Hello friend
How are you doing? It’s August 7th and the run of unparalleled Summer continues here in the UK. Whilst it’s been incredible to wake up to a blue sky every day – my mental smoke alarm is sounding in the background around the impact of this already. I’m trying to keep it in check and remind myself that climate change is not mine alone to try and hold as a problem – and that there are people right now working to help. That thought soothes me – a little!
I’ve been noticing my vast collection of internal ‘smoke alarms’ this year and trying to do a bit of an audit. I’m obviously using a metaphor here for the limbic brains rather incredible threat detection system that locks into possible and actual threat in a split second changing our thoughts and responses to events, sensations, stimuli, emotions etc.
Many of us end up living our lives with a head full of smoke alarms that are blaring away constantly. It’s quite noisy in my own head. We can have smoke alarms installed to signal threats about anything:
Friendships, workplace challenges, relationship issues, traumatic experiences, a negative sensation in the body like pain, ability to tell the truth, relationship to certain food, certain people, certain places….the list really is absolutely endless. It takes only ONE negative experience for the limbic system to decide that a ‘smoke alarm’ is needed in order to protect you from experiencing that ’thing’ again – ONE. We can end up with hundreds of alarm bells ringing inside the body that were installed years ago – and going about our day as if the noise were completely fine. I am describing neuro plasticity here and the way the brains prediction system works – it’s obsessed with keeping us safe, sometimes against all contradictory evidence to say otherwise.
The trouble with having all these smoke alarms going off in the brain (and being felt in the body with micro messages of tension, pain or change in behaviour such as with the gut) is that we can end up signalling to the immune system that we are constantly under threat and therefore primed for a physical response. This, can lead to inflammation in the body – which in Ayurvedic terms becomes problematic once the bucket is getting pretty full.
I know many of you are reading this having had your own catastrophic health events – life changing for so many of you – and you will also know that the journey back to homeostasis involves seeking out these smoke alarms and working out what they need in order to be re-set. In simple terms, the body needs to feel safe in order to heal, I think we can all agree on that. But some of the smoke alarms we have may not be so obvious – some detection work is needed.
I designed a quiz recently (I have attached here below) that I gave to my Fern Alumni group to work with – one of the most interesting things that came out of it was so many of us had a loud smoke alarm ringing loudly due to a perceived lack of belonging. When we look at Maslows hierarchy of needs, once we have food, clothing and shelter in order, the sense of belonging and safety are the next most essential pieces needed for human survival. We need a sense of belonging in order to be well. So to have this area be in alarm mode is important to notice.
Just as an aside, the August meditation challenge is one week in and I know that the only time I have tried meditating in absolute silenc, one of my smoke alarms went off and it was unbelievably difficult to sit with my own thoughts for longer than a few seconds – my brain wanted to distract me from the stillness asap – I realised that I have a smoke alarm around ’not being productive’ as I know many of you do too. “If I am not being productive, achieving something in every moment, I am somehow less of a person – a failure even”. That’s worth noticing with curiousity as a starting point.
What can we do if we have a whole panel of noisy smoke alarms? Well the most important thing to notice is that you have them and they were put in place, perhaps long ago, when a (perceived) fire was detected. It may have been a difficult experience, a difficult emotion, a situation that was extremely painful or just a threat of something bad – but the brains detection system went to work building an alarm in order to protect you. We now need sit with the alarm and ask ourselves is it still needed right now, am I in threat here, today, in this moment. Can I be safe here?
Loud smoke alarms are often talked about as triggers – and the thing I want you to explore ( if you use this T word a lot) – is if your triggers are offering you an opportunity to know where you may need to do a little internal housekeeping. I’m not talking about huge life changing events – these are obviously worth processing with the right support, I’m talking about the less obvious ones that run in the background built on beliefs that were formed as far back as early childhood. Our health depends on us keeping the internal threat levels balanced enough for safety to be felt – not all the time – but enough of the time. WE need to be able to properly relax.
Right now, I’m personally working on my sense of belonging, my realtionship with productivity and my felt sense of safety as a woman out in the world. I use my tool of 5% stretch – tiny challenges to the status quo – nothing dramatic – but it’s worth slowly deactivating some of the alarms if they no longer serve.
Take the quiz – notice what comes up. Get curious about yourself and see what areas need a little loving exploration. Compare notes with a friend – talking about these things is always worthwhile.