Burning Off Dead Wood (Fire)

Fire is the element of transformation – the roaring flame within us that energises, inspires and drives us. Fire is contagious – a spark can quickly turn into an inferno. It’s powerful and dangerous, creative and destructive, and is possibly the most useful technology that humans have ever discovered. Fire can consume, but it can also be contained. We can use its power for small acts of control and renewal, rather than grand acts of transformation. We’re going to look at burning away the dead wood of our lives – self-limiting beliefs and behaviours. The things that get in our way, hold us back, or take up our time and energy for no useful return. In the same way that trees need pruning, and houseplants need their dying leaves removed, the structure of our daily lives needs attention and maintenance. Beliefs about yourself that may have kept you safe as a child may need to be re-examined and abandoned. Behaviours that may have been useful at some point may have now become habits, robbing you of money, time, and energy. How can you streamline your life and let go of the emotional ballast that’s holding you back? What’s getting in your way, and what can you do about it? 

It turns out that the idea of burning off dead wood is baked into us as humans – we’re hard-wired for it, and it started with the development of fire. Around a million years ago our ancestors were living on a tough diet of raw food. This required a long gut to digest and process, and took a lot of energy. But the discovery of fire changed that – as soon as early humans could kick-start the digestion process by breaking down the proteins and starches with fire, before the food even entered the mouth, the body began to evolve and adapt. There was no longer a need for the long gut, this was a waste of resources, it became dead wood, and evolution burned it away. Over time, the gut got shorter which freed up energy for growth and development in different areas, including bigger brains. One of the foundational characteristics of being human is our bigger brain compared to most other animals, and it was made possible by abandoning an old outdated system that was no longer needed.  

Evolution is largely a process of burning off dead wood. If an adaption doesn’t maximise the chances of survival and reproduction, it generally gets replaced with a new adaption. Nature favours streamlined, efficient organisms. Dead wood is just extra weight to carry, whether it be physical or psychological. Certain patterns of thought, belief, and behaviour may have got our needs met when we were young and powerless, but we’re adults now. We have our own power. We don’t have to live according to the scripts that were written for us when we were children. We can burn off the dead wood.  

Sacrificing that which is no longer valuable may feel very uncomfortable. It is a process of transformation from an outdated version of you to something new and unknown. It requires a willingness to step into uncertainty, and to reject old modes of being, which can feel dangerous. It is a shedding of the skin, an abandonment of the protective shell, and we can expect to feel vulnerable while readjusting. But on the other side is a version of you with better boundaries, healthier habits, a stronger sense of self, better adapted to the life you’re living now, not the one you knew in the past. 

Let’s look at some common self-limiting beliefs, and see what we can burn off. 

Fortune Telling 

This type of self-limiting belief goes something like: 
“If I put myself first, he’ll become upset” or, “If I try something new, people will laugh at me” 

There are a million variations on this theme, and they are based in the idea that we know how the future will play out. “If I do this then the world responds like that” – a wonderful trick if it were possible! Again, this is an evolutionary adaption, wired into how our brains function – they are prediction machines. We’re predicting the future all the time. “If I push the door, it will open” or “If I eat some food my hunger will disappear” – it sets us apart from organisms like jellyfish that float through the ocean with no direction or intention, and it’s an incredibly powerful ability. But prediction must be balanced with uncertainty. We don’t know anything for sure. The world proves this to us all the time, and it can be very distressing – think of a time when your day didn’t play out as expected, some bolt came out of the blue, you lost your job or were involved in an accident, a relationship ended abruptly or you met a new partner unexpectedly. Or you pushed a door that should have been pulled. Our brains try to predict what will happen next in an attempt to help us navigate a dangerous and uncertain world. But the mind’s predictions are always based on what has happened before rather than an accurate understanding of what’s happening right now. A belief such as “If I say this then she’ll react like that” may be true – but do you know for sure? Have you ever tried it? Are you basing this belief on how this person has acted in the past or on how other people have? And if she does act as predicted, does it matter? You may have a belief such as “If she reacts like that then I won’t be able to cope” – is that true? How do you know? Perhaps you couldn’t cope with a reaction like that when you were young and powerless, but you’re older now. You hopefully have different resources to draw on. Your ability to act and manage in the world has changed and improved, what was intolerable and dangerous for you in the past may be nothing more than uncomfortable for you now. 

Fortune Telling beliefs are usually formed in childhood (see Family Roots), and as such they affect the parts of us that still feel like children. We all have different parts that make up our psyche, and they are typically formed at different times in our lives with different fears, dreams, goals, and jobs that they perform for us. A belief such as “If I disappoint her, she’ll leave me” may be coming from a child part that experienced emotional abandonment when young, and is desperate to avoid it now. If so, that part needs to be welcomed in and reassured. It needs to be shown that there is an adult present who has the time, resources, and love available to protect this child and meet it’s needs (that’s you – more about this in Shadow Work). By doing so we can turn “If I disappoint them, they’ll leave me” into something like “If they love me then they’ll want me to be myself” or perhaps “If I can’t be myself with them then they’re not right for me”.  

Changing the script from I must limit myself, otherwise catastrophe will happen into limiting myself is the catastrophe takes courage. It is a radical act of transformation that requires a bold step into uncertainty, turning the old reliance on fortune telling into the self-reliance of “I can navigate, tolerate, and influence an uncertain future”. It replaces “I must shape myself to be acceptable to others” into “I am allowed to be and become myself”. 

To start your bonfire of dead wood, ask yourself, 

What self-limiting beliefs do I hold about myself?

What do I feel I must do, or avoid doing, in order to maintain important relationships?

When has this happened in childhood? 

What loss do I believe I could not tolerate? 

What’s actually stopping me from trying something new? 

Ritual and Dogma 

Rituals are habits that we act out in the present, without paying much attention to why. Dogma is the underlying belief, never questioned, that necessitates the ritual. Together they form a self-supporting system of belief and habit that reinforce each other and become woven into the fabric of our daily lives. Some are helpful, but many are tremendous wastes of time. Here are some examples, and how they might fit into an elemental framework: 

 
Ritual – The morning coffee, the evening drink, the sugary snacks throughout the day. 
Dogma – “I need a morning boost, an evening wind-down, and top-ups throughout the day. My body can’t regulate its own energy needs” 
Element – Earth (relating here to the body). 

 
Ritual – Dedicating valuable time to hair, clothes, or make-up every morning. 
Dogma – “I am unattractive, so need to style myself before other people see me”. 
Element – Fire (relating here to Transformation). 

 
Ritual – checking in too frequently on parents, children, friends. 
Dogma – “They can’t look after themselves, and so need me to do it for them”. 
Element – Water (relating here to relationships). 

 
Ritual – checking the news and social media throughout the day 
Dogma – “I need to understand current affairs and to have the correct opinions on every topic”. 
Element – Air (relating here to knowledge). 

Not all rituals are harmful of course. Ritual is a foundational aspect of humanity, and for good reason – it helps to remind ourselves of the importance of developing and maintaining healthy habits. Discipline and sacrifice are key elements of wellbeing, and rituals can help us to stay disciplined so that we can achieve our aims. But we must know what the ritual stands for! We must understand the dogma underlying the ritual, and we need to continually question it to make sure it is still relevant and helpful. In each of the above examples, there is the concept of “I need to…” and this is what must be questioned. Do I really need to hack my body’s energy systems throughout the day with caffeine, sugar, and alcohol? What would happen if I didn’t? Have I tried recently? If it really is a necessity, what does this tell me about my general health? Do I really need the substances, or do I actually need to make changes to my sleep/diet/exercise routine? 
Am I really so ugly that I my natural appearance needs to be hidden? Do I think the same about other people? Where does this belief come from and is it true? 
Do my children or elderly parents really need me to supervise them this much? If so, how can I support them to develop their own resilience and independence? Do I need to be everyone’s saviour? 
Do I really need to have an opinion on everything? Is that even possible? Would I lose respect for someone who said “I don’t know enough about that subject to have a strong opinion on it”, and if so what does that say about my own ability to tolerate uncertainty in the world? 

Some dogmas will be well-founded, others less so. Get curious with yourself, and allow some uncertainty in. What would life be like if you gave up the things that you believe that you need. Are there any beliefs that you can let go of? If so, what new, more optimised rituals could you develop instead?  

Many Earth rituals are formed on the dogma of “My body isn’t good enough” – well can you make it better? How is your sleep/diet/exercise routine? Are your rituals making it stronger, or keeping you in a cycle of need? Can you replace “I need substances” with “I need to exercise well, eat clean, and get to bed earlier”? 

Many Air rituals are based on the dogma of “I’m not good enough”. But good enough for whom? Is there anyone outside of yourself that you really need to be good enough for? Can you replace “I’m not good enough” with “When I live up to my own values, I am proud of who I am”? 

Many Water rituals are based on the dogma of “I need to save others”. But are you sure this is true? Other people may well depend on you, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you are responsible for them. Can you replace “This person needs me” with “This person needs to develop the capacity to meet their own needs, and I can support them with that”? 

Many Fire rituals are based on the dogma of “I need to be God-like”. But we can’t know everything, we have very limited power, and we all get things wrong all the time. In no religion does any God ask us to become Gods ourselves – instead we are asked to show humility rather than power. Can you replace “I must know or control everything” with “I can work to become master of my own Self, and allow others to do the same”? 

Parasites 

Lastly, we come to Parasites – those habits that feed off our time and attention, taking value from us while offering nothing in return. If Fortune Telling is (paradoxically) about past experiences, and Rituals about present experiences, then Parasites are the habits that rob us of our future, by stealing our time, energy, and resources, for no good reason at all. 

Parasites feed off wastefulness, and it’s never been easier to waste time than it is today. Social media is the obvious culprit, but even if we somehow avoid that, there’s still an abundance of digital content grasping for our attention (news, TV, shopping apps, gaming, emails…) and if we manage to leave our phones in our pocket? There’s still a hundred other ways in which we can waste time with no improvement to our quality of life at all. Even friends and family can become parasitic if they expect and assume our time and attention, without giving anything to the relationship in return. 

So how can we maximise value in our lives? How can we enjoy the fruits of the modern world such as social media and online content, without becoming digital slaves? How can we manage our social relationships so that they’re mutually satisfying and valuable? There is one significant way in which old media systems differentiated from the modern – our old systems such as newspapers, museums, and galleries were limited for space, and so needed a curator. Someone responsible for making the judgement call – is this thing worthy of inclusion? The internet however is limitless (current size estimated to be around 200 thousand billion gigabytes, and growing at around 20% per year) and so no such judgement is required. When you open your phone, you’re opening a gateway to unlimited, unpredictable content, filtered not by you, but by The Algorithm – the digital overseer that shows you what it wants you to see, and that’s whatever is calculated to grab your attention, and keep it long enough to show you an advert. The Algorithm feeds from your attention, and it’s insatiably hungry. It does this with strategies similar to slot machines such as Variable Reward and Infinite Scroll which keep you engaged, hoping and expecting that the next big win (maximally engaging content) is just one more scroll away… 

A similar story can play out with offline social relations – friends and family who expect time, care, attention, favours, and we somehow find ourselves saying yes without ever asking “but does this relationship work for me?” We have a limited capacity for relationships (Robin Dunbar suggests a maximum of around 50 meaningful relationships) so we should make sure the connections we do make are mutually respectful, beneficial, and valuable. This is hard with family members as they can not be replaced, which brings both a blessing and a curse – because we’re stuck with our family of origin for many years, we have to learn how to manage and repair relationships, an essential life skill. But this same pressure can also encourage us to develop people-pleasing tendencies which we may repeat in our friendships. We tend to play out in adulthood whatever roles we learned as children. 

The answer is curation – we need to become the curators of our own lives. We must engage our curiosity and pay attention to what we’re letting in to the limited hours we have available every day, then make judgement calls. Are these Instagram reels worth my time right now? Do I really need to keep abreast of that distant armed conflict today? Do I need to help out that friend, again, or can I say no and let them find a different solution? We can curate our social media feeds quite easily – The Algorithm will feed us whatever we pay most attention to, so stop paying attention to filler. Take an audit of who you follow, and try to unfollow as much as you can. Burn off the dead wood of accounts you no longer value. The Algorithm is a parasite, but you can make it earn its lunch.  

Social relationships are potentially much harder to curate, but you can start by considering who you give most of your time to – do they deserve your time? Is your investment in this relationship returned with added value? Are there other, more valuable, friendships that you’re neglecting because you have nothing left to give after meeting the needs of a parasitic relationship? Does the other person truly need you, or are you just an easy resource for them? Friendships and relationships can become dead wood too. People grow and change in different directions and at different rates. It’s OK to accept that a relationship you have sunk many years into no longer meets your needs. Sometimes these relationships can be repaired, but sometimes we need to let them go. As you develop your skill and experience as the curator of your own life, you’ll develop the intuition that tells you what to let in and what to keep out. 

 It is worth remembering that human lives are short – 100 years at most, and the time we have left can only be experienced once. We must continuously ask ourselves:
Is this experience really worth my life?