The Daily Unwind: Stop Spiraling 🌀

In this episode of Unwind, we explore the habit of spiraling thoughts and discover a different way of working with them.

Rather than fighting the mental looping, or attempting to control it, this episode will help you reconnect with the deeper currents beneath mental activity. As the body relaxes, the spiraling energy begins to move down through the heart, and the body, becoming more grounded, creative, and useful.  

In this Unwind: relaxation, self-hypnosis, nervous system regulation, and personal growth. Some listeners may drift into sleep, while others remain aware throughout the experience.

For best results, listen regularly. The nervous system responds beautifully to repetition, and each time you return to an episode, your relaxation response will  deepen.

If you'd like to spend more time in the world of Unwind, you'll find bonus episodes, ad-free listening, live gatherings, and behind-the-scenes content on Patreon.

Thanks for unwinding with me!

💗 Jessica

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hi everybody, this is Jessica Porter, and welcome to your daily Unwind, a podcast where we come back to ourselves, explore relaxation, and gently pose the question: what do we find when we unwind? Thank you for being here. Thank you for being with me on this next chapter of this work. Please stay in touch with me at Patreon or my website or Instagram. Because remember, this show isn't about me, it's about us. We gotta stick through the world right now, together as humans. Okay. Today, stop spiraling. So before I go on with this introduction, I'd like you to get yourself in a comfortable position. Maybe you're listening to this in the middle of the day, and you can only just be seated. That's okay. Just make sure, no matter what position you're in, that your neck is relaxed. Your head is resting safely on something. Because when your neck is relaxed, the rest of your body can really let go. Good. Now close your eyes and bring your awareness back into your body. And as you hear my voice, you'll find that you begin relaxing really easily, really naturally. As we talk about our topic, spiraling. You know, it's the thing we say a lot: stop spiraling, I'm spiraling. You know, this idea that our minds have a tendency to loop and gain momentum to get out of control, especially when we're feeling stress. But what's funny about the word spiral is that it's actually a very natural pattern. Like the most natural pattern. Organic life is often built in spirals, cycles, returns, you know, like sprouts spiral up out of a seed, roses twist open, hurricanes rotate. Our fingertips are basically spirals. Look around nature for a moment, and you will find tons of spirals. So the idea of stopping spiraling isn't about stopping the mind or even stopping the movement of our thoughts, it's about slowing them down and letting that energy move elsewhere in the body, to drop down and circulate throughout your whole being, instead of just inside your head. When we unwind, which is another sporalic image, by the way, we get to be in our lives not just from our minds, but from our hearts and our guts, from our power. So as you sit here or lie here, already unwinding just by listening to my words, bring your awareness for a moment to your breath. Just notice the gentle wave of your breath. Good. And now I'd like you to bring your awareness for a moment into your lips. Your lips may be touching one another, or maybe they're open. But your lips have an enormous amount of circulation within them and a lot of nerve endings. So it's easy to bring your awareness into, let's just say, your bottom lip. Just hang out in your bottom lip for a moment. Allow your world to become very small, and all you're doing is simply feeling. Just being in your bottom lip. What's going on in there? Just notice. May even feel sort of swollen as your awareness fills your lower lip. Good. You may find that as your awareness hangs out in your lower lip, that your jaw is naturally beginning to relax. Oh, it's nice to let your jaw go. Let it unwind. Our jaws hold a lot of stuff. So it's nice when they let go. And you may notice that as your lip and your jaw are relaxing, your belly is releasing. The muscles letting go. And if that hasn't happened already, just allow it to happen. Your belly letting go. Your lips and your belly are actually connected in a strange and primal way. So as your lips are relaxing, your whole body is relaxing. And now I'd like you to allow your awareness to move to your eyes, noticing that your eyelids are feeling very, very heavy. Allow your eyelids to feel nice and heavy, comfortable, and as they're relaxing, imagine a warm, relaxed feeling moving all around your eyes. All the muscles around your eyes are softening and letting go. And as your eyes are relaxing, your whole nervous system is releasing, unwinding. And now a lovely, relaxed feeling is moving down into your arms, causing your arms to feel dense, heavy. So wonderful heaviness moving down into your hands, into your fingers. And your pelvis is feeling heavy. As you imagine that same lovely heaviness moving down through your thighs, through your knees, down your calves, into your feet, into your toes. As you bring your awareness to any sounds that may be going on around you, and allow those sounds to take you deeper and deeper, causing you to unwind even more. Beautiful. And now allow your awareness to rise back up again into your head, into your brain, right behind your forehead. And imagine for a moment that you are spiraling about something. There's a familiar motion in your mind, thoughts circling, energy turning in on itself, a loop moving in the same direction. But because you're so relaxed, you can just observe it now. As you simply notice the way it moves, the rhythm of it, the speed of it, and the way that spiral inside can hold your attention. But even as you witness this spiral in your mind, your breath is slowing down, and your body is settling more deeply. You are observing and relaxing at the same time. As you relax every single muscle, every nerve, every fiber of your being becoming loose and limp and relaxed. As the spiral continues. But as you're going deeper and deeper into relaxation, you notice that the spiral is changing. Its edges are softening. Its movement is slowing. It's becoming looser. And you're noticing that the spiral is not something you need to control or repress. The spiral is pure energy. And as you relax, it's softening. Ready to move more freely. And now the spiral is unwinding and descending like a ribbon down from your mind into your chest. As your breath deepens, your shoulders release. And the spiral is moved down into the space of your heart. Just notice how that feels. And now that the energy has reached your heart, it's changing again. Becoming a little fuller in this area. It's widening a bit. That spiral which began up in your head is now in your heart and it's soft. Like a flower unfolding. Just hanging out. What does your heart feel about the problem you were spiraling about before? What does your heart know? As you allow this heart energy to expand beyond your body, into the room. It feels nice to bring this energy into your life. As you imagine the spiral now continuing downward, descending further inside of you, deep down into your center, into your belly. And here the spiral is becoming slower, deeper, more grounded, like the roots of an old tree spiraling down, twisting down into the soil. As your belly is softening, your center is deepening as you relax, going deeper. You're connecting now with an old, ancient intelligence. Your gut has millions of neurons. It has intelligence, feelings, perceptions. So that thing you were spiraling about in your brain, what does your gut think? What does your gut know? Now that energy that was circling in your mind, it's moving down through your whole body, alive. As you go deeper and deeper, and the muscles of your body are loose and limp and relaxed, unwinding, unwinding. And as you're unwinding, the energy is moving even more freely, more powerfully. And as your body is unwinding, your mind is feeling clear and peaceful. And from your center, from your heart and your gut, even from your mind, the energy is moving forward into the space in front of you again and behind you, creating a sense of expansion all around. So you're no longer contained within some loop. You are moving. Your energy is moving, flowing through you, extending into the world. And you're feeling good, and your body is healing. You feel peaceful, light, joyous, even. And you realize there's more to you than your mind. There's more to you than your thoughts. As you enjoy this space inside, in a moment, I'm going to count from one to five, and on the count of five, you'll open your eyes coming back to the room, moving into your day. Understand that your conscious mind knows how to handle the tasks and the goals of your day. But now, because your body and mind are peaceful and relaxed, you'll find that you enjoy your daily routine from a soft, peaceful place. You're bringing more of yourself, a new dimension of yourself to your life. And it's fun because life can be fun. One, energy moving through your hands and your feet and your head. Two, coming closer and closer to your conscious waking state. Three, enjoying this energy, enjoying this flow. Four, feeling really, really good inside. So excited for your day. Five, allow your eyes to open, coming back to the room, feeling wonderful. Thank you for unwinding with me. Let's do it again soon.