When You’re At Your Lowest And Downward Spiraling

We’ve all been there: nothing major has actually happened, but the thoughts just won’t stop. You feel stuck. Not just tired, not just sad, but genuinely stuck, like you’re trapped.

 

This isn’t about toxic positivity or “just thinking happy thoughts.” It’s about what you can actually do when you’re at your lowest.

A few weeks ago, I reconnected with a young woman I’d worked with. She is smart, introspective, kind, and currently struggling with grades, friendships, and the pressure of being a good daughter.

 

She told me, half-laughing, “I think I think too much.” Her mum used to tease her about it: “You just have too much time!”

 

She wondered if her mum was right. If she didn’t overthink everything, would half her problems even disappear?

 

There’s some truth in that.

 

Real problems are real, be it exams, bills, or heartbreak. But so often we add an invisible layer on top: rehearsing a crisis before it happens, replaying a loss over and over, demanding perfection instead of just passing.

 

The problems we actually face are hard enough without the extra weight we create ourselves.

 

But this is not a weakness, as many of my clients would label it this way.

That’s just what an untrained mind does.

 

We love labeling ourselves: anxious, pessimistic, impulsive, too sensitive. We say it like a permanent diagnosis. But what if those labels aren’t who we are but just patterns our minds have learned?

 

And patterns, with awareness and practice, can change.

 

That distinction matters enormously when you’re in the middle of a spiral.

 

When you’re overwhelmed, the instinct is to either suppress the feeling or force yourself into positivity. Neither works. Instead, there’s a more honest path.

 

Not what happened, not what you think, just the feeling itself, such as “I feel sad.” “I feel hopeless.” Naming creates distance between you and the emotion.

 

This may be a little technical, but bear with me:

 

Name an emotion measurably calms the amygdala (the brain’s alarm system) while activating the prefrontal cortex (its reasoning centre), and the two have an inverse relationship, so as one rises, the other settles.

 

Simply reaching for a word begins to quiet the alarm.

 

But naming isn’t the same as ruminating.

 

“I feel nervous” is naming. Brief and observational, like a scientist noting a data point.

 

“Why am I always like this?” is ruminating, and it keeps the amygdala firing by feeding it more threat.

 

That small, detached distance is what gives labeling its power.

 

Feelings are usually echoes of thoughts we barely notice. If you feel like a failure after a bad grade, the thought underneath might be: “I’m useless. What’s wrong with me?”

 

Here’s the crucial part: don’t try to leap from that thought to its opposite. Telling someone in despair “you’re amazing!” doesn’t land. It feels like a lie their nervous system rejects, which only deepens the wound.

 

Not a perfect one. Just slightly truer, slightly lighter. From “I’m a failure,” you might reach: “I put in a lot of effort, and I didn’t give up.” That moves you from helpless to discouraged. And discouraged still means you care.

 

From there, you climb further: “I tried hard, but I don’t know what’s going wrong” (It is more like frustration, which is actually progress, because it means you believe you’re capable but you just don’t know yet). Then: “I can figure this out” (hope). Then: “I can ask for help” (optimism and agency).

 

One small, honest thought at a time.

This isn’t just a coping trick. It’s a practice of retraining your mind. It requires two things: awareness, the honesty to know exactly where you are rather than where you wish you were, and humility, the willingness to climb slowly instead of demanding instant transformation.

 

The spiral goes up the same way it goes down, gradually, one thought at a time. And every small step counts.

I wrote this for my son, Ethan, imagining him reading it at his lowest. I wanted him to know: you don’t have to feel better all at once. You just have to find one thought a little truer than the last.

 

You’re not broken.

 

You’re not permanently wired for pain.

 

You’re learning.

 

You’re training.

 

And that changes everything.

And if you want to feel more in control and gain tailored tools to spiral upwards, book a consultation with me below.