Thought Spirals

The chapter where Jennifer learns to distinguish between anxiety and attraction. The chapter where she realizes that chest-tightening, palm-sweating, mind-racing feeling she’d been calling “chemistry” was actually her nervous system having a breakdown and calling it romance.

And there I was, having my own breakdown about whether I could write it well enough.

The irony wasn’t lost on me. Here I was, writing a book about interrupting thought spirals, while caught in the most spectacular thought spiral of my writing career. My brain had helpfully provided a greatest hits collection of catastrophic scenarios:

When I first started writing Thought Spirals, it wasn’t going to be Jennifer’s story.

I had stacks of research, clinical studies, and my own hard-won insights about overthinking patterns. I planned to write a straightforward self-help book—clean, professional, packed with tools. Maybe a few anonymous case studies to illustrate points.

But six months into writing, I hit a wall. The chapters felt sterile. Educational, yes. Transformative? I wasn’t sure.

That’s when I mentioned to Jennifer—a client wh