers. In 4 of them, you successfully used the "name the pattern" technique. The anxiety duration dropped from an average of 3 hours to about 20 minutes. You're not eliminating the trigger. You're changing your relationship to it.
"The anxiety isn't gone. I don't think it ever fully will be. But now I understand it. It's not about my job. It's about old wiring. And every time I catch the pattern instead of getting swept away by it, the wiring gets a little weaker. I'm not broken. I'm just carrying some old responses that don't fit anymore."
Work anxiety often isn't about work. It's about patterns that work happens to trigger.
When you can identify "this is old fear, not current danger," the anxiety loses its grip. You're not fighting it. You're contextualizing it.
"My reviews are good" became her anchor. Facts don't eliminate anxiety, but they give you something solid to hold onto.
The trigger doesn't stop. But every time you respond differently, the automatic reaction gets a little weaker.
Priya still gets the occasional spike when she sees an unexpected message from leadership. But now it's a 10-minute blip instead of a 4-hour spiral. She's leading that new project and actually enjoying it. The anxiety didn't have to disappear for her to thrive. She just had to stop letting it drive.
If every email feels like a threat and every meeting invite triggers dread, the problem might not be your job. Start tracking what actually triggers the anxiety. The pattern might surprise you.