Caught in the Spiral: How to Interrupt the Lies Your Brain Tells You During Divorce

Your divorce can be messy on the outside but the most exhausting battles often happen inside your own head. When a thought like “I’m not good enough” lands, it doesn’t just feel bad, it can hijack your body, your confidence, and your ability to make clear decisions. I’m Karin Nelson, a divorce coach, and I’m walking you through what’s really happening in those moments so you can stop treating your brain’s stories as unquestionable truth.
 
I start by redefining negative thoughts in a way that actually helps. Instead of labeling thoughts as “good” or “bad” based on how they sound, we use a nervous-system and intuition lens: does the thought feel open and aligned, or tight and contractive? I also separate facts from personal truth so you can make choices that fit your real life, not your fear, guilt, or other people’s opinions. You’ll hear a personal example of how a thought that looks heavy on paper can feel calm and right in your body.
 
Then I break down the brain’s five-step playbook for turning a lie into a “fact,” including the nervous system hook, the tunnel vision, the evidence-stacking, the way your mind rejects support, and the weird little reward that keeps the loop alive. Finally, you’ll get three practical tools for divorce recovery and mindset support you can use immediately: awareness questions, body-based regulation, and self-compassion that builds real self-trust.
 
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Transcript

Welcome And The Real Challenge

Karin Nelson 0:00

Welcome to Becoming You Again, the podcast for women moving through divorce who want to rediscover themselves and build a life that actually feels like theirs. I'm your host, Karin Nelson. I'm a divorce coach with a passion for helping women reconnect with their truth and come home to who they truly are. Today, we're talking about the sneaky, convincing negative thoughts that make divorce so much harder than it has to be, and how you can start catching your brain in the act before it runs away with your whole sense of self. In this episode, you're going to learn why the goal isn't to stop having negative thoughts and what to aim for instead, how to tell the difference between a thought that sounds negative and one that actually is, the five steps your brain runs every single time to convince you that a lie is truth, why the people who love you can tell you you're enough and your brain still won't believe it, and to finish up three practical tools to interrupt the cycle the moment you feel it's starting. All right, let's get started. Welcome to Becoming You Again, the podcast where you learn to step into your power as a woman in this world, where you learn to reconnect to your wholeness, your integrity, and bring into alignment your brain, your body, and your intuition after divorce. This is the podcast where you learn to trust yourself again and move forward toward a life that you truly want. You are listening to Becoming You Again, and I am your host, Karin Nelson. Welcome back to the podcast, my lovely, lovely, amazing, beautiful women. I hope that when you hear me say that, you actually find some truth in that because it's true. Wherever you're at, whatever you're going through, whatever challenges you have faced or are facing, you are amazing, incredible, beautiful, lovely. You're all of the things. And I hope that you will hear it from me and start to learn to believe it. And I'm gonna help you learn how to believe those truths about you in this podcast episode, as I just introduced, because our brain likes to lie to us all the time about so many things, about so many things. Our brain doesn't care if it's a truth or a lie. Our brain doesn't even really know the difference. We have to decipher those. But we will just listen to our brain because that's what we're trained to do, is to just take everything that our brain gives us and be like, okay, I guess there's the evidence. I guess I'll take it as truth. And I'm gonna teach you how to overcome that in today's episode and really apply it to all of the things that your brain is telling you as you go through your divorce. Because I think that this is one of the sneakiest, most underestimated things that makes divorce so much harder than it has to be. Like we've already got all these outside things that are so far out of our control in many, many ways when we go through a divorce, right? We've got the ex and everything they're throwing at us and all of the things that are happening logistically in terms of the lawyers and the decree and the division of assets and child time and, you know, parenting plan and all of the things. But then we have this brain that gets to come along with us. And very often our brain, because it's a human brain, will trick us and convince us of things and we'll believe that they are facts when they're not actually facts. They're actually just thoughts that our brain is throwing at us, and we're like, oh, well, that must be true. So I'm gonna give you some examples as we go through this. So don't worry, if this sounds confusing and you're like, what is she even talking about? I'm going to dive into it and really give you examples. But if you can master this one skill, because it's a skill to learn how to recognize what your brain is telling you and decipher: is this truth? Do I want to believe this? Do I want to continue to think this or not? When you can master this skill, everything is going to change for you. And you are going to learn how to feel more confident, feel more self-trust, and really take away so much of the self-imposed suffering that you are feeling as you go through your divorce. Okay, so here's what I really want you to understand before we go any further into this episode. The goal of today's episode is not to get you to learn how to stop having negative thoughts. Like that's not the goal. That's not even possible. And if someone tells you that that's possible, they're they are lying to you. We are humans, we have human brains, and part of that is to have have, and part of being a human is having negative thoughts. Okay? So that is not the goal. And and really, truly, negative thoughts, they serve a purpose. They help us understand what is actually true for us by contrast, right? You can know what feels open and light and right without sometimes feeling what is heavy and contracted and wrong. It's like the yin and yang of being alive. So, what I want to do today is show you exactly how these thoughts work. So that the next time one comes up and it's trying to sink in and hook into your brain and your thought patterns, and it's trying to like get you to ruminate and to spin and to dive down into that rabbit hole, because it will, because that's what our brain does, you will be more aware of it and you will actually have a fighting chance to catch it before your whole sense of self runs away with it and follows it down the rabbit hole. Right? Okay. So let's talk about what I actually mean when I say negative thoughts. Because when I say negative thoughts, I'm not talking about thoughts that simply sound negative on the surface. I want you to think about it differently. Like a positive thought from this definition is any thought that feels open, expansive, calm, light. It's one that aligns with your authentic self and your inner knowing. And a negative thought is one that feels contractive, small, limiting, heavy, draining. And it is one that shrinks you and pulls you away from your truth. Because the truth is subjective. We want to think that it's not, but it really is. Now, that's truth is different than facts, okay? Facts are not subjective. Facts are facts. Like they are backed up by data and receipts and that kind of thing, right? Truth can be like my truth can be different than your truth or someone else's truth. Okay. So that's why we have to understand it from our own perspective. Because something that feels right and open and expansive to me may feel contractive and limiting and heavy to someone else. All right. But that's why we need to decipher so that you can understand for yourself what is true and right for you. Okay. So here's a perfect example from my own life. When I was going back and forth trying to decide whether I wanted a divorce, I got to this point on a walk where I finally got quiet enough to ask myself, honestly, what I actually wanted. Right. Like I had to let go of all of the outside opinions and judgments and what people were gonna think and say and all the things and get to me. And I finally got quiet enough to ask myself that. And the answer that came up was, I want a divorce. I felt peaceful, I felt expansive, I felt calm. I knew it. I knew that was the right answer for me. Now, on the surface, that might sound like a heavy negative thought, and to some people, it totally might be, right? But when I sat with it, I didn't have that feeling at all. Again, I felt expansive. It felt true, it felt light, it felt open, it felt right. So even though it contained the word divorce, and society will tell you divorce is a terrible thing, it's a negative thing, it's a bad thing, it ruins lives, it da-da-da-da-da. I knew it was my truth and right for me. Right? Because it was in alignment with my intuition. I knew it was the next best step for me. So as we go through this podcast today, that is the lens that I want you to use. Not whether a thought sounds good or bad, but what it actually feels like in your body. And that's what we're gonna use to guide you. So here's five ways that your brain is gonna trick you into believing lies. Because these negative thoughts that we have, they're not lazy. It doesn't mean that you're not paying attention. It's it's actually really strategic on your brain's part, right? There is a very specific playbook that is run by our brain every single time. And I'm gonna use this thought, I'm not good enough, as our example today, because I am pretty sure that every single one of us, you, me, anybody else listening to this podcast, anybody you probably know, has thought this thought about themselves at some point in their life, probably on the regular as you go through your divorce, right? It might sound something like, I wasn't enough to make him stay, or I didn't try hard enough, or I didn't choose good enough, or I'm not a good enough mom. I'm making a mistake as a mother by asking for this divorce, or there must be something wrong with me, or some other version, right? The different words, same root thought. I'm not enough. So I'm gonna walk you through how our brain tricks us into believing this. The first thing that your brain does, my brain included, when I say your, I just mean brains in general, right? Is it makes the hook with this thought into your nervous system. Like something gets said, maybe it's like a critical text from your ex, or maybe a comment from your mom or your ex-mother-in-law, or maybe just a memory comes up and suddenly your body goes into high alert, like it's instantly activated, right? And your nervous system spikes, and you get that catch in your throat, and that flush of heat and the tight feeling in the chest, or however it shows up for you, that is your nervous system recognizing some kind of threat. And here's the trick: because your body reacts very strongly, your brain reads that reaction as confirmation this must be true. Because of how this is affecting me, this must be true. But the thing is, is your nervous system can't tell the difference between like if a tiger is actually in the room and is going to pounce on you, or if you're just having a painful thought. The reaction is the same. The reaction is real. The threat is not. A thought that is creating that reaction inside of you is not real. And that's where we get to recognize it, right? It's just a thought. So that's how that's the first thing that our brain does is it locks right into our nervous system with that thought. The second thing that our brain does is it tries to convince you that there's no other option, that this is the only option to believe. We must take it as truth. And once you're in that heightened nervous system state, the negative thought really narrows your vision because you start to think, well, this divorce is happening. And so that's proof that I wasn't enough in some way, or that I'm not enough in some way, right? I must not have shown up good enough. I must not have been loved enough, or I must not have loved enough, or I must have like not been thin enough or not interesting enough, or I just didn't try hard enough to keep them interested, or try hard enough to convince them to want to show up as a better husband, right? Like whatever our brain is telling us, we will look for the evidence and we will find it. And we will agree that that's the only logical explanation. Like there's no other possibility because this just feels like a fact. And then the third thing that our brain does is it really builds its case. It's like a really good lawyer. It's like the kind of lawyer that you want to hire for your divorce that like finds all of the evidence to support what it's telling you. So, what your brain does is you've got this, I'm not good enough in some way, thought, right? And your nervous system is heightened, and your brain is like, this is your only option to believe it. And now what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna present all of the evidence of it, right? And then it opens up like this file cabinet of all memories, of every time you felt less than, every time you made a mistake, every time somebody said something mean or critical to you, every moment that you fell short in some way. And it just starts like throwing all of those memories at you. And then it's like, remember that argument that you lost? Here you go. Remember that meal that wasn't good enough that he criticized? Here you go. Remember that time that you yelled at your kids and you just weren't a good enough mom? Mm, here you go, right? And it just like stacks the evidence until the case is so airtight that there's no getting out of it. You are like 100% on board. You're like, yes, this is just a fact. I am just not good enough. Here's all of the evidence that I have to support it. So we've got that. But there's two more things that the brain does, which is really smart of our brain to do, but we need to be onto it. Okay. So the fourth thing it does is it rejects any kind of defense that you try and throw back, right? The people who love you, who are around you, who support you, they'll start to say, that's not true. You are enough. You're incredible. Like this isn't your fault, or you're a great mom, or da-da-da-da-da. We could say whatever, right? I even said something at the beginning of this podcast. You're amazing, you're beautiful, you're lovely, you're all the things, right? And instead of being able to receive that and recognize it and accept it as truth, your brain will immediately fire back with the counter argument. And it just pulls up morphes to disprove what the other people outside of you are saying. The negative thought is so invested in being believed. Your brain is so invested in being believed and in not being wrong about this that it cannot afford to let evidence to the contrary in. And so it just slams the door shut. And the fifth one, and this is really when it gets kind of like insidious, but also surprising, is that thought and believing it gives you some kind of reward for believing it. Meaning, like you stay in this familiar discomfort that you felt for a really long time of believing that I'm not good enough because it feels safer than any kind of unknown discomfort of letting go of that thought and stepping into a new belief. Like sometimes there's like a little dopamine hit that comes from sharing the thought with other people and receiving their care and reassurance that it's not true. Even if you don't believe what they're saying is not true, there's like a dopamine hit to that, right? It doesn't make you manipulative, it doesn't mean you're broken or there's something wrong with you if you do this. It just means you're human. And our brain has kept us locked in this cycle of believing these negative thoughts. So, how do we start breaking out of this cycle? What I want you to actually do is follow these tips, these tools that I'm going to give you to help you step out of this cycle of believing the negative thoughts so that you can actually decide for yourself what is true and right for you, right? So the very first one, it's very simple, but it's also very, very powerful. And it always has to be the first step. Like, there's no getting around this one because it just won't, there's there's nothing to it if you don't do this one. And it's awareness, right? You have to be aware of what your brain is doing. You have to be onto it. It's like you have to become the private detective on the other side of the case, like on the defense team, who's like, hmm, where can I like find some holes to this? Where can I become aware of what is happening so that I can like start to like put some holes in their case? You have to have awareness. Because the moment you have awareness, that's when you can start to like get curious. So without awareness, nothing can happen. The moment you start to feel your nervous system spike around a thought, that's when you have to like notice and go, okay, hold on. Is this actually true? Is it actually true that I'm not good enough? Doesn't mean that you have to be like, no, I'm amazing and I never make mistakes. Like, we don't have to go there. We just question, we just start to get curious. Hang on. Maybe my brain is doing that tricky negative thinking thing again. You don't even have to have an answer to it. You just want to like notice it. Because just asking that question, wait a minute, is this actually true what my brain is telling me? That interrupts the cycle right there. Then the second thing that you want to do is you want to get into your body. Okay? When we have this negative thought that is spinning, the worst place you want to stay is in your head. Because that's what our brain do does, is it will stay in our head and then we will just spin in those thoughts and the evidence and stay there, and it feels terrible, but we just keep believing it and we don't know what to do and da-da-da, right? So we notice it, okay. Hang on, my brain is doing that thought thing where it sends me a thought and like I don't, I'm feeling my nervous system is heightened. Maybe this thought is not true. I don't know. I'm gonna question it. Let me get out of my brain for a minute and figure out what's happening in my body. That's the next step. You just become aware of what's going on, and then you get into your body. Where do I feel this in my body? What sensations am I feeling? Where is it? And we just want to remind ourselves in the moment, I am safe in this moment. If you are, like maybe you're not actually, and you need to get out of that situation and to somewhere where you actually are safe, do that if that is the case. But if you are truly in, like right now, I'm in my office, I'm very safe. I'm surrounded by two cats. It's a beautiful day coming up outside, like nobody else is home. I'm safe, right? So if this were happening to me in this moment, I just notice it, get into my body and go, okay, I'm feeling it in my chest. I feel the heat in my cheeks, my throat feels tight. Whew, I'm gonna take a breath and I'm gonna remind myself in this moment, I am safe. I am safe. And I'm gonna remind myself out loud, even like my survival is not threatened in this moment. Those words might feel odd at first, but I'm telling you that when you can remind your body and your brain that in this moment we are safe, that is going to begin to start to re-regulate your nervous system and give you enough space to breathe and respond in the way that you want. Okay. Then the next thing you're gonna do is you are going to meet yourself with some compassion. I'm not talking about toxic positivity or forced affirmations that don't feel true at all, but just genuine kindness to yourself. Validate what you're feeling. Wow, this is really hard. Wow, I am learning how to recognize what my brain is doing in these moments. Wow, I've been carrying some of these thoughts around that I'm not good enough for decades. For most of my life. This is hard. I'm learning how to let go of that belief. Right? We don't beat ourselves up. We're not wrong for having these thoughts. We're not doing it wrong. We're not being a terrible person for having these thoughts. We just remind ourselves this is hard. I'm learning. I got you. We're gonna be okay. That kind of self-talk is not weakness. It is the foundation of building self-trust. It is the foundation of learning and growing and becoming the person that you want to become. That trust, learning to recognize what feels light and true versus what feels heavy and is a lie. That is exactly what you are building as you go through your divorce and you implement these things into your life. Your brain is going to continue to keep trying to throw these tricks at you, right? And trying to get you to believe these negative thoughts. That is what brains do, and they're very good at it. But the more you understand and recognize this playbook of what the brain does, the less power it has over you. And the more you're able to build new neural pathways that support you, that are like built on your truth of what is true and right for you. I promise you, there is so much more truth and light waiting for you on the other side of these negative thoughts. So keep going, keep practicing, keep trying. You're not going to be perfect at this. It's okay. You don't have to be perfect at this. You just have to keep trying, recognizing, being kind to yourself. The more you do this, the better you get. All right, my friends, that is what I have for you today. I hope it's helpful. I will be back next week. Hi, friend. I'm so glad you're here and thanks for listening. I wanted to let you know that if you're wanting more, a way to make deeper, more lasting change, then working one-on-one with me as your coach may be exactly what you need. Together, we'll take everything you're learning in the podcast and implement it in your life with weekly coaching, real life practice, and practical guidance. To learn more about how to work with me one-on-one, go to Karin Nelson Coaching.com. That's www.k-ar-in-n-e l-s-o-n coaching.com. Thanks for listening. If this podcast agreed with you in any way, please take a minute to follow and give me a rating wherever you listen to podcasts. And for more details about how I can help you live an even better life than when you were married, make sure and check out the full show notes by clicking the link in the description.