From Panic to Peace: Lessons from Ted Lasso’s “Signs”
From Panic to Peace: Lessons from Ted Lasso’s “Signs”
If you’ve ever watched Ted Lasso, you know it’s more than a show about soccer. It’s a masterclass in leadership, mindset, and heart. Every episode is filled with golden life lessons, and “Signs”—one of the most emotional and revealing episodes—might just hold one of the most powerful truths about fear, faith, and finding your calm.
In this post, we’re diving deep into that episode and how it connects to real-life anxiety, panic, and belief. We’ll explore how Ted’s journey mirrors our own, what it really means when your nervous system hits the brakes, and how to rise above chaos when everything feels like it’s falling apart.
So grab a cup of tea, take a deep breath, and let’s talk about how to turn panic into presence.
Continue reading below….
Watch the video here:
Listen to the podcast episode here:
The Scene That Stopped Time
Near the end of the “Signs” episode, Ted sits alone in his office. His team has just lost yet another game—eight in a row—and you can feel the weight on his shoulders. His eyes fall on John Wooden’s Pyramid of Success, a framework for excellence and leadership.
But instead of inspiration, something else happens.
Ted’s chest tightens. His breath shortens. The walls close in.
He has a panic attack.
In that moment, the Pyramid—once a symbol of purpose and greatness—suddenly becomes a mirror reflecting all his pressure, guilt, and exhaustion. He’s a coach trying to lead a team that’s losing faith, a dad missing his son, and a man quietly fighting his own storm.
We’ve all had a “Pyramid of Success” moment. A time when the thing we loved most—our job, our dreams, our relationships—suddenly felt like a burden. It’s the nervous system’s way of saying, “Hey… this is too much.”
That’s what panic really is: not weakness, not failure—but your body pulling the emergency brake.
Ted’s Turning Point: From Panic to Presence
What’s remarkable about Ted isn’t that he panics—it’s what he does afterward.
Later in the episode, he calls his son. His little boy shares that he’s learning how to manage anger by counting to ten. “I remember what you taught me, Dad,” he says. It’s tender, bittersweet, and deeply human.
When the call ends, Ted still feels the remnants of that anxiety rising up. But this time, he doesn’t run. He takes a slow, intentional breath. He places his hand on his heart. He steadies himself.
He lets the emotion move through him instead of fighting it.
And that changes everything.
Moments later, he returns to the locker room and delivers one of the show’s most powerful speeches—the famous “Believe” talk. Not the blind optimism kind, but a grounded, heart-centered reminder of who we are when we align our heart, mind, and gut.
Ted doesn’t fix everything that day.
But he finds peace.
And that’s the real victory.
When Anxiety Shows Up: It’s Just Energy in Motion
Watching that episode hit me in a personal way. I’ve battled anxiety most of my life—not “my anxiety,” because I don’t claim it as part of me—but anxiety that shows up. It’s like an uninvited guest that knocks on your door when you least expect it.
And when it comes, it can feel overwhelming. The mind races. The body shakes. You think you’re in danger even when you’re perfectly safe. But here’s what I’ve learned (and what Ted demonstrated so beautifully):
Emotion is just energy in motion.
If you don’t resist it, it passes through you in about 90 seconds.
That’s right—90 seconds.
Breathe.
Steady.
Float through it.
You are safe.
Your body is just processing what your mind has been holding onto.
My Own Ted Lasso Moment
Recently, I had a wave of anxiety that felt like a full-body panic. Old patterns flared up. My nervous system screamed, “Danger!”—even though nothing was actually wrong.
But this time, I did something new.
I meditated.
I sat in stillness, hand on heart, and chose to hold my inner vision.
Neville Goddard calls it “living from the end”—feeling the reality of what you desire as if it’s already here. And I stayed there, even while my outer world looked like a total mess.
In fact, things looked worse before they got better.
My relationship felt chaotic. My thoughts were spiraling. My ego shouted, “See? It’s not working!”
But I kept picturing unconditional love. I refused to chase control. I saw myself in peace. And less than 24 hours later—miracle. Something beautiful unfolded between me and my partner. Not how I expected, but better. Softer. Real.
That’s when I realized: anxiety is not the enemy.
It’s just a sign you’re lost in the maze.
The Maze Metaphor
During one meditation, I visualized myself running through a maze—hitting walls, turning corners, desperate to find my way out. Then I felt myself rise up, floating above the maze, seeing the path from a bird’s-eye view.
That higher perspective—that’s what meditation gives you.
When you’re down in the maze, you can’t see the truth. You just feel panic. But when you rise above, you realize the maze was never dangerous—it was just confusing.
That’s what Ted learned too.
He stopped fighting the maze and rose above it through presence.
Aligning the Heart, Mind, and Gut
In his “Believe” speech, Ted reframes belief not as blind hope but as inner alignment. He tells his team that real belief happens when the heart, mind, and gut all speak the same language.
Let’s break that down:
Heart: What you deeply care about. Your love, empathy, and emotional truth.
Mind: Your logic and reasoning—but also your imagination. The mind can trap you in fear or lift you through vision.
Gut: Your intuition. That quiet knowing that whispers, “You already know the way.”
When those three are at war, you feel lost. When they align, you feel unstoppable.
That’s the moment your nervous system relaxes and your leadership shines.
It’s not about control—it’s about coherence.
The Other Characters: Signs Everywhere
In “Signs,” every character is wrestling with something.
Rebecca questions destiny—searching for meaning beyond success.
Keeley faces a career crossroads—learning what self-worth really looks like.
Nate battles his inner darkness—realizing that following power without purpose leads to emptiness.
Each one is seeing “signs,” but not all recognize them yet.
That’s true for us too. Sometimes signs look like setbacks. Sometimes they’re panic attacks. Sometimes they’re the quiet moments that whisper, “Hey, this isn’t working anymore.”
The key is to notice without judgment. To listen.
Because the body panics when it thinks you’re lost.
But your higher self always knows the way home.
Practical Steps: How to Turn Panic into Presence
Here are a few simple but powerful ways to practice what Ted (and I) learned:
Pause and Name the Storm.
When panic hits, literally say, “This is fear. This is pain. It’s okay.”
Naming it takes away its power and helps your body release the fight.Return to Your Vision.
Ask yourself, “What’s the loving, safe picture I’m moving toward?”
Picture it. Feel it. Breathe into it. Your subconscious doesn’t know the difference between imagination and reality.Lift Your Perspective.
Imagine yourself above the maze. Watch your thoughts and emotions from a higher view. You’ll see that you were never trapped—just learning.Do a Heart–Mind–Gut Check.
Heart: What do I feel?
Mind: What’s the truth or plan?
Gut: What feels instinctively right next?
When these three line up, peace naturally returns.
Celebrate the Small Signs.
Keep a little notebook. Write down coincidences, messages, or moments that feel aligned. These tiny confirmations rebuild your faith that life is supporting you.
The Real “Believe”
Ted Lasso’s “Believe” sign famously falls off the wall in this episode—a gut punch for the team. But Ted teaches them (and us) something profound: belief isn’t in the sign. It’s inside of you.
Belief is the courage to breathe when your body shakes.
It’s the decision to love when your world feels messy.
It’s choosing to see a higher vision even when the scoreboard says you’re losing.
So yes—you can have a panic attack and still lead with love.
You can breathe, believe, and help others find their calm, even while you’re finding yours.
Because sometimes the most powerful leaders aren’t the ones who never fall apart—they’re the ones who know how to rise, gently, again and again.
About Kathie Owen
Kathie Owen is a heart-centered corporate wellness consultant, mindset coach, and speaker based in Houston. With over 25 years of experience in fitness, leadership, and personal development, she helps executives and teams reset from burnout, anxiety, and overwhelm to clarity, confidence, and calm.
Through her Speaking Engagements, podcast, and her Corporate Wellness Pros community, Kathie helps leaders align body, mind, and spirit—so they can build healthy, happy teams, one heart at a time.
Transcript
All right, today we are talking about the episode Signs from Ted Lasso. These are lessons from Ted Lasso, and I invite you to check out the entire playlist because very soon they're gonna be many episodes because. When I first found out about the show Ted Lasso, it was after I gave my core speech on Inner Excellence.
And when I did that, it was about sports psychology and all of that. So somebody told me to go watch the show, and ever since then I have been watching it over and over and over again, and there's so many lessons. So many cool life lessons from this show. And so without further ado, let's get into the episode.
You're listening to Kathie's Coaching podcast. I'm your host, Kathie Owen. If you haven't watched part one on the episode Signs you can go check it out after this. It won't matter if you watch it in series or not, but I invite you to check it out as well as check out the entire playlist on lessons from Ted Lasso.
But we talked about how. Signs can appear when we release control and drop heavy expectations. And today we're going deeper. This week, something happened in my own life that feels like a turning point, and it connects beautifully to Ted's journey in the episode Signs. So in this episode, so many of the characters are searching, Rebecca's questioning her destiny and Keeley's at a crossroads, and Nate is wrestling with inner demons and Ted is quietly trying to hold it all together while far away from his son.
Near the end of the episode, Ted Pauses alone in his office after the team had lost, I wanna say like its eighth consecutive game, and he had his eyes on the Pyramid of success. What is that? That is John Wooden's classic framework for excellence and leadership. Just the sight of it. Stirs up everything that Ted's been carrying.
The pressure to lead well, the guilt of being far from home and the quiet ache for his son and the miss of his soon to be ex-wife in that still moment before he even picks up the phone. Ted's anxiety surges and he actually has a panic attack. Later when he does talk with his son, we see something beautiful.
His son had started to process his own anger and find calm on his own, and he told his dad, Hey, yeah, I learned this from you. I remember what you taught me. Count to 10, and then if I'm still angry, count to 10 again. And after the call, we see Ted calm himself after he already faced a wave of panic and it came back again after he got off the call.
But he did calm himself. He took a deep breath, he put his hand on his heart and he began to study himself. And I'm gonna relate this so much to my journey with anxiety. But let's talk about why Ted's panic hit. We've all had that moment where a symbol of who we want to be, success, leadership, family. It suddenly feels like pressure. For Ted that pyramid represented the dad and the coach. He wants to be, the phone call reminded him of the distance and actually the guilt. And he's leading a team but losing trust of everyone around him because they keep losing and he's still coping with anxiety and homesickness. And his body finally said, this is too much.
That's what panic is, our nervous system throwing the emergency break. And I know that feeling. All too well, I've had major panic attacks in the moment, and your nervous system is actually sending you a sign. And it may not be the sign that you think it is, you're actually safe, but your body is telling you, hold on, hold on.
Something's not right here. And we're gonna process this today in a very magical way. So how Ted processed it, what's beautiful is what happens after he had this moment with himself. Ted doesn't run from it. He actually breathes and he steadies. He doesn't let the panic define him. He lets it move through.
And I want to state this very wholeheartedly. Emotion is just energy in motion. And when you have a panic attack, if you breathe through it, if you steady, if you float, it will move through your body within 90 seconds. And that's exactly what he did. And we watch this on this episode and later, instead of shutting down, he returns to his team with one of the most powerful moments of the series. It's called the Believe speech, and he gives this speech to the team and it's so, so beautifully done while he is telling the speech, we see the other characters in their process of whatever they're going through at the time and. And also we see Ted giving the speech to the team, and this is huge because Ted moves from panic to presence.
And I want to go back to finding courage. Instead of letting fear dominate, because that's what it takes. It's a scary, scary moment. But if you find courage, you rise above the lower vibrations of fear and panic, and you rise up to presence. What happens was Ted doesn't fix everything, but he finds ground again.
He finds the higher vibration. So my own breakthrough, I had a very similar experience recently with anxiety. I've had anxiety probably all of my life, and I don't own it. So instead of saying I have anxiety, I really mean the anxiety shows its ugly head. And I love how the book Inner Excellence talks about anxiety and the trickster, the monkey mind, all of these different things.
He really labels it. Because that's all it is. It's something we want to label, but something had actually triggered my nervous system and old panic feelings started rising. But this time I had a new tool that I really, really stick with Now. It's called meditation, and I made a deep commitment to hold to my inner vision.
What is that? My inner vision is something that is bigger than the anxiety. It's much more powerful, and Neville Goddard teach teaches this, that when you live from the end, the feeling of that is where the answer lies. So it's really hard, I'm not gonna lie. It's hard to keep that inner vision when your entire world feels like it's crumbling, but when you really commit to it with courage.
Oh my goodness. Miracles happen. I actually, I wanna say I manifested something really, really beautiful in my relationship and my 3D world was screaming all of these crazy things in my relationship with my partner, and it was going absolutely nuts. I, I honestly thought maybe in my ideal vision, it wouldn't play out the way I wanted it to.
Like maybe we were not gonna be together anymore, maybe. But I held on with unconditional love because I absolutely love my partner like so, so, so much. And so I held onto that unconditional love from my meditation and I pictured it beautifully. And what happened was absolutely magical. We had a moment just less than 24 hours after this chaos came through.
And it wasn't anything like I ever dreamed of this actually happened, and it was better than what I thought. And I'm like, okay, so this works. So when you hold on with unconditional love, let the 3D play out. Let your anxiety play its little game.
Give it some validation even. Because I even sat there with my ego and I said, you know, I hear you. You think you're keeping me safe, but you're not. So we're just gonna let this. Go through and I'm just gonna feel this energy in motion and let it go. So even though the outside world, the 3D world looked chaotic and opposite of what I wanted, I pictured unconditional love, I pictured safety, and I pictured the reality that I am building.
So in this meditation, I saw myself in a maze bumping into walls, confused, and then I felt myself lift up and looked down from above like a bird's eye view, and I realized that. That fear and anxiety was just me inside this maze, and that was my warning sign. Hey, get out of the maze. And the way to do that for me was to go into meditation and find the bigger vision.
And that gave me a higher perspective. I could see the path, I could breathe, and this moment was powerful. My body calmed down, my actual body, and the anxiety calmed for a good 24 hours. My heart, mind, and gut felt like they clicked into alignment. I wasn't fighting reality anymore. I was standing clear in my own vision and it felt like the end of panic and it felt like fear wouldn't come again.
But that's not gonna happen because I believe that the fear and the anxiety is just a sign that I'm in the maze and I need to rise above that. And I know how to meet it now. I wanna go back to Ted's believe talk, where he came out to the team after the, that consecutive loss.
Everybody was so disappointed. The belief sign fell down. Everything was like, and if you follow sports, you know when that belief Sein fell down, you know, they're so superstitious, they're all like, oh my God, this is not gonna work. And it's funny because that happens to me with that panic and that anxiety when it comes up.
I am paying way too much attention to the 3D world. That is just my sign and it's time to rise above and look at it differently, get a different perspective, and calm the nervous system down because you can make much more clear decisions from that. So after Ted's panic attack, he returns and gives the team that unforgettable talk about belief.
But this time he reframes belief. It's not blind optimism, it's connection between heart. Mind and gut, and this is really important. The heart, the mind, and the gut. So the heart, what you deeply care about. Your emotional compass, your unconditional love for yourself and others. And then there's your mind.
There's reason, planning, strategy, and a lot of times your mind can get in the way. It can get in the way with logic and sometimes it's just better to picture something so clear and vivid in your mind that you feel it in your body. You just feel it and it's, it's so powerful because the subconscious mind will believe that.
Um, yeah, believe I said. And then there's your gut, your intuition, that deeper knowing that goes beyond logic. When those three are at war, we feel lost in panicky. So when your heart, your mind, and your gut are at war, you can feel anxiety and panic. But when they align, we feel powerful and grounded. And Ted helped his players stop living split between fear, doubt, and overthinking.
He brought them back to wholeness. That's what I felt in my breakthrough, my heart, my mind, and my gut finally talking to each other again. But it took meditation and it took a while in meditation. It also took what I talked about in the last episode. It took a social media detox, an email detox. A chat GPT detox because whenever I felt myself getting on these sites or looking at anything, I started to feel that anxiety rise in my body.
And when I feel that it's time to step away and meditate. And then what happened was it led me to start thinking, I'm going to start doing a YouTube series on these episodes. I don't know or even expect anything big to happen from this, but I do expect a miracle, whether it touched your heart or whether it talked to you in some way.
That's what I expect, because I'm not expecting like big, big, big things, but I am expecting a big, big, big miracle because whenever, even now. I can feel in the daytime, um, maybe somebody told me I needed to be doing this for my business or doing this for my, um, work and it doesn't feel right. My anxiety is a sign that I am in that maze.
And it's time for me to step back. If that means 24 hours, that means 24 hours. If that means going to meditation for 30 minutes, that means going to meditation for 30 minutes, even if my 3D world is screaming, for example. So I went outside and I was just sitting there thinking and just meditating, and I was just sitting on the patio, just sitting there doing nothing.
And when I came back inside, my partner was like. What kind of bad news do you have? I, I know you have bad news. That's what you always do when you go out there. Oh no, it wasn't bad news, but that was the 3D world. Um, just mirroring back to me what I used to think. I used to do that, but I don't do that anymore.
And sometimes it takes a while for all of things to catch. Up to what we're doing. But one thing that really built my faith in this process was the fact that what happened in my relationship was so magical and so beautiful, and nothing I ever dreamed of that it was like, okay, that was a big sign from the universe.
So I'm gonna give you some practical steps for you and me if you're listening and think, I want this too. Here are some small, doable ways to practice what Ted and I did. Number one, pause and name the storm. When panic or anger shows up, literally say, this is fear, this is pain. It's okay. Naming it is powerful.
And I wanna add this too. It also validates your ego who is screaming at the top of its lungs. Hey look, this is scary. You need to do something about this. You better do it right now, and you better start following these tips. And that is just pain. But when you say. This is fear, this is pain. It's okay. That's powerful.
So step number two, come back to your vision. This is something important I want to add here. You've got to get clear on your vision. Go journal it. What do you exactly want? And you have to get clear on that because when you come back to your vision, you ask yourself, what's the loving, safe picture?
I'm moving to? See it clearly breathe into it. And for me, sometimes, especially when the anxiety is really strong, it takes a little while to really start getting into that. But your body will let you know and give yourself plenty of time to breathe into it and see it clearly, because your subconscious mind doesn't know the difference.
Between your imagination and reality. And when you really feel it, you really feel it with all your five senses in your imagination, that means you have created the safe picture that you're moving towards. And then number three, lift your perspective. Imagine yourself above the maze, especially when you start thinking about the 3D, you're looking at it from a.
From a bird's eye view, look at yourself running in the maze. With all those fearful things, your brain cannot come up with the solutions. I'm going to repeat that 'cause it's super important. Your brain cannot come up with the solutions. You have to listen to your intuition, you have to listen to your heart.
And then from there what will happen is they all three align your brain, your heart, and your intuition.
And then of course, I'm leading right into this. Number four is your heart, mind, and gut check. Your heart. What do I feel? I mean, really feel when I see that vision of the future or whatever you're dreaming of. What, what do you want? And then your mind, what's the truth and the plan. Again, you're not gonna find that with your rational mind.
You have to align all three, and then your gut, what feels instinctively right next. Bringing them into the conversation can settle your nervous system. So I want you to celebrate tiny wins, all of those signs, especially like the ones I talked about yesterday. So I probably triggered thoughts in your mind of signs that you have on your path.
And notice the small confirmations and write them down. Keep a little notebook handy and always be ready to notice the small confirmations. A message, a coincidence, a person showing up. They rebuild trust that life is supporting you. Just remember that because my sign yesterday was a. A big one because it was actually something I'd never even dreamed would happen.
And it was so awesome and it was such a contradictory to the day before when the 3D world was screaming loudly. But it can be something simple, it can be something easy. And it will be something easy. And I also wanna note this right here, 'cause it's really important. When your nervous system is screaming, it's usually a sign that you're in the maze.
And it's not the right direction. And I can tell you that without a doubt, because here lately, my nervous system had been acting up and it was just going in the wrong direction. It was living in pain. It was living in the past. It was living in memories. It was living in. All kinds of things. So what I did was, instead of letting that imagination rule my, my mind and my nervous system, I went to where I wanted to go. And that changed everything.
I also wanna touch on Nate again. And Nate is the coach who betrayed ted and he left the club and he went to go work for Rupert, who is the ultimate villain in the entire series, but. Nate is not a bad guy. He just doesn't know. He's just not, he's unaware. It's kind of like you when you're in a panic attack.
It's kind of like me when I'm in a panic attack, I am unaware, and so I am following signs that. Are not the right way. So Nate is battling his own inner pictures. He starts to see Rupert's darkness, and he's wrestling with who he really wants to be because. In the next episode, Nate actually gets set up on a date with this supermodel that's absolutely like famous and very into herself and you know, looks good on paper, but that's not where his heart is.
And he knows it and she treats him really bad and it's like, oh my goodness. I can't believe people even think like that. But it's funny because. That's true. That's what anxiety will do. It will trick you into thinking that's where you wanna be, but that's not. And so sometimes our first signs are uncomfortable.
They reveal truth about relationships or environments that we thought were safe. And that's part of growth too. And seeing clearly so we can step into better alignment.
Alright, so if you've been stuck in fear of panic like me, or you're searching for signs that you're okay, I want you to know this. The body panics when it thinks you're lost. Give it a bigger loving picture. Align your heart, mind, and gut. Is possible. It really, really is. And when you do peace returns and signs really do show up, but often after we let go of needing control, that right there is probably the most important thing because the ego wants to control everything, but when you let go of needing to control, like I did, like I let go of needing to control my partner of how he had to respond. All I did was picture him with unconditional love and I trusted that he would be a part of my process.
And guess what? It turned out so much better than I expected. So Ted's journey reminds us you can have a panic attack and still stand up and lead with love. You can breathe, believe, and help others find their ground even while you're finding yours. If this episode resonated with you, check out part one of Signs and subscribe so you don't miss what's next in this series.
'cause oh my goodness, it's so good and I bet I could come back to this episode and all of the episodes with more and more profound insights and I'd love to hear your story. Have you ever had a breakthrough after fear? Share it below and you could be someone's sign today. All right. That's my episode for today.
I trust that you found it helpful. If you know someone who could benefit from this, please share with them. And until next time, I will see you next time. Peace out and Namste.
