How to Stop Spiraling in Your Relationship: Coaching Tools with Lindsay Dotzlaf
The quick version: In any charged moment there’s a fork, and you have two options. The spiral looks like beating yourself up, shaming yourself, mentally beating the other person up, getting angry and resentful and going in circles. The emotions keep climbing and your access to your own resources keeps dropping. The pivot asks a different question: what tool do I have right now that could shift what’s happening? Developing the muscle of noticing the fork is almost more important than the tool itself.
Here’s something I want you to know before we start: you already have more tools than you think you do.
In this episode I’m talking with one of my best friends and favorite humans, the brilliant Lindsay Dotzlaf. Lindsay is a master coach’s coach who helps coaches master the craft of coaching, and she’s the host of the Mastering Coaching Skills podcast. (Yup that’s a lot of mastery all over the place, but it I couldn’t find a better way to say it! So we shall master the mastery together!)
Lindsay did an episode for coaches about using your coaching skills on yourself, and I told her we had to talk about it, because this applies to all of us, not just coaches.
Like the tools I teach on the podcast, the things you do naturally at work, the way you speak to your team or your kids – we all have tools.
We just forget to use them sometimes so I wanted an episode on the podcast as a reminder for all of us. And I include me because I do not live on a magic mountain where nothing happens. I have to use all these tools too. And I forget just like you might.
You Already Have the Tools
If you listen to this podcast at all, you have coaching skills.
Episode one asks you to think about your relationship on purpose. Episode two is about asking more powerful questions. Those are coaching skills. Or self coaching skills if you want to think about using them on yourself more precisely.
So is pausing and breathing (one time I told a client, “you just paid me thousands of dollars to tell you to pause and breathe,” and years later she said, “you were right, it changed everything”).
Here’s one worth knowing: couples who thrive think positively about the other person when that other person is not in the room. Somebody actually studied that. It’s called positive regard.
And it points to something I come back to constantly. When we get into those doom spirals of this is annoying and this is terrible and I don’t like it and nothing works and everything’s awful, those are your least valuable thoughts.
Positive regard is where your most valuable thoughts live. Positive regard for yourself and positive regard for whoever or whatever you are thinking about at that moment.
So is asking “what’s the root cause?” or asking why five times to get to the bottom of something.
So many years ago, one of my clients was a doctor, and because of her specialty she gave strangers bad news on a regular basis. And she needed to have some difficult conversations with her husband. But she felt doubtful.
Lindsay’s reaction when I told her this story was perfect: “No way do you not know how to talk to any human.”
And that’s exactly it. I told my client, I think you could figure out how to have compassion and kindness and intention when you talk to your husband, just like you do the thousands of times you’ve done this at work.
So many of my listeners in STEM professions do this all day long. Then we go home and think, this is terrible and there’s no solution. When they figure out solutions to complex problems every freaking day! So my invitation is simply to remember to think: wait, I know how to do this.
As Lindsay put it, a great place to start isn’t in the heat of the moment at all.
It’s in a calm moment, asking yourself: what tools do I actually have at my disposal?
Where in my relationship do I not like the way things usually go, and could there be another option?
That awareness, built ahead of time, is what you get to reach for later.
What Does It Mean to Spiral in Your Relationship?
Here’s the heart of it. In any charged moment, there’s a choice: you can spiral, or you can pivot.
The spiral, in relationships, looks like beating yourself up, shaming yourself, mentally beating the other person up, getting angry and resentful and going in circles.
As Lindsay described it, the emotions keep climbing and your access to your own resources keeps dropping. (It’s not that intelligence drops, it’s that when you’re in the haze of anger or frustration or sadness, your resources just aren’t as available.)
I picture the spiral as walking in a circle, never moving forward, maybe even a little backward, then circling again.
The pivot is the other direction. The pivot asks: what tool do I have right now that could shift what’s happening?
Sometimes that’s internal: truly pausing, taking a few deep breaths, knowing “I can’t say words right now or I’ll make it worse.”
Sometimes it’s asking a better question, or choosing kind words even when you don’t feel like it, or simply saying, “I need to step away for a minute, I’m sorry, give me a moment.”
And here’s the part I loved most: developing the muscle of noticing that you have choices is almost more important than whatever tool you use to get out of the spiral.
Just being able to say, “here I am in a moment where I’ve been before, and I have options,” that awareness is how you access your authority to choose something different.
You won’t pivot every time.
We’re human; sometimes we get a little spicy and go down the spiral anyway. But even then, noticing that you’re choosing it feels different than it just happening to you.
What Do You Do When You Feel Like You Have No Choices?
Listen, oppression is real. Circumstances are real. Medical challenges, psychological challenges. All kinds of situations can limit the choices available to us. And sometimes the only choice is how I will show up for this thing that I cannot change right now.
One theme I’ve been repeating incessantly with clients lately: You have choices.
So much frustration comes from convincing ourselves we have none, and then spiraling about how terrible the situation is.
No matter how dire it seems, if you pause and ask, “within this situation, what are my choices?”,
I have never seen someone not find one.
There’s always the tiniest step forward, the smallest centimeter, that puts you in a new place.
And from that new place, you have more choices than you did before.
Questions I Get About This
What does it mean to spiral in a relationship?
The spiral looks like beating yourself up, shaming yourself, mentally beating the other person up, getting angry and resentful and going in circles. Lindsay describes it as the emotions climbing while your access to your own resources drops. It’s not that your intelligence drops. It’s that when you’re in the haze of anger or frustration or sadness, your resources just aren’t as available. I picture it as walking in a circle, never moving forward, maybe even a little backward, then circling again.
How do I stop spiraling in my relationship?
You notice the fork. That awareness is the whole beginning. Then you ask what tool you have right now that could shift what’s happening. Sometimes that’s internal: truly pausing, taking a few deep breaths, knowing “I can’t say words right now or I’ll make it worse.” Sometimes it’s asking a better question, or choosing kind words even when you don’t feel like it, or simply saying, “I need to step away for a minute, I’m sorry, give me a moment.”
What is internalized blame?
It’s when something goes wrong and you go straight to a story about yourself. I’m not smart enough. I should have known better. I’m broken. I started calling it internalized blame because I needed to name it to help myself and my clients think through it. I think it’s tied to the socialization of women in a patriarchal culture, where we’re programmed to be responsible for everyone and everything.
Why is it so costly to think “I am the problem”?
Once you decide the problem is you, there’s nowhere to go. If I am the problem, there is no solution to be had. But if I did something wrong, that’s an action I can correct, a skill I can build, something I can get better at or hand off to someone else. The moment I realize it’s an action and not my identity, my resourcefulness comes right back.
What do I do when a stuck thought won’t go away?
You don’t have to argue with it. You put it on the shelf. You tell yourself: that might be true, and I can pick it right back up later, I promise. But just for a minute, it’s not allowed to be true. Take it completely off the table. And then ask: now what is there to solve for?
What if the spiral doesn’t feel like a choice?
Lindsay named this and it matters. Sometimes those thoughts just arrive, from things we were told, from past relationships, from childhood. So don’t panic when the thought shows up. The first tiny step might just be saying, “I see you,” and gently redirecting on purpose. The thought doesn’t have to be completely gone for you to wonder if there’s another option.
Listen to the full episode
Connect with Lindsay Dotzlaf
Lindsay Dotzlaf is a master certified coach and a coach’s coach who helps coaches master the craft of coaching, not just the business of it. She’s the host of the Mastering Coaching Skills podcast, with 300-plus episodes devoted to the craft of coaching.
Visit Lindsay’s website: https://lindsaydotzlafcoaching.com/
Listen to Mastering Coaching Skills: https://lindsaydotzlafcoaching.com/podcast/
Follow Lindsay on Instagram: @lindsay.dotzlaf
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About Maggie Reyes
Maggie Reyes is a Master Certified Life Coach and feminist marriage coach for high-achieving women who want to strengthen marriages that feel stuck but not broken. She is the host of The Marriage Life Coach Podcast, ranked in the top 2% globally, where she teaches high-achieving women the practical relationship skills they were never taught in school.
Through individual marriage coaching for women, Maggie helps clients improve communication, reconnect emotionally, and create real change in their relationships — even if their partner isn’t interested in couples therapy or coaching. She is the author of the bestselling Questions for Couples Journal and creator of the Soul-Centered Communication framework.
Maggie’s work is rooted in feminist values. While she primarily works with women married to men — navigating the patriarchal programming (and deprogramming) that shapes those relationships — she has also supported women in same-sex marriages. The same kinds of communication patterns, emotional disconnection, conflict loops, and repair skills apply regardless of gender. Her work is inclusive of diverse identities and experiences.
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If you love your husband but feel disconnected, stuck in the same arguments, or exhausted from carrying the emotional load of the relationship, you’re not alone — and your side of the table is where your power lives.
Maggie specializes in individual marriage coaching for high-achieving women who want to feel loved, respected, and deeply connected again. Whether you’re looking for communication tools, emotional clarity, or a new way forward in your marriage, you’ll find support here.
✨ Transparency Note
This post was inspired by The Marriage Life Coach Podcast and prepared with support from my team and AI. (It really does take a village — and I’m grateful for mine. ✨
Thank you for reading, it’s an honor to be part of your day.