3: Invisible Inheritance | Walking through Part 2 - Understanding the Legacy of Anxiety

Dr. Nicole Thaxton continues her “Legacy Work” mini-series with episode three, introducing Part Two of her book Invisible Inheritance (releasing April 21, 2026) on understanding the legacy of anxiety. She explains that anxiety is learned, inherited, and passed on, and while insight and awareness matter, they alone don’t create change. Dr. Nicole describes how anxiety becomes a relational pattern affecting communication, conflict, and safety, often showing up as reassurance-seeking, over-functioning, people-pleasing, withdrawal, or avoidance. She connects this to nervous system responses and co-regulation, sharing a bear encounter story to illustrate fight/flight/freeze. She outlines the five anxious parenting archetypes from the book—overprotective, avoidant, enmeshed, overwhelmed, and anchored—emphasizing they stem from fear, not lack of love, and invites reflection on patterns, attachment, coping versus healing. She also promotes her April 21 launch-night event in Roswell, Georgia and notes bonus website content.

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• Episode Transcript

  Disclaimer: Transcripts are AI Generated.

  [00:00:00] 

  Welcome back to the Miniseries Legacy Work with me, Dr. Nicole Thaxton. This is episode three of my miniseries, and we are continuing the conversation from the past two weeks, talking about the legacy. Of anxiety, specifically, as we are getting closer and closer to book launch. 

  We are talking about anxiety, just not just as a diagnosis, but anxiety is something that we carry, something we learn, something we inherit, something we pass on. And today I want to go a layer deeper than last week. Because ultimately I believe that insight matters, and you'll see that all throughout the book, which I have here in front of me today.

  Understanding, awareness building, it all matters. It matters on your anxiety journey or on any healing journey. So here's what I've learned, both personally in the 10 years that I've been on my anxiety journey, [00:01:00] but also clinically in my professional career as a licensed professional counselor, group practice owner, counselor, supervisor, I've learned this: that insight alone.

  Having awareness alone isn't enough to create change. You can understand your patterns, you can name where they come from, you can even see them playing out in real time in your life and still feel stuck in them. And we all know these people, right? Maybe it's not you. Okay? I am not calling anybody out.

  We know these people. They have these patterns. They have these, I call them in the book, ways of being. They're super aware of them, but they're not really doing anything about them. Right? So this episode is about bridging that gap. This episode is about understanding how anxiety becomes a pattern in our lives, and especially in our relationships.

  So this episode is all about. Part two. As I mentioned a couple episodes ago, the book Invisible Inheritance, releasing [00:02:00] April 21st, 2026, is broken into four parts. So last episode, if you have not listened, go back. We walked through part one, the stories we carry. And today we are walking through part two, Understanding the Legacy of Anxiety.

  diving in, understanding the legacy of anxiety.

  this section, this part starts with one of my absolute favorite chapters to write. This was a chapter that I had in my mind for a really long time with some different stories, some different song lyrics. I reference a lot of song lyrics throughout the book. If you've already read it, shout out to those of you who pre-ordered signed copies.

  this book Mind, excuse me, this chapter, Mind Palaces, was one of my absolute favorite chapters. So we start with mind palaces and we move through a lot of the how, you know, how is anxiety passed on.

  We talk about, I write about generational trauma, epigenetics. Anxious [00:03:00] attachment, which I call the anxious dance. I have a couple of chapters in here about the anxiety cycle, a chapter called "When Love Feels Like Walking on Eggshells," which is kind of fun. And little side note, when my mom saw the table of contents, the first time she was like, "Oh, when love feels like walking on eggshells."

  Yes, I have a chapter on "When Anxiety Becomes the Family Culture." And then I also talk about in this chapter, one particularly of the hardest chapters that I wrote for the entire book. When I say hard, I mean like emotionally.

  Like they were super easy to write in terms of I knew exactly what I was supposed to say. But you'll see from the content it was so weighty to write these chapters, and that is the Anxious Parenting Archetypes, which I'll talk about in a few minutes. And I also have bonus content for those of you who have read the book.

  I have bonus content up on my website, nicolethaxton.com/invisible-inheritance. If you [00:04:00] scroll down, you'll see some bonus content on the Anxious Parenting Archetypes as well. I talk about unspoken rules, anxious roles. We play a lot of different anxious roles, 

  So I talk about Ways of Being, which is another favorite chapter. I love Ways of Being, and that is part two. I'm just kinda giving you an overview. There's more chapters in there, but let's dive in. Let's start with, firstly, how does anxiety become a relational pattern?

  Throughout the book, there's this premise that anxiety doesn't just live in your thoughts. It lives in how you show up with people. It shapes how you communicate, how you handle conflict, how you respond to stress, 

  How safe or unsafe relationships feel? Anxiety shapes all of this, and often anxiety becomes relational without us even realizing it. So maybe anxiety shows up as needing a lot of reassurance from someone. Maybe it shows up as over-functioning in [00:05:00] relationships or in life or in work, in people-pleasing or withdrawing or shutting down or avoiding.

  But the key is this: that anxiety is rarely just internal. Now, it can be really loud internally, but it is also relational. It is expressed, and it is often reinforced through our interactions with other people. And I have several breakout chapters in this section as well. One is titled "For Stepparents," and I included this because, of course, as a stepmom.

  But for stepparents, I wanted to have a little nod to that this isn't just biology, okay? It's not just passed down through biology, 'cause we talk about that with epigenetics and generational trauma and nervous system.

  I talk about a concept called biosynchronicity in the book, which is very biologically based. But I wrote this chapter for stepparents specifically because it's [00:06:00] not just through biology that anxiety gets reinforced and passed down. So the second piece to this is when I break into the nervous system work in the book, and I introduced this in part two, but really we dive into this more in part three, which is all about breaking the cycle.

  I really wanna keep it simple though. For the sake of the episode today, your nervous system is constantly asking one primary question: am I safe right now?

  And when that answer is no, or even, I'm not sure, your body is going to respond to that. Your body is there to protect you, and that's anxiety. So I will tell this quick story. I was speaking on Saturday, this past Saturday, over in Winder, Georgia. I posted a video, so some of you guys maybe saw that. But I was speaking to a group of moms for a group here in Georgia, the Hemophilia Association of Georgia.

  So [00:07:00] these are moms and grandparents whose children are impacted by hemophilia, which is a blood disorder. I'm hope, I hope I'm saying that right. But feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. I believe it's a blood disorder. I mean, I know it is related to blood. I don't know if it's considered a disorder or if it's genetic or or whatnot, but.

  I was speaking with these moms, and I was telling them about the nervous system and the fight, flight, or freeze response. We were talking about self-care and burnout. When you're caregiving and you have a child, who has hemophilia, right, is a very, very stressful thing. I learned from being with these moms on Saturday morning, it's very stressful and they're on very high alert.

  And basically what I know about hemophilia, what they taught me. Is that when you have hemophilia, if you get a scratch, if you get a scrape, if you start bleeding, your blood will not clot. So basically, that is very scary for parents, right? Because my daughters, they get scratched all the time and I don't have to worry about that, you know?

  So these moms are [00:08:00] very on alert, very high anxiety, and we were talking about. The fight, flight, or freeze. And I told them this story that I often tell when I'm out speaking on stages. 

  And I use the example of. When your nervous system goes into reaction, it is often thinking about, like, a bear running at you. So you've probably heard that before. Like, if a bear was running at you, that nervous system response would jump into gear and you're deciding, can I fight this bear? Do I need to run away?

  So the story that I shared on Saturday morning with these moms was that in 2019, RJ and I and my family went out to Glacier National Park in Montana, one of my absolute favorite places on planet Earth. It is so beautiful. when we go, we stay at this place called Many Glacier, and I've been going there since I was like two years old, and.

  When you go to Glacier National Park, which I am from the metro Atlanta area, like, I am sure there are [00:09:00] bears around here. My parents live on a lake, like, we have seen bears before. But we're not used to like seeing bears just out normal. Right. But when you were there at Glacier, like we pull up to the lodge, like the hotel, and there's like a family of bears just like outside doing their thing.

  And of course everyone that works there is like, give the bears space. You know, these are wild animals. But all of us that are tourists are like, oh my gosh, there's bears, like standing right here. You know, it's crazy. But we were going out to Glacier to do a bunch of hiking, like 15 mile hikes, 10 mile hikes.

  And the one thing that they tell you to take as tourists is bear spray. But like, living in metro Atlanta, like, we don't have access to bear spray. Like, I don't even know where I could get bear spray if I needed to. Around here, you know, I don't even think REI sells bear spray. But out in Montana, they sell bear spray everywhere, and you need to take the bear spray.

  And for anybody who has not, has no idea what I'm talking about, it is this big can that. Looks like a [00:10:00] massive pepper spray thing. Right. But it looks like a foghorn. Like, it's, it's big and you can put it like in your belt loop or like on a holster. And if you see a bear and they're charging at you or whatever, I guess you are supposed to like use the bear spray.

  So we go out on this hike. I think we're hiking like 15 miles that day, and. RJ is filming or my dad is filming, I can't remember. And we turn this corner. And I always say, when I tell this story, I've never been charged by a bear, okay?

  But I have been within like five feet of a bear, a wild grizzly bear, and it was during this hike that we turn this corner and I promise within five feet is a grizzly bear that's eating and we have it on video. Because I think it was my dad is videoing us, and immediately my dad jokes now. He's like, ever wonder what you would say if you walked up on a grizzly bear?

  And he's like, well, we all know what we would say. And it was some cuss words. Okay, so I'm not sharing this video [00:11:00] anywhere public, but it was definitely some cuss words, followed by everyone getting behind my brother who, like, has the bear spray out like he's, you know, a police officer or something. 

  So we just slowly walk backwards like they teach you to do, and the bear was not interested in us, thankfully. We gave him space and it was all good. But I always tell that story 'cause I'm like, I've never been charged by a bear, but I definitely have been encountered with a bear very fast, and everything in me, I didn't wanna run, I did not wanna fight the bear.

  So that's how our body responds. When it doesn't feel safe, that anxiety spikes, the cortisol spikes, often the adrenaline spikes. And here's where this becomes about legacy. Okay, so I'm shifting gears to get back to the book, back to part two.

  We don't just regulate ourselves, we regulate one another, and we call this co-regulation. And I have a chapter in the book all [00:12:00] about co-regulation, which we're not there yet, but if you grew up in an environment where emotions weren't safe or they weren't talked about, or they were avoided or whatever, things felt really unpredictable in your growing up environment, or stress, anxiety, overwhelm, hypervigilance, scarcity was a constant.

  Your nervous system learned to adapt to that, and those adaptations, they don't just disappear because you're an adult now. They stay with you. They show up in your relationships, in your reactions, in your. Thoughts that you have about yourself and others—they show up in your parenting, in your leadership, in your relationships, your marriage.

  And without awareness, we pass those patterns on. So number three, why does anxiety show up as control, avoidance, or overwhelm? And this is the [00:13:00] important shift that I really want you as the reader to make throughout the book. Anxiety is not always obvious. It's not always. Diagnosable based on the criteria that we have as licensed professionals.

  It doesn't always look like panic. It doesn't always look like worry. It's not always flashy, as I say, but sometimes anxiety looks like control, perfectionism, over-planning, over-functioning. For some, under-functioning. 

  Sometimes anxiety looks like avoidance or shutting down or becoming irritable, or just feeling completely flooded and overwhelmed. All of these are attempts to manage the discomfort of anxiety. So, for example, control says, "If I can manage everything, then I'll feel safe." I'll feel stable. Avoidance says, if I don't face it, then I'm [00:14:00] not overwhelmed.

  It's not happening, right? It's not happening. So I don't have to feel overwhelmed by this. And then overwhelmed says, there's just too much. I don't even know where to start. I don't wanna deal with this. These are strategies, and in the book, I call them anxious roles we play, and I also call them ways of being.

  So stay tuned for those chapters. These are strategies. They are not failures. It does not mean that something is wrong with you. It does not mean that you are broken, but they can become patterns, especially in relationships. So next I want to talk briefly, high level, about the anxious parenting archetypes.

  This is a framework that I have created over 10 years of clinical work in private practice with anxious kids, teens, adults, families, parents. I dive much deeper into these [00:15:00] archetypes in the book. But I want to introduce them here at a high level. And as I mentioned earlier, I also have bonus materials for you on my website that dives deeper into the anxious parenting archetypes.

  So I began to see these five archetypes emerge throughout my clinical work, and they are: the overprotective parent, the avoidant parent.

  The enmeshed parent, the overwhelmed parent, and then finally, the anchored parent. And here's the important part of this work: none of these come from a lack of care or love for your children. They come from anxiety and trying to protect. They come from fear. Protection is also driven by fear. I write in the book that anxiety, I have a chapter called [00:16:00] "Anxiety is a Love Language," or "Anxiety as a Love Language."

  And when protection and love are driven by fear, they can unintentionally create this patterns that we're trying to avoid. So I won't share too much more about the archetypes. You're gonna have to get the book for that. But just know that these are throughout this section, and it was a very challenging chapter to write.

  I wrote here, I have the book in front of me and it says, this section, I'm reading from the book. This section has brought me more anxiety in the writing process than any other. I've approached it with great care, knowing how tender this topic can be. And my deepest fear is to unintentionally add to the weight of guilt or shame that many parents carry.

  That's not what this work is about. Okay, so as you are listening today, I want you to gently reflect on just a couple of things, and then we will wrap up this episode. So I want you to ask yourself, how does anxiety show up in your relationships? Not just your thoughts, not just for yourself, but in your relationships.

  Where do you notice yourself repeating patterns [00:17:00] that you said you don't want to? You know, for me it's like, oh my gosh, I'm turning into my dad, or I'm turning into my mom. My mom would've totally said that. Okay. And what's the difference for you between coping and actually healing? So I always say that coping helps you get through the moment, right?

  But healing changes how you experience that anxiety moment and everything else. So healing is the journey that this book invites you on. And then how might your attachment, so your early relational experiences, be shaping how you show up now in life, in leadership, in relationships, in parenting? And again, we're not blaming.

  Anyone or anything, but we are building an understanding. I wanna leave you with this. Awareness is very, very powerful, but it's not a fix to everything. A lot of people have a lot of awareness, and they are still going through it, right? But awareness can be a pause for you. It can be a moment where you say, oh, this is what's happening right now.

  And I don't [00:18:00] need you to say, I need to fix this immediately, or shame, I shouldn't be like this. Or, what's wrong with me? Or I'm messed up, or I'm broken, or I've been in therapy for five years and why am I still this way? But instead, I would encourage you, I wanna ask you to say instead, this makes sense. I make sense.

  And from that place, you create space for something different in your healing journey. So the goal is, this week, I don't want you to try to overhaul all your patterns. We're gonna come back next episode and talk about part three and breaking the cycle and how do we heal, tools for healing. That's the juicy part.

  I love part three a lot, but this week I just want you to start noticing. Your patterns, noticing your anxiety with a little bit more curiosity, compassion, judgment. Because certainly we cannot change what we just rush past, what we ignore. And as I mentioned, in that next episode, we're gonna talk more about what it looks like to begin interrupting those patterns [00:19:00] and creating something new, new ways of being.

  If you are experiencing anxiety, a reminder that you're shaping what gets carried forward, and that is really fun and really exciting, and it matters a lot more than you think.

  I hope that isn't a huge weight for you to carry, but something that gets you excited and fills you with hope that you get to shape what the legacy is. I also want to mention before I close that I am still. selling tickets on my website, nicoleaxton.com, for our launch night event in Roswell, Georgia.

  This is taking place April 21st from seven to 9:00 PM. We will have an interview conversation around the book, opportunities for photos and book signing, coffee and desserts, and great connection and time, just connecting and celebrating together this milestone. 

  And that's the way this book is meant to be read. It's meant to be shared and talked about and, you know, brought up in [00:20:00] therapy, brought up in your book club, brought up with your girlfriends. Honestly, or your guy friends, 'cause this is a book for guys too. It's not just a book for women. But so many of you have purchased tickets for the launch event and are buying two and three and four tickets, and I am so excited for you to make a night of this.

  Go eat some dinner nearby in Roswell and then join us at 7:00 PM. Those tickets will be on sale for the next few weeks, and if you follow on Instagram. I'll be giving away some tickets as well, so be sure that you're following on social as we lead up to book launch on April 21st. Thanks so much for listening today, and I'll see you next time for Part Three of Invisible Inheritance.

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