The Real Work with Maggie Sterling

18 - Why Therapy Wasn't Enough (What No One Told Me)

Dec 15, 2025
Therapy can explain your past, but what happens when it doesn’t fix the panic? Discover the limits of talking through issues and how it often leaves bodily symptoms unchanged. Dive into the concept of nervous system sensitization, comparing it to a car alarm going off unnecessarily. Maggie shares her transformative experience in body-led healing, revealing how calming the nervous system can lead to significant shifts. Hope is offered: recovery is possible, and strategies for desensitizing symptoms are discussed.
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ANECDOTE

Long Therapy Journey That Didn’t Fix Symptoms

  • Maggie Sterling did therapy on and off for 15 years but kept getting worse despite many modalities.
  • She experienced success externally while panic and symptoms remained the baseline internally.
INSIGHT

What Nervous System Sensitization Is

  • Nervous system sensitization means the system interprets non-threatening stimuli as danger and overreacts.
  • This hypersensitivity locks attention on sensations and amplifies symptoms like pain, sound, or touch.
INSIGHT

Body Needs To Calm Before The Mind Can Heal

  • Maggie realized talk therapy often intellectualized problems while symptoms had moved into the body.
  • She needed her body to calm first so her mind could access deeper healing.
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