Silent Panic Attacks and Phone Addiction: Why Your Nervous System Needs a Break
February 9, 2026
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What You Repeat Is What You Reinforce (And Why That Matters Right Now) If you’ve been feeling like you need someone to flip on a light switch in a dark room, you’re not alone. The last few weeks, every single therapy session I’ve had has carried the same weight, the same exhaustion. People are struggling. […]
What You Repeat Is What You Reinforce (And Why That Matters Right Now)
If you’ve been feeling like you need someone to flip on a light switch in a dark room, you’re not alone. The last few weeks, every single therapy session I’ve had has carried the same weight, the same exhaustion. People are struggling. And what I know from years of doing this work is that when a pattern shows up that consistently, it’s not just one person’s problem—it’s all of us.
So today, I want to offer what we all desperately need right now: a little bit of hope. Not the toxic positivity kind where we pretend everything is fine. But the real, grounded kind that acknowledges the darkness while refusing to let it have the final word. Because here’s what I know to be true: when you turn on a light in a dark space, the darkness isn’t gone. But the darkness can’t deny the light.
In this solo episode of Don’t Cut Your Own Bangs, I’m sharing what I’m learning in real-time about the things we repeat, what they reinforce, and how to gently take inventory of your life when everything feels heavy. Because the truth is, I’ve been doom-scrolling between client sessions like it’s my job, and my nervous system has some very strong opinions about that.
Feeling on edge? Learn how silent panic attacks start, what to journal about when you’re stuck, and the one question that changes everything you repeat.
What Silent Panic Attacks Actually Feel Like
Silent panic attacks don’t always look like what you’d expect. There’s no dramatic hyperventilating or visible crisis. Instead, it’s the way your nervous system fires constantly, putting you in a persistent state of not feeling safe. It can be activated by reaching for your phone like an adult pacifier between every task (which was the case for me). It’s being assaulted by images you can’t unsee, between videos of puppies and ads for creatine powder, because you’ve fallen into the default habit of passively consuming information you weren’t prepared to process.
For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been taking in way too much news on my phone. Every time I lifted it—particularly in the last week—I was being fed things that made my body respond as if I was in immediate danger. And here’s the thing about silent panic attacks: you might not even realize you’re having one. You just know you can’t function the way you need to for the very real responsibilities of your life.
The Things You Repeat Are What You Reinforce
This quote from James Clear’s Atomic Habits has been rattling around in my brain: the things you repeat are what you reinforce.
We’re in February now. All that “new year, new you” energy from January? It’s fading fast, especially if you live in the Midwest where the sun seems to have packed her bags and left. This is the month where we’re really put to task. The goals aren’t new and shiny anymore. So the question becomes: what are you actually reinforcing with what you’re repeating?
For me, what I was repeating—compulsively checking the news, reaching for my phone every spare second—wasn’t in service of me. I don’t want to judge myself for it. I was doing the best I knew how. But I could tell by the way my body was processing all of that information that it wasn’t sustainable.
What Am I Taking In?
Taking inventory doesn’t have to be complicated. It’s as simple as asking yourself:
What am I consuming? (Media, food, entertainment, relationships)
Where are my eyes landing throughout the day?
How is what I’m taking in affecting how I’m showing up?
The greatest gauge for whether this kind of inventory is even necessary is this: How are you feeling? If you’re waking up like Cinderella with birds making your bed, feeling energized and hopeful, you’re probably doing great. But if you’re feeling other than that? This is your opportunity to take a gentle look at what you’re repeating and whether it’s actually serving you.
What to Journal About When You’re Stuck
When I first started working as a therapist, I didn’t really consider what kind of therapist I wanted to be. I was fresh out of school, eager to heal the world, taking on just about any client who walked through the door. But I wasn’t clear on what I was actually responsible for.
If I was responsible for my clients’ breakthroughs, was I also responsible for what they didn’t understand? If I was responsible for them crying, was I then responsible for their happiness? I wasn’t present enough to see where my own need to rescue or need to please was showing up in the room.
Then my therapist gave me homework that changed everything: Write your philosophy.
This is hands down one of the best things you can journal about when you’re feeling stuck or unclear about your role in your own life. Here’s what to include:
What am I responsible for? For me as a therapist, it meant showing up on time with full presence. Being aware of my body’s reactions (so I don’t make my clients responsible for making me feel like I’m doing a good job). Being honest about what I’m seeing and discerning about when to share.
What is not mine to own? I can’t control other people’s breakthroughs or their resistance. I can’t make them do the work. That’s not mine.
How do I know if I’m doing a good job? If your only measure of success is whether people like you, things get messy fast. You need something more grounded than that.
Why This Exercise Matters for Everyone
I’ve used this same exercise with my kids. Am I responsible for making them happy, or am I responsible for keeping them safe? Sometimes those lines get blurry because happy kids are easier to deal with. But happiness can also look like having a lollipop for breakfast, lunch, and dinner—and that creates a whole other problem.
This is what boundaries really are: knowing what’s yours to own and what’s not. It’s the heart of the work.
What to Journal About: Practical Prompts for Right Now
If you’re looking for what to journal about when everything feels heavy, start here:
What am I repeating? (Habits, thoughts, patterns, behaviors)
What is that reinforcing for me? (How is it shaping my life, my relationships, my sense of self?)
Do I like what I’m reinforcing? (No judgment, just honest assessment)
If not, what’s one subtle adjustment I can make? (Not a complete overhaul—just one small shift)
Sometimes we don’t have the clarity or conscious awareness of what we’re repeating. Bringing it into your awareness gives you the opportunity to introduce something new. And that feels empowering.
How to Recognize Silent Panic Attacks in Your Own Life
Silent panic attacks often show up as:
Constantly reaching for your phone without thinking
Feeling like you can’t digest or process the information you’re taking in
A persistent sense that you’re not safe, even when you objectively are
Physical tension you can’t quite shake (tight shoulders, clenched jaw)
Difficulty concentrating on the tasks in front of you
The key indicator? Your nervous system is firing constantly, and you can’t function in your life the way you need to. If that’s you right now, it’s time to shift your relationship with what you’re consuming and how you’re staying informed.
A Gentle Reminder: You’re Doing Better Than You Think
There’s so much in the world that’s beyond our control. It almost always has to do with other people because we can’t control them. But what we reinforce, what we look for, where our minds go, the habits we create, what we put out in the world—those are things we have influence over. That’s where we can stake a claim and maybe even be of service.
If you’re looking for a place to process some of this, The Treasured Journal was made for exactly these moments. It has prompts, sentence stems from my therapy practice, and space for you to dig a little deeper with more safety and context.
Key Takeaways
The things you repeat are what you reinforce. Pay attention to what you’re practicing—it’s shaping your life whether you realize it or not.
Silent panic attacks don’t always look BIG. They often show up as a constantly firing nervous system and compulsive behaviors like phone checking.
Knowing what to journal about starts with asking better questions. Write your philosophy. Get clear on what’s yours to own and what’s not.
Taking inventory is an act of self-compassion, not self-judgment. If what you’re repeating isn’t serving you, you have permission to make one small adjustment.
Your time and attention are your most precious resources. Thank you for sharing them here with me.
👉 If this episode resonates, share it with a friend who might also need this reminder. And don’t forget to subscribe so new episodes find you—no chasing required.
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DANIELLE IRELAND, LCSW
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[00:00:08] Hello. Hello. This is Danielle Ireland and you are listening to Don’t Cut Your Own Bangs. And today’s episode is lovingly titled A Little Bit of Hope because. That is what I really, really need right now. I need a little bit of hope. Every client session that I’ve had in the last couple weeks has had a very similar theme and tone, and so what that tells me, some things trending and this experience isn’t unique to me.
[00:00:35] I am not the only one who needs it, and so I’m going to do my absolute best today to treat this episode. Like flipping on a light switch in a dark room. When you turn on a light in a dark space, the darkness isn’t gone. But the darkness can’t deny the light. And that’s what I want to try to do with the very, very best, the most earnest way I can to turn a light on.
[00:01:01] Whether that’s just a little click of a flashlight or illuminating a whole space. I wanna bring a little bit of hope and. With that. The intention for this episode is to share a quote, share a little bit of processing, give you some insight on some things to come for the month of February, and then offer some questions that can offer, hopefully some relief, some insight, things that you can carry with you, take with you on your walks or into your journal or conversations, and then we’ll go on with our day.
[00:01:29] So we’re just gonna get a little dose, a little smidgen of hope, and then hopefully that can carry us with a little bit lighter load. A little bit more relaxed shoulders, a little bit less tension, and hopefully feel a little bit cozier. a couple things that are coming that I’m really excited about, I have two.
[00:01:48] Fantastic interviews that are coming up this month. one is with a woman named Kat Greenleaf. She was the host of a really popular show called Talk Stoop. She kind of paved the way and digital content before digital content really was what we understand it to be today. she has a podcast called the Soberness podcast.
[00:02:06] It’s a celebrity sobriety podcast. So she interviews all kinds of people from all walks of life that you could possibly imagine that are known in their field who have navigated sobriety in their own way. She’s a total rockstar. She is constantly evolving. She’s incredibly dynamic. And that episode is really fun and then I’m also bringing back a friend of the podcast, Ashlyn Thompson from the Parent Empowerment Network. We’re gonna have just a beautiful heart to heart loving dialogue about These deeply emotional tender things, but as Ashlyn does so well, she has a way of taking very heart led potentially heavy topics and opening them up in a way that feels so approachable and loving.
[00:02:53] In a way she is. Like the way that Ted Lasso is if you haven’t watched Ted Lasso, by the way, that is your podcast homework, my friends It’s loving, it’s poignant, but there’s also humor and it’s the kind of show that makes you feel better about humanity.
[00:03:08] Like, that’s Ashlyn Thompson. And so she’s coming up this month too. It’s so fun. I can’t wait for you to connect with both of those people very soon. We got more solo cast coming your way as well. So that’s what’s coming for today, we’re gonna be talking about a little bit of hope.
[00:03:24] Here’s the quote that I wanna offer. And it’s from the author of Atomic Habits, and I, his name is escaping me, but I can reference his work from Atomic Habits. The things you repeat are what you reinforce. I’ll say that again. The things you repeat are what you reinforce. We are in the month of February and , all of that pr that we ta that we were talking about in the month of January, like, you know, new Year’s, new fitness goals, new business goals, we’re just new, new, new, new, new, new.
[00:03:56] Well, February is really the month where we are put to task, particularly if you live in the Midwest. It is cold and it is snowy. Where is the sun? Where did she go? this is where. some of the enthusiasm and some of the oomph behind a brand new goal being launched. It’s a little less new, it’s a little less shiny now, and we’re in February.
[00:04:19] So what are you reinforcing and what are you repeating for me? How I’ve dialed that quote in to my life and where I’m already seeing. Changes for the better. I, for the last couple weeks have been taking in way, way, way too much news on my phone. What I’m trying to do is be more discerning about my relationship with staying informed, my relationship with wanting to feel connected to the world and not do sort of a spiritual and emotional bypass.
[00:04:55] And then also being honest with myself about. Where. Taking in information, the time of day I’m taking it in. Where am I? Just sort of passively leaning into my phone and then almost being assaulted by images I can’t unsee or by information that I wasn’t prepared for because I’ve. Just fallen into this default habit of reaching for my phone between client sessions or it’s like, it’s like an adult pacifier.
[00:05:22] Anytime I’m not talking or doing something, I think about GRA or I just grab my phone and it’s such a reflex. And given, given the charge of what. Is happening currently in the country and in the world. Then also the way that the algorithm works. I almost every time I lifted my phone, particularly in the last week or so, I was being fed.
[00:05:47] Things that I couldn’t process and digest that was making my nervous system fire and constantly put me in a state of not feeling safe. And what I know from the work that I do, I can’t function in my life for the very real responsibilities of my life and operate that way. And so I needed to shift my relationship with how I was staying informed or how I am staying informed, and then how do I wanna process those feelings, but bringing it back to the quote from Atomic Habits, the things I repeat, or what I’m reinforcing.
[00:06:26] And what I was repeating and reinforcing wasn’t in service of me. Now, I don’t wanna judge myself. I was doing the best. I knew how, and this is pretty close to in real time. I was doing the best I knew how, and I can tell by the way that my body was processing all of that, that wasn’t sustainable.
[00:06:45] It’s not sustainable. rather than to get prescriptive or even try to tell it like this doesn’t mean that this is how you should process information or how you should relate to any of that, it seemed like such a great opportunity to look at what am I taking in? What am I taking in my mind?
[00:07:04] What am I, where am my eyes landing? What am I watching? What am I consuming in terms of entertainment, media, television? What am I taking in in terms of food and beverage ? What am I consuming and what is that informing for me? How is that affecting how I’m showing up? The greatest gauge too, by the way, is if.
[00:07:26] taking stock or taking inventory like this is even necessary for you is how are you feeling? If you are feeling great, if you are feeling energized and hopeful and uplifted and you’re waking up like Cinderella with the birds, you know, just making your bed for you. If you’re feeling whimsical, then you probably are doing great and you probably don’t even really need to think about this.
[00:07:50] If you’re feeling other than that, then that may mean this is an opportunity to just take a simple, kind, gentle intake of what are the things I’m repeating? Are they in service of me? And if they’re not. What can a subtle adjustment be to help me be more in line with how I wanna feel? And I have a real time example too.
[00:08:16] That may help offer. Just another way of looking at this. So when I first started working as a therapist, I.
[00:08:23] I didn’t really consider what kind of therapist do I wanna be. I knew I was working for private practice. I knew the types of clients that my practice was attracting. I also knew that I had to build a practice and that required me taking just about anybody that would come in because I was in real time learning who I was best equipped to serve.
[00:08:40] Who did I like serving? So I knew all of the philosophies that I studied. I was fresh with my degree, like I was just an eager beaver ready to just go out and like heal the world. But what I didn’t do was think about how did I as an individual, what was my position, what was my hot take in the therapy space, and what did I wanna bring into the therapy room?
[00:09:03] It wasn’t until I started going to therapy that my therapist asked me that very thing because one of the things that I was. Struggling with was really understanding what was I actually responsible for in terms of my clients. Because if I was responsible for their breakthroughs, then was I also responsible for what they didn’t understand, what they didn’t take in, if I was responsible for them crying, was I then responsible for their euphoria?
[00:09:32] I was not. Present and clear and aware enough of where my own need to rescue my own codependence, my empathy, my need to please. I wasn’t fully in touch with, and maybe even honest with myself enough to know what was I bringing into the room. And what was I actually doing a lot of times, particularly in those early first few months.
[00:10:01] What I wanted, and I’m saying this with so much compassion for that younger version of me, what I wanted was for my clients to feel good. But what I know now is that, if I was always trying to help my clients feel good, then that was bypassing potentially very important. Maybe uncomfortable work.
[00:10:22] That doesn’t mean going in with like a hacks on just making people feel like shit for no reason. ’cause God who wouldn’t wanna do that. But I wasn’t clear on what I was actually responsible for. So my therapist gave me some of the best homework I’ve ever been given and it was, write your philosophy of therapy.
[00:10:41] What are you responsible for? What is your client responsible for? What do you wanna own? How do you know if you’re doing a good job? Because if you only know you’re doing a good job based on your client liking you, well that’s, that can get real messy, real fast. And it just, it helped me really understand what’s mine and what’s not mine within the context of a therapeutic relationship.
[00:11:06] And what’s wonderful about that exercise is that is the heart, that that is a way I’ll say to practice in real time what boundaries are in the best sense of the word. What do I want to own? what is truly mine? And then what is not mine to own? To bring it back to like the things that I repeat or the things I reinforce the.
[00:11:31] There’s so much going on in the world that is beyond my control, and it almost always has to do with other people because I can’t control them. But what I reinforce, what I look for, where my mind goes, the habits I create, the way that I show up in relationships, what I consume in terms of food media, books.
[00:11:55] Those are things that I have influence over. Those are things, and I don’t wanna even use the word control, but that is where I can stake a claim and be of influence, and maybe even be of service. And so bringing it back to, I wrote down my philosophy and writing it down made it feel more official.
[00:12:16] I don’t have it memorized, but the heart of it I do, which was I’m responsible for showing up on time. I’m responsible for showing up. To the best of my ability with full presence, I am responsible for being aware of the reactions and the responses that are happening in my body so that I don’t make my work, the client’s work, that I don’t make them responsible for making me feel like I’m doing a good job.
[00:12:41] They don’t need to take care of me. I’m responsible for being as honest and ethical and discerning as I can be, and sometimes. Oftentimes I am responsible for saying the thing even if the client doesn’t like it. And then I also have to be responsible for what is my relationship with the truth and honesty and therapeutic compassion?
[00:13:07] Where do those intersect? And I have to be okay with living with. The impact that I make because that is, that’s the charge that I have when I allow and agree to this type of work that that type of exercise. I’ve used with my children, what am I responsible for? Am I responsible for making them happy or am I responsible for keeping them safe?
[00:13:32] Sometimes those lines get blurry because when they’re happy, they’re a lot easier to deal with. But that, but happiness can also look like having a lollipop for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and then that creates a whole other issue, right? It’s just what I love about this process of what you repeat is what you reinforce.
[00:13:50] Sometimes we don’t know. We don’t have the clarity or the conscious awareness of what we are repeating or what’s being reinforced. So bringing that into your awareness can give you an opportunity to either on a walk or in a conversation, or maybe just on a sheet of paper or in a journal, ask yourself, consider what am I taking in?
[00:14:11] What am I choosing to repeat? What habits am I repeating and what are they reinforcing for me? And then, then the follow up question would be. Do you like that? Are you good with what you’re reinforcing? And if not that, that’s where you have the opportunity to introduce something new, which feels empowering.
[00:14:29] Last but not least, just wanna gently push out there that. My children’s book, wrestling of Walrus for Little People with Big Feelings is available on Barnes and Noble and amazon.com.
[00:14:38] You can always pick it up off my website as well. It’ll be linked for you in the show notes and then a copy of the journal. The Treasure Journal is also available for you there. It’s a great place to take some of the processing that I talk about in solo cast and interviews and personalize it to you. So without further ado, friends, I think we did it.
[00:14:58] Thank you for being here, your time, your care, your attention. They are our most precious resources, so thank you for sharing them here with me. I hope it was a cozier corner of the internet for you, and I hope that you continue to have an incredible day.
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