Hello,
Good morning and welcome to day three.
I am so excited about today because we are talking about one of my least favorite things,
Something I know very,
Very well.
It is The Spiral you to keep.
Let's get started.
Okay,
So today we are going to talk about something you know very well,
Something you have probably lived inside of more times than you can count.
We are going to talk about the spiral.
And I want to start by saying something clearly before we go anywhere else.
The spiral is not a character flaw.
It is not proof that you are too much.
It is not evidence that you are broken or even dramatic or exhausting.
It is your nervous system doing exactly what it was built to do.
And once you understand what is actually happening inside your body when the spiral takes over,
I promise you it will never look the same way again.
Let me take you into the science for a moment because this part genuinely changed my life and I think it might change yours too.
So when you perceive a threat,
And in the context of anxious attachment,
That threat is almost always relational.
Someone going quiet,
A short response,
Plans changing,
That gut feeling that something has shifted,
Your brain's alarm system fires.
This is your friend,
The amygdala.
It is a small almond-shaped structure deep in your brain that Basically,
Its entire job is to scan for danger and sound the alarm when it finds it.
Now,
Here's the thing about the amygdala that nobody tells you.
It cannot tell the difference between a physical threat and an emotional one.
It does not know the difference between a lion chasing you and the person you love not texting you back for six hours.
To the amygdala,
Both of those things register as danger.
Both of them trigger the same alarm.
The moment that alarm fires,
Your hippothymus,
Which is basically your brain's command center,
Activates your stress response system.
Cortisol and adrenaline flood your body,
Your heart rate goes up,
Your breathing gets shallow,
Your muscles get tense,
And your prefrontal cortex,
Literally the part of the brain responsible for rational thinking,
Perceptive thinking,
And the ability to say,
Okay,
Let us not catastrophe everything here,
Is the part that goes offline.
So research published in neuroscience journals has actually shown that people with anxious attachment have heightened amygdala activity even in response to subtle negative cues from the other person that they love.
A slightly flat tone,
A one-word reply,
A slower response than usual,
The alarm fires faster and louder than it does for someone with secure attachment and the connection between the rational brain and the emotional brain brain is weaker,
Which means talking yourself down is genuinely harder,
Not because you are not smart enough.
Because the neurological pathway is less developed.
That is not a moral failing.
That is just a brain that learned to stay on high alert.
So,
When you are in the spiral and someone says,
Just calm down or you are being irrational,
I want you to remember this.
Your brain is flooded with cortisol,
Your prefrontal cortex is partially offline,
You are not being irrational,
You are being human.
Whose nervous system is doing exactly what it was trained to do.
Now,
Let me tell you about the spiral sequence,
Because the spiral is not random.
It follows a very specific pattern,
And once you can see the pattern,
You can start to catch it earlier.
It goes like this.
First,
There's the trigger.
Something happens in the external world,
Or sometimes nothing happens at all,
And that silence,
You know what I'm talking about,
Is the trigger.
Then there is the body response.
Before your mind even forms a thought,
Your body has already reacted.
The chest tightens.
The stomach drops.
The shoulders creep up toward the ears.
Then comes the story.
You make up a story.
Your mind rushes in to explain what the body is feeling and for someone with anxious attachment the story is almost always going to be the worst case scenario.
And then comes the behavior.
The checking,
The texting,
The withdrawing,
The confronting,
Whatever your particular flavor of coping looks like,
Trigger.
Body,
Story,
Behavior.
That's the order.
That sequence can happen in about 30 seconds,
Which is why it feels like it comes out of nowhere.
It did not come out of nowhere,
It just moved faster than your conscious awareness could track.
I want to share something personal here because I lived inside the spiral for years and I want you to know I am not talking about it from the outside looking in.
I was in a relationship with someone who was avoidant.
He did not know he was avoidant at the time at all,
Neither did I really,
But looking back the dynamic was textbook avoidant.
He took space,
Sometimes for days,
Sometimes for weeks.
He barely texted.
When things get emotionally heavy,
Down completely.
Stonewalled is what it's called.
And he would say things like,
It is not you,
It is me,
Which if you have ever heard that,
You know it lands like a grenade,
Even when the person means it sincerely.
And in that space,
In all that silence and distance,
My nervous system went to work.
I filled every single gap with a story.
I told myself I was not loved.
Not chosen,
Not seen,
Not understood,
Not valued,
Not enough.
I built entire narratives out of nothing but his silence and my own world.
And here's the part that I think is really important to hear.
It felt familiar.
The chaos,
The uncertainty,
The not knowing where I stood,
That felt like home to me because it mirrored something from my childhood.
And so I stayed.
I let the chaos brew.
Because on some level,
My nervous system recognized it and called it safe.
Even when it was destroying me.
That is the spiral,
Not just the anxious thoughts,
But the whole ecosystem of it.
The trigger,
The story,
The familiar feeling of it,
The staying,
Because the chaos feels more recognizable than peace.
And none of that made me broken.
It made me someone whose nervous system was doing its absolute best with the wiring it had been given.
So your shamanic practice today is the spiral SOS cards.
I like to keep these on hand on my phone when I catch myself spiraling.
So this is a tool I want you to keep on your phone.
You can screenshot it,
Put it somewhere.
You will actually find it when you are activated because when you are in the spiral,
Your prefrontal cortex is completely shut off and you will not remember what to do unless it is right in front of your face.
Like literally in your face being like,
Do this.
So step one.
It tells you to feel your feet on the floor.
Press them down.
Notice the ground beneath you.
This is the grounding aspect of it.
Step two.
Name five things you can see right now,
Out loud if you can.
So I like to name a book,
I like to name a water bottle.
I like to name anything that's in my vicinity,
My environment,
That brings me out into the external,
Not the internal.
Step 3.
Press your palms together firmly.
Hold for 10 seconds.
This brings you back into the parasympathetic,
The calm,
Restful,
Open state.
And then step four.
Release.
Breathe slowly.
And let your shoulders drop.
So it's very important to pay attention to our surroundings and bring ourselves out of the trigger state.
And into the parasympathetic so that we can respond correctly from a sound,
Calm,
Healthy place.
And your journal prompt today is,
When you spiral,
What story do you tell yourself about what someone's silence means?
Get specific,
Not a general answer,
The actual words your mind says.
And then,
Where did you first learn that story?
How old were you the first time you told yourself that version of events?
Okay.
The spiral is not you.
The spiral is a pattern.
It's a very,
Very old,
Loyal,
Very exhausted pattern that has been trying to protect you since you were very young.
It does not need your shame.
It needs your understanding.
And then,
It needs you to start showing it a different way.
You're probably not dramatic for acting that way.
You're not too much.
You are activated and there is a real difference.
You just did the work.
Take a deep breath.
Okay you guys,
Have a wonderful day.
I will see you on day four.
With so much love,
Hayley.
Bye.
