This is something we really work together on in Essentials to Enjoy Life group coaching class.
- Recognizing when you are spinning
- Recognizing when someone else is spinning
- Learning how to stop spinning!
- Which helps you to avoid spinning wars.
What is Spinning?
Spinning is when thoughts and or emotions start swirling around in our head and body.
You can have positive spins
- Trigger – Roller Coaster
- Feeling – Excitement
- Thought – Remembering Fun trips there
- Trigger – Memories of Park
In Essentials to Enjoy Life class we focus more on negative spins, because those are what can cause problems
- Trigger – Roller Coaster
- Feeling – Sick, nervous
- Thoughts – Remembering throwing up on friend
- Trigger – Memories of being embarrassed
Another one, that is more common than seeing a roller coaster – dirty dishes in the sink!
- Trigger – Dirty Dishes
- Feeling – Frustration
- Thoughts – Memories, all the times he didn’t do the dishes
- Trigger
There is so much power in recognizing when you are spinning.
There is also power when you teach someone you trust and love about spinning, because when appropriate you can point it out to each other and help each other stop spinning.
Because so often when you are spinning, for some reason it seems to start a spinning war.
Spinning Wars
For example, if I am spinning about the dishes and my hubby is sitting there as happy as can be watching his show on TV. I don’t want him to be happy… so I will say or do something to provoke him to spin and then when he is spinning he does it back, so suddenly everyone is spinning and there is a lot of big emotions and thoughts and sometimes loud words swirling around.
Bryson, my youngest was the one who noticed this and named them spinning wars.
Over time I have learned to recognize when I am spinning and stop, which has helped to prevent these wars.
Recognizing patterns of spinning can help prevent a spin from happening!
Even knowing when you usually spin, seeing those patterns, can help stop a spin before it starts!
I started recognizing that back in the day, when I would go to book club, I would want the kids in bed and the dishes done when I came home. Often that didn’t happen. Once I recognized that pattern and that I would usually spin about it, I came up with a plan on how to handle the situation.
I even noticed that I would start spinning in the car while I was driving home, before even seeing the dirty dishes, thinking that there might BE dirty dishes would make me spin.
There is so much power in awareness. I developed and practiced a plan in my mind. If there are dirty dishes, I would just pause, take a deep breath and say, “Hi babe, will you do the dishes when you get a chance?” He would be like, “Sure” and then I would just sit down and visit with him, talk about book club.
This might seem hard or maybe it seems easy.
What I love about Essentials to Enjoy Life, is I teach a tool each week and you practice it throughout the week. First just recognizing you are spinning. That is it, just name it. We add a new tool the next week and practice that during the week.
My students are amazed at how much change they can achieve in only 6-8 weeks. No more yelling at kids to having a clean house and everything in between. It is personalized to each student, to what they want to work on.
Try noticing this week!
This week pay attention. Notice if you can tell when you are spinning. When you do, just say, “Wow, I am spinning!”
If you want to have more support to be aware of when you are spinning, learn your patterns of spinning and also and how to stop spinning, then check out Essentials to Enjoy Life group coaching classes.