What If We’ve Been Fighting the Fire the Wrong Way?….

I feel something unlock, click, as if maybe, like with computers, finding the code, or with a safe, hearing it click into place as you have finally worked out the combination.

I feel my path, my journey which I didn’t know for so long really, in essence, paved the way for what I was to discover, do and be where I am. My life is anything but roses, and even now, in a season of not only uncertainty but feeling like the fire is coming in from either side, wondering which one to put out.

Rather than me feeling like the person on the home front panicked, scared, acting in response without the pause I feel more like the firefighter, as if all the training, the drills, have led to this moment.

Stay with me.

I shared very vulnerably on my socials about this week and how it cascaded one daughter discovering she may possibly have a mind that is different, and then my other daughter having the onset of PANS/PANDAS that set us on a much higher sense of preparedness.

Today, seeing that whilst she isn’t in hysteria, I wanted to try something I have been considering doing with clients.

I know, right was it really the right move?

But something in me felt no, I feel this might be what is needed in this moment.

It not only had amazing results but led me to this enquiry, the “aha” moment.

For those who don’t know my journey my first goal was to support people with nutrition. Often I feel we take the easy road out and don’t realise “first, do no harm.” Building foundational tools to help with proactivity and prevention can make such a difference to not only the outcome, but the journey.

I wanted to specialise in psych nutrition. I knew from our own journey that I didn’t want to just “pop a pill” without knowing why, or understanding the side effects, etc. Now, I am not saying this is what everyone needs to do. Believe me, if we felt we didn’t have the outcomes, or were within a space where we had to, we would consider it. But for us, that is the last resort when we have tried everything else.

So what am I talking about with the aha and the moment the click occurred?

To begin with, in my line of work we speak of the subconscious mind from a somatic lens, the subconscious is where so much of our automatic patterning operates outside conscious awareness learned associations, beliefs, predictions and protective responses that influence how the body responds to what it perceives.

We may not consciously know the information being acted upon, but we can often recognise it through the body's sensations, emotions, impulses and repeated patterns.

it is the primary area that I support my clients with.

To me, it not only changed my own life, but how I treat others and myself, how I regained the pause and responsibility, and stopped always living on autopilot and hoping I could survive the consequences. More importantly, it changed my relationship with God and I finally understood embodiment was the only way to experience Christ within, and how, figuratively, talking to Christ within is what we do through the lens of subconscious enquiry.

But in science, they pen the subconscious as something more abstract less emotions, less beliefs, less human experiences more about process, patterns - labelled the “unconscious mind”

And when we think about it, we can understand why, because our body almost mirrors some complex mother computer board how all the systems work together and not alone, each required, each one noticed if missing. How, when viruses come in, we navigate the system, find the origin and work out how to correct the code to give a new path.

I wonder if you may know where I am going with this.

So let’s look at a fire that is out of control.

Let’s look at the fire representing inflammation in the body.

We understand how chronic stress impacts the body, and there is more research and evidence into trauma and how body-based stress responses can make significant changes within the body.

Take below:

Acute stress / traumatic event

Brain detects or predicts threat

(amygdala, hypothalamus, brainstem and wider threat/salience networks)

Autonomic nervous system activates

particularly sympathetic mobilisation

Stress-response systems activate

SAM pathway + HPA axis

Adrenaline / noradrenaline + cortisol signalling changes

Immune cells receive those chemical signals

through adrenergic and glucocorticoid receptors

Intracellular signalling changes

including pathways involving NF-κB

Changes in inflammatory gene expression

Cytokines released

e.g. IL-6, IL-1β, TNF-α

Inflammatory response

Inflammatory signals feed back to the brain

through blood, immune-to-brain signalling and neural pathways

Brain/body receives further “something is wrong” information.

Now, this most of us can agree on,

but when inflammation occurs, what do we do to put out the fire?

Whether medication or nutrition, we may even do all the right things, what we have been told the body needs to reduce inflammation within the body. This would be like using fire retardant instead of an extinguishing agent. It can dampen the fire, keep it at bay, but it requires constant intervention.

This is no different to a Western approach to medicine, treat the symptom, even the area where the symptom occurs, but what often happens is the area where it resides, where it started, is still sending signals. Similar to our computer virus, without the right code for the area in question, we may partly fix the problem.

Now, if we want the fire out completely, we may need a different approach.

And just as the person fighting it on the ground isn’t seeing it from all points, they may not be able to see the path of least resistance, the path that can create a clear way through. not only out, but so it doesn’t keep attempting to go that way.

The extinguishing agent, I see this as the path, the different signal.

So when we think of the mind and inflammation, we need to access the unconscious to see the bigger picture, to not only have what we see in front of us, but all the area.

Identifying begins a chain of events. Communication is given, the body responds, and that response becomes communication in itself.

So unlike the retardant, which can have some impact and reduce, it doesn’t stop the driver. It doesn’t stop the messages, only alters them.

The extinguishing agent does one better. It not only identifies, but removes, so other areas can be seen and soon not only brought under control, but put out.

Ready for new shoots and new paths to be created.

I know even in nutrition and wellness we so often focus on the retardant. With therapy we spend so often trying to find the path some therapy too late and lost, as they are only looking with one lens, one map.

The unconscious has the advantage. It not only knows all paths, but picks up and identifies all the things we miss.

It not only evolves, it adapts and allows for change when accessed and perhaps this is what happens when the unconscious is given the opportunity to extinguish what has been continually burning.

It doesn't leave an empty space.

Once the old path is cleared, new information can travel through it.

Rather than the same belief, signal, response continuing in a familiar loop, we now have somewhere to enter it. Through awareness, compassion, allowing and integration, new information is introduced into the experience creating the opportunity for a different response, different signalling and, over time, different pathways to become available.

The system can receive something different.

It can respond differently.

It can begin to create another path.

And another.

Until perhaps the path that was once automatic is no longer the only way through. That, for me, is where prevention and proactivity suddenly became so much bigger.

Maybe it isn't only about what we put into the body.

Maybe it isn't only about what we take out.

Maybe it isn't even only about reducing the fire.

Perhaps it is also about asking:

What keeps telling the body to light the match?

And can we access the place where that information is being held, interpreted and repeated?, Can we extinguish the fire there?

Can we clear the path, can we give the system new information to carry back around the loop?

Then can we support the body as it does what it was always designed to do

Adapt. Respond. Repair. Grow.

I started this week feeling like fires were coming at me from either side, yet somehow, standing in the middle of it, I don't feel like the person helplessly watching the flames anymore. I feel like the firefighter who suddenly understands why all those years of training mattered.

Perhaps I wasn't learning how to fight fires.

I was learning how to read them.

And today, something clicked maybe we have become incredibly good at slowing the fire, now we need to become just as curious about how to extinguish it.

Because once the fire is out, we don't have to keep staring at where it burned.

We can finally turn our attention to what is beginning to grow.