From Therapist to Patient: My 20-Year Journey to Eliminate Anxiety

Posted on September 12, 2025 by Stacy Braiuca, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.

The most humbling moment of my career happened in my own therapy office.

I was sitting across from a client, helping her navigate her anxiety symptoms, when she looked at me and said, “You always seem so calm and put-together. I wish I could be like you.”

If only she knew that just hours before, I’d been lying awake at 3 AM, my mind racing with the same worries I was helping her address. Am I good enough? Am I making the right decisions? What if I’m failing everyone who depends on me?

For 20 years, I lived this professional paradox: I was a clinical therapist specializing in anxiety disorders while secretly battling my own Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD).

The Weight of Professional Expectations
There’s an unspoken pressure in the helping professions—we’re supposed to have our lives figured out. We’re the ones with the answers, the steady presence others lean on. Admitting we struggle with the very issues we treat feels like professional suicide.

So I perfected the art of compartmentalization. I could guide my clients through their mental health challenges with genuine skill and compassion, then go home and spiral into my own anxious thoughts.

Research shows that mental health professionals have higher rates of anxiety and depression than the general population¹. We’re drawn to helping others heal what we’re still healing in ourselves.

The Tools That Weren’t Enough
I tried everything I recommended to my clients:

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy techniques
Mindfulness meditation
Deep breathing exercises
Progressive muscle relaxation
Medication management
Regular therapy sessions
These tools helped manage my symptoms, but they never addressed the root cause. I was essentially putting high-quality band-aids on a wound that needed deeper healing.

The anxiety would quiet for a while, then roar back to life during stressful periods. I was managing my disorder, not transforming it.

For 20 years, I had used that endless supply of band-aids with my clients all the time, but it was only a temporary solution.

November 17, 2022: The Day Everything Shifted
I’ll never forget this date because it marked the end of a 20-year journey and the beginning of a new quantum leap.

I attended a two week intensive Master Practitioner Certification training on Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) and Mental Emotional Release® (MER®) techniques from Empowerment, Inc. and Dr. Matthew James, initially planning to add these tools to my therapeutic toolkit. What I didn’t expect was to experience my own profound transformation.

During a demonstration of the techniques, something clicked at a cellular level. For the first time in decades, my mind went genuinely quiet. Not managed-quiet or medicated-quiet, but naturally, peacefully quiet. I was finally at rest.

The Science Behind the Shift
What I learned is that traditional anxiety management focuses on the conscious mind—the 12% of our mental processing. But anxiety patterns are stored in the unconscious mind, which controls 88% of our thoughts and behaviors.

MER® techniques work directly with the unconscious mind to locate and release the original emotional charge from past experiences that created our anxiety patterns. Instead of managing symptoms, we eliminate the source. Then we go into your future with more magic!

Research in neuroplasticity shows that our brains can literally rewire themselves when we address trauma and limiting beliefs at their neurological roots².

The Transformation: From Surviving to Thriving
The changes were immediate and lasting:

I slept through the night for the first time in years
Decision-making became effortless instead of agonizing
That constant inner critic finally went quiet
I stopped seeking validation for every choice I made
And now three years on, the memory of what that anxiety felt like is a blurry old fuzzy memory, like a postcard from somewhere you were but really didn’t like
But the most profound shift was professional. I could finally offer my clients what I’d always wished I could give them—not just management strategies, but genuine freedom from the inner squirrels of limiting beliefs, negative emotions, and baggage that hold us back. And the best part…. my own projects now flourish in a way I never had dreamed possible before.

Why I Share My Story
I’m not sharing this to diminish traditional therapy approaches. I am still an active clinician in that very arena —and they saved my life during my darkest periods. I’m sharing this because I want you to know that if you’re struggling with anxiety while appearing successful on the outside, you’re not broken, and you’re definitely not alone.

More importantly, I want you to know that the peace you’re seeking isn’t just possible—it’s your birthright.

The Squirrel Wrangling Method Was Born
My personal breakthrough led to the development of my proprietary Squirrel Wrangling Method—a systematic approach that combines NLP and MER® techniques with my Four Pillar Framework (Body, Mind, Relationships, Spirit) I created in 2001, and several other frameworks I have curated over the years.

Instead of trying to fix scattered thinking, I help clients organize their multiple interests and address the root programming that created those racing inner squirrels in the first place. I help clients identify those mental patterns, understand where they come from, and most importantly, learn how to gently guide those squirrels back to calm.

Using my systematic rotation of body, mind, relationships and spirit, we find and release old programming using a combination of NLP, MER® (where we choose one area of your life to focus in on), Hypnosis, and many other methods. Then we dig in to uncover, address, and reprogram those negative emotions, limiting beliefs and self-doubt by using the Mental Emotional Release® process and other tools.

So we not only address the concerns, but we eliminate them for good by reprogramming the very roots of where they began in their lives.

Real Results: From Professional Helper to Personal Healing
My clients go from feeling broken by their scattered nature to celebrating their new clarity and their multi-passionate genius with concrete tools that actually rebuild the empowering structures in their lives, not just address the symptoms they were fighting.

What I love most is that moment when a client messages me and says something like “I slept through the night for the first time in months” or “I made a decision today without asking three people what they thought first.” What they report are not always big dramatic transformations. They often have those quiet everyday victories where they realize their mind isn’t their enemy anymore. And they are often more powerful than the nuclear level drama changes.

Your Journey Doesn’t Have to Take 20 Years
I spent two decades managing my anxiety before I found the tools that eliminated it. You don’t have to wait that long.

Because I have been exactly where you are. I’m not just somebody who studied anxiety in the textbook. I lived with Generalized Anxiety Disorder for years while working with others professionally to deal with the same thing.

I know with absolute certainty that the exact NLP and MER® techniques actually work because they put my own anxiety disorder into remission. You’re not just getting some mumbo jumbo theory from me. You’re getting a proven roadmap with specific actions from someone who’s walked down that dark path and found the way out.

If you’re exhausted from pretending you have it all together while your mind races with worry and self-doubt, there’s a faster path to peace. I’ve walked this road from professional helper to personal healing, and I can guide you through the same transformation.

And after struggling with my own anxiety disorder for so long, witnessing someone else experience that magic moment when they break free from that mental prison and just breathe is everything to me.

Ready to move beyond managing your anxiety to eliminating it? Contact me to explore how the techniques that freed me can free you too.

Because your peace of mind shouldn’t take 20 years to find.

References and Resources
Psychotherapy Research. (2021). Mental health challenges among healthcare professionals.
Nature Neuroscience. (2020). Neuroplasticity and trauma recovery through targeted interventions.
About Mental Emotional Release® (MER®): Mental Emotional Release® is a proprietary technique developed by Dr. Matthew James, adapted from his father’s pioneering work with Timeline Therapy®. Dr. Matt James (12.4K YouTube subscribers) leads Empowerment, Inc., the world’s foremost organization specializing in alternative and integrative approaches to psychology, human understanding, and personal growth, fostering values of pono (integrity), ho’omanaloa (empowerment), kina’ole (excellence), aloha (happiness), and lokahi (unity).

About Ellie Planner: Ellie Planner is a task and time management system created by Chris Raroque (raroque on Twitter, @chris.raroque on TikTok) of Saint Yeti, LLC. Available on iOS, Windows, and Mac platforms with productivity copilot functionality. Contact: chrisaloa.co

About the Author: Stacy Braiuca, known as the Squirrel Wrangler, holds degrees as a BSW, MSW, MPH, and clinical licenses as an LCSW, LSCSW, and LICSW. She is a Master Practitioner of NLP, Mental Emotional Release®, and Hypnosis certified by the Association of Integrative Psychology. Because when you can wrangle your inner squirrels, you stop living in survival mode and you start experiencing the peace and joy that’s been waiting for you all along.