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The Spiral: The Stories Fear Tells Us
The Spiral: The Stories Fear Tells Us
The Courage to Reconnect
The Spiral: The Stories Fear Tells Us
Show: The Courage to Reconnect
S1E7
29 min
Fear rarely stops at fear. Once we're afraid, our minds begin trying to make sense of what's happening. We fill in missing information, make assumptions, replay conversations, predict what might happen next, and before long, we've created an entire story.
The problem isn't that our brains create stories. We're meaning-making humans, and our brains naturally try to make sense of uncertainty. The problem is that fear often becomes the author, and fear rarely writes neutral stories.
In this episode, Sarah walks through The Spiral, one of the most painful parts of The Disconnection Loop and often the first point where we consciously realize we're caught in the pattern. She explains why our stories can feel so convincing, how emotion and logic work together through the concept of Wise Mind, and why feeling something deeply doesn't necessarily make our interpretation of the situation completely true.
In This Episode:
The problem isn't that our brains create stories. We're meaning-making humans, and our brains naturally try to make sense of uncertainty. The problem is that fear often becomes the author, and fear rarely writes neutral stories.
In this episode, Sarah walks through The Spiral, one of the most painful parts of The Disconnection Loop and often the first point where we consciously realize we're caught in the pattern. She explains why our stories can feel so convincing, how emotion and logic work together through the concept of Wise Mind, and why feeling something deeply doesn't necessarily make our interpretation of the situation completely true.
In This Episode:
- What The Spiral is and where it fits into The Disconnection Loop
- Why fear fills in the blanks when we're faced with uncertainty
- How assumptions can begin feeling like facts
- Why emotions are important without always being reliable evidence of the story we're telling ourselves
- How fear can turn a disappointing experience into a judgment about our worth
- Why comparison is sometimes the spiral searching for evidence to prove its own story
- What it means to outsource our worth to other people, relationships, achievements, and outcomes
- How the CHANGE Method can help us interrupt the spiral and Ground in Truth
- How asking, "What percentage of this story is actually true?" can help us reconnect emotion with reality
Reflection Questions
This week, simply begin noticing when you're in The Spiral. You don't have to immediately stop it or fix it. Start by getting curious.
- What story am I telling myself right now?
- What emotion is that story creating?
- What evidence actually supports this story?
- What evidence doesn't?
- If I wasn't listening to fear, what else might be true?
These questions may not immediately change how you feel, but they can begin changing your relationship with the story.
Go Deeper
If you'd like to explore your own Disconnection Loop more deeply, the Discovering Your Disconnection Loop Workbook walks you through each part of the loop to help you identify your patterns, beliefs, fears, and stories, then introduces the CHANGE Method to help you begin finding your way out.
Explore the Disconnection Loop Workbook
Next week, we'll move into the next stage of The Disconnection Loop: Control. Once fear's story feels true, we naturally begin trying to do something about it. We try harder, people-please, compare, fix, rescue, or control outcomes, all in an attempt to protect ourselves from the pain we believe is coming.
Remember: Just because fear tells the story doesn't mean fear gets to decide the ending.
Go Deeper
If you'd like to explore your own Disconnection Loop more deeply, the Discovering Your Disconnection Loop Workbook walks you through each part of the loop to help you identify your patterns, beliefs, fears, and stories, then introduces the CHANGE Method to help you begin finding your way out.
Explore the Disconnection Loop Workbook
Next week, we'll move into the next stage of The Disconnection Loop: Control. Once fear's story feels true, we naturally begin trying to do something about it. We try harder, people-please, compare, fix, rescue, or control outcomes, all in an attempt to protect ourselves from the pain we believe is coming.
Remember: Just because fear tells the story doesn't mean fear gets to decide the ending.
