Scarcity. If a client grew up in fear of not having enough love, money, or food, he or she may internalize a sense of scarcity, rather than operate from an abundance mind-set that believes in opportunity.

It turns out there is a particular rate of breathing, called resonance frequency, that maximizes the amplitudes of heart rate oscillations. For some people, it’s 6 breaths a minute; for others it might be 5 or 7. Regardless of the specific number, when you breathe at this rate, something amazing happens: it strengthens the baroreflex, creating even

Meg’s ghost wasn’t her ex or the breakup. Her ghost originated, as is the case with many of my clients, from a traumatic experience in her earlier years. Her sudden flood of emotions was a purging of old, stuck, physiological arousal. Week by week, as Meg’s autonomic nervous system strengthened, the childhood energy sought to release itself.

When we don’t let them go, negative emotions become ingrained in our sympathetic nervous system, locking us in a cycle of stress. Letting go doesn’t mean you need to forget your past; it means you allow your body to fully process the stress response associated with negative experiences and emotions, then release it.

Once you’re ramped up, though, it’s overly difficult for your physiology to recover. You’re driving a car that has no trouble reaching a high speed but is incapable of slowing down. This is true for most of us.

Perfectionism or fear of disappointing others. This theme can stem from growing up in environments where receiving parental validation feels extremely important, as if one needed to perform well or exceed expectations to earn the parents’ attention.

Negative self-talk. A client who may be battling a demeaning inner monologue may have internalized the voice of a critical parent or other authority figure.

You can think of them as the gas pedal and brake of a car; the sympathetic nervous system is the gas, revving up when it detects stress or danger, and the parasympathetic nervous system is the braking system to slow things down.

Heart rate variability is an indication of the balance within the two main branches of your autonomic nervous system: the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system. The sympathetic nervous system controls the fight-or-flight response, enabling your body to ramp up quickly to meet the demands of a stressful moment or prepare