The Spiral | The Science of Stress, Burnout, and Why You Feel the Way You Feel

Over The Spiral | The Science of Stress, Burnout, and Why You Feel the Way You Feel

You're exhausted in a way that sleep doesn't fix. You snap at the people you love and spend the rest of the night wondering what's wrong with you. You've read the books, tried the breathwork, done the therapy — and you still feel stuck, flat, or like you're watching your own life instead of living it. Nothing is wrong with you. Your nervous system is doing exactly what it was designed to do. And nobody ever taught you how it works. The Spiral is hosted by Lauren Tobey — author of Spiraling Into Control and creator of The Spiral Framework. Each week, she breaks down the real science behind stress, burnout, overwhelm, and the patterns that keep showing up in your parenting, your relationships, your career, and your identity — without toxic positivity, without self-improvement pressure, and without ever calling you broken. The Spiral Framework maps four nervous system states you cycle through repeatedly throughout your life. You will return to familiar ground. You will return with more awareness. And you will rise faster each time. That's a promise, not a warning. New episodes every Tuesday. 📖 Book: Spiraling Into Control — https://a.co/d/0cX7rkSj 🌀 Learn more: laurentobey.com/connect

The Long Weekend Lie

Memorial Day weekend is being sold to you as rest. Your body knows it isn’t. The Maycember-depleted nervous system that walked into Friday is going to walk out of Monday more depleted, more dysregulated, more confused about why you can’t enjoy what you have. And then you’re going to blame yourself for it. In this episode, I take apart the structural lie that time off equals rest, name the cultural dissonance baked into Memorial Day specifically (a holiday for the war dead repackaged as the unofficial start of summer), and give you one operational handle for the three days: subtract the performance, keep the presence. For the woman going into the long weekend already at zero. The Spiral with Lauren Tobey — the science of stress, burnout, identity, and why you feel the way you feel. For the woman who's done everything right and still doesn't feel like herself. Here, we finally figure out why. Timestamps 00:00 The Illusion of Long Weekends 02:23 Cultural Dissonance of Memorial Day 04:49 The Burden of Performance 06:54 Understanding Rest vs. Performance 09:05 Navigating Family Expectations 11:37 The Impact of Social Media 14:04 The Aftermath of Long Weekends 16:22 Rebuilding Your Nervous System 18:35 Permission to Not Enjoy 20:30 The Work Beyond the Weekend Listen On (Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/6rkXUS2gvWdzDU5DyabECh], Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/the-spiral-trauma-nervous-system-identity-recovery/id1878430599], Youtube [https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIHtgjm9XsZHht_w5dsnOWFZQKPo2SyKv&si=4wExBFelG0teq5oR]) Please subscribe on any platform you listen on, rate it, and leave a review. That’s how more women find it. Find More from Lauren on Substack [https://laurentobeyspiral.substack.com/] 📖 Spiraling Into Control https://amzn.to/4bbYsfR [https://amzn.to/4bbYsfR] About the Show The Spiral with Lauren Tobey is a podcast about complex trauma, nervous system literacy, and the women who got told their pain didn’t count. Trauma-informed coach and author Lauren Tobey walks you through the Spiral Framework — the four states of survival and integration (Ashes, Ember, Flame, Rise), the threat and safety databases your body has been running without your permission, and the Machine that’s been making your decisions while you thought you were making them. This is for the woman who’s been diagnosed with anxiety, depression, ADHD, or borderline when what was actually happening was a nervous system response to sustained relational harm. The woman who looks high-functioning and is internally on a back porch staring at nothing. The woman who’s been told she’s so strong by people who have no idea what she’s carrying. The woman who’s tired of being told her trauma is a gift, her pain is a teacher, and her body is wrong. It counts because your nervous system counted it. That’s the whole thesis. Twice a week — teaching episodes on Tuesdays, cultural commentary on Thursdays — Lauren names what the wellness industry won’t, takes apart what the diagnostic system gets wrong, and gives you the language you’ve been looking for. No five-step plans. No healing journey. No silver linings. Just the science, the framework, and the conversation that gets you back to yourself. Keywords complex trauma podcast, cPTSD, nervous system regulation, trauma-informed coaching, polyvagal theory, somatic healing, women's mental health, burnout recovery, high-functioning anxiety, freeze response, dorsal vagal shutdown, fawn response, people pleasing recovery, codependency recovery, narcissistic abuse recovery, emotional abuse, gaslighting recovery, divorce recovery, postpartum mental health, mom burnout, working mom burnout, perimenopause and trauma, ADHD misdiagnosis, BPD misdiagnosis, autism in women, late-diagnosed neurodivergent, childhood emotional neglect, attachment trauma, intergenerational trauma, religious trauma, purity culture recovery, deconstruction, ex-evangelical, anti-wellness industry, anti-toxic positivity, anti-hustle culture, The Body Keeps the Score, Bessel van der Kolk, Gabor Maté, Nicole LePera, Bethany Webster, Glennon Doyle, mother wound, daughter wound, inner child work alternative, somatic experiencing, IFS adjacent, parts work, vagus nerve, window of tolerance, hypervigilance, dissociation, emotional flashbacks, complex PTSD recovery for women, nervous system literacy, trauma education, Spiraling Into Control, the Spiral Framework, the four states, Ashes Ember Flame Rise, integration not healing, Lauren Tobey

21 mei 2026 - 24 min