33 - My anxiety and pain stole my life. This is how I got it back.
33 - My anxiety and pain stole my life. This is how I got it back.  
Podcast: The Real Work with Maggie Sterling
Published On: Tue Mar 17 2026
Description: Get my nervous system sensitization course Take the nervous system sensitization quiz I tried everything. Therapy, EMDR, IFS, ketamine, supplements, psychedelics, hormone testing — 20 years of effort, and my anxiety kept getting worse. Then a dental injury led to chronic nerve pain, health OCD, insomnia, and eventually severe suicidal ideation. I hit rock bottom in a psychiatric ward. What finally worked wasn't a new tool or a better approach. It was stopping. Stopping the searching, the fixing, the analyzing — and putting my attention back into my life. In this video, I share exactly what I had to do differently, why the healing work itself was keeping me stuck, and what it actually looks like to recover when you've been fighting anxiety for decades. If you've tried everything and nothing has worked, this one's for you.