You know that moment when someone asks you a question in a meeting and your mind goes completely blank? Or when you’re sitting in a high-stakes presentation and you feel like you can’t move, can’t speak, can’t think? While it can feel like your mind and body are totally betraying you, what’s actually happening is that your nervous system is doing exactly what it’s designed to do when it perceives a threat.

Picture this: It’s Monday morning, you’re in the quarterly review meeting, and your boss turns to you and says, “So, walk us through what went wrong with the Johnson project.” Your heart starts pounding, your breathing gets shallow, and suddenly it’s like your brain has been wrapped in cotton wool. You know the answer—you’ve been thinking about nothing but this project for weeks—but in

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