Why the Cage Exists: Finding Kindness Between the Extremes

I started making infographics because I had sent someone a summary from my Esogetic AI database and they asked, "Can you get AI to create a visual representation of this content for me? Because I'm a visual learner."

At first I didn't want to use my AI credits. But it was almost my birthday and I like trying new things, so I decided to give it a go. What came out of that process ended up teaching me something too.

The first infographic began as an image that came to me in my sleep: three roads representing two mainstream extremes and a middle path:

The two extremes can look very different, but both can become ways of trying to control what we feel. The middle path asks something different of us.

Mainstream Path 2 (far right)

I am familiar with this path because I have gone through phases of strict diets—or not eating—and working out. Every time, the weight came back, and the same diet methods never seemed to work twice.

Making the infographic allowed me, for the first time, to feel grateful for the extra weight that I carry. Because, from an Esogetic perspective, this extra weight is diluting the toxicity of what I still have left to heal.

Shifting from either extreme towards middle changes the question from "How do I make my body obey me?" to "Why might my body be doing this?"

Mainstream Path 1 (far left)

I recognize a version of this when I used to have trouble sleeping and I would get up to write. Writing helped me process what was in my head, so it wasn't inherently a bad thing, but nighttime is for sleeping, not for remaining in beta (writing) and alpha (distracting) brain rhythms, to try to think my way through—or avoid—everything.

Even though I have strict rules about what I allow myself to do if I wake in the night now—only things that will help me heal or restore my sleeping brain rhythms—I still have work to do on not burning out my beta brain rhythms in the day.

Writing the three articles at once is a perfect example of: analyzing, organizing, documenting, making connections, deciding what belongs where, rewriting, incorporating my symptoms, life conflicts, and healing strategies. It's productive. I'm learning from it. But I am also perimenopausal, my period is late, and I am waking with tension, following having had sore glands and the odd ear pain the night before.

As I cancelled my Pilates class this morning because I didn't want to lift weights, I felt the old judgmental voice creep in, saying, "If I am not making money, healing, or helping my kids, then I am making no contribution to this family at all."

And because these articles are taking me longer than usual to push out, I got to discover that she has a weekend version too: "If you're not going to go work out, then you better tidy the house and clean the bathrooms."

It is exhausting to feel like I have to work out just to avoid my inner slave master assigning me something else to do. So this weekend I am trying to defy her and rest.

Historically, I get sick this time of year, right after my late-October birthday. Because my kids were born between late April and early June, this is also the time of year when morning sickness started to really take me down. Add to that the numerous other illnesses over the years. I notice the pattern because it so often ends with me missing out on trick-or-treating with my kids. I’m trying to find the pathway that allows me to preserve my health so I can enjoy being out with my kids.

You can see why some of us hide in being busy to block these critical voices out. But when we listen and respond to them, the next thought has room to come up, and that is progress.

I’m glad that my Kirlian Photo confirmed where I was at:

Weakness in the radiation coming off my right hand shows my tendency toward beta overdrive. Knowing how to recognize the pattern doesn't make me immune to living it.

My body has been craving Yin Yoga stretching all week. And now I know why. The weakness in the radiation off of my right hand shows beta burnout, and I will talk more about why I did not apply treatment to get myself out of this state in Healing at the Pace Your Body Can Handle.

Extremes Can Show Up In Many Ways

I've seen people use extreme exercise, cold, restrictive diets, medication, and limiting mindsets to try to avoid how they feel.

This is how we build cages through control: control can feel safer than feeling (or even letting go), but letting go is what allows us to move forward.

The middle path teaches us to allow time to be as we are and feel what we feel as a form of kindness that, with the right support, can help us heal more completely.

Kindness Is the Organizing Principle

The middle isn't doing nothing. It isn't giving up on yourself, accepting suffering forever, or refusing to make changes. It is learning how to respond to yourself without either suppressing what is happening or attacking yourself with the solution.

Kindness might mean treating something or stopping treatment. It might mean feeling something you have spent years avoiding, or deciding that you have felt enough for today. It might mean changing something in your life, getting medical help, or accepting that you don't yet know what needs to happen.

It can also mean accepting that someone else doesn't want what I want for them.

Kindness doesn't always mean making something feel better immediately. Sometimes kindness means listening long enough to understand what needs to happen next.

Why the Cage Exists

The cage exists because we did something that helped us temporarily, then held onto it permanently because we couldn't see another way.

At some point, what is now keeping us stuck worked. Maybe control helped us feel safe. Maybe suppressing what we felt allowed us to function. Maybe following the rules kept us healthy, financially secure, accepted, successful, or moving forward with our peers.

Then someone—or life itself—told us what would happen if we stopped.

You could get sick. You could lose money. You could fall behind. You might not be able to move forward with everyone else. You might lose approval or love (something you relied on for survival when you were a kid).

So even when the thing that once protected us is now obviously causing harm, leaving it can feel more dangerous than staying inside it.

People often need their cages because it is a known way of functioning that is still helping them cope and they don't have it in them to consider any other way right now.

Mainstream systems normalize staying in the cage because it is much easier to help people keep doing what seems to work for them than to take on the much harder task of helping each person try to find a better way.

The problem comes when we mistake what helps us function now for the only way we will ever be able to function.

The second infographic came to me because, while both mainstream paths can become cages, trying to force someone out of their cage can become a cage in itself.

The jackhammer tries to break them out before they have chosen to leave, and the plastic spoon is never going to break them out. Thankfully, there's another way:

When I carry more of the healing burden than the person in front of me, I leave the middle path too. My work is to offer what I have available without needing someone else to choose it before they are ready.

I was triggered by a situation because it reminded me of a situation from my childhood. One that makes me a very good practitioner: I notice a lot of things because noticing these things kept me safe.

But I also needed to learn to stop trying to help people who don't want to be helped.

If someone is still inside their cage, neither my jackhammer nor their plastic spoon is the answer. They have to choose to come out.

Then I can help.

I can bring the light so they can begin to see that outside the cage can be safe and supported too.

But I can't make that choice for them.

An excellent example of this—and probably part of why these articles took a while to fall into place—is that I have finally decided to have my son assessed to see whether he qualifies for accommodations at school.

I've always wanted to heal him instead of having him labelled. But the truth is, I ran out of time. He is 14 now and doesn't want to be healed. So the next best thing is to get the people around him to understand his unique limits and needs in terms they will accept—not my own Unique Psychology—so that he can excel at school.

I know he's smart and his grades don't do him justice, but I also know he has a lot of barriers to showing what he knows. I have a diagnosis and had accommodations myself, and they improved my grades from the 60s to the 90s—no joke. That opened a lot of doors for me, and he deserves the opportunity to have those doors opened for him too.

But the pendulum doesn't need to swing all the way to the other side, where I now start trying to offer my healing services to parents who are simply looking for an assessment and accommodations for their kid.

I used to think that we naturally keep out what is not aligned for us. And if we are keeping something out, accommodations can make it easier for it to come in. That doesn't make accommodations wrong. It feels good to be good at something. But then we have to remember, "Okay, who am I again? If I can do this, that doesn't mean it is right for me. It's okay to wait for something more fulfilling and not force myself to do what I can get good grades in or earn money doing."

Options are better than no options. And apparently I am going to have opportunities to practise this rather than just write about it.

While meeting with his teachers to explain that some of what they see as him not doing what they need him to do is actually him trying to be considerate of others while knowing his own limitations, and that we were about to have him assessed for accommodations, my son shared that he can't see well enough out of one eye to read with it.

It only took me one night's sleep to think, I could take him to Master Yan (founder of RestoreChi) for that. Go here to see how Master Yan helped clear our middle child's crossed eye.

Then another part of me thought: Wait. With my son's assessment coming up, what if we improve something that is currently contributing to his difficulty and then the assessment no longer captures how much support he truly needs?

Something this line of work has taught me is: abilities, health, and needs aren't fixed.

Something being better when he is assessed doesn't mean it will always be better. We need support in place that can meet him when his capacity is lower too, not only when everything happens to be going well.

This is a bigger catch-22 than you might think because Master Yan already healed him from severe insomnia and the brink of depression. But by the time that happened, my son had already built the habits of someone who sleeps in and avoids school. Now he attends because he doesn't want to be penalized, but the academics they think he missed don't explain the gap they see.

It's like we speak two different languages, and the school needs something in their language in order to know how to help. So we are providing that.

But are we providing it for the worst-case version of our son or the best? Isn't it better for him to have accommodations and not need them at times than to not have them when he does?

It takes adults years to figure out how to make good choices for their life and health. We can't expect a child to have mastered this yet.

And yes, I also notice the irony that immediately after deciding I don't have to heal my son, I still have a solution-finder, healer's mindset.

I will let this play out however it plays out. It's his choice and his life. I am not going to block his access to healing, nor am I going to block his access to failing, glasses, accommodations, or any other experience that might help him figure out what works for him. All of these things can be temporary, and life teaches us far better than anyone telling us what to do ever could.

That said, I won't lie: him choosing to accept Master Yan's help (possibly because I said this would be cheaper than seeing an optometrist and getting glasses) makes me nervous. Which tells me this is still more my lesson than it is his. And I can take it. The more I heal, the less he carries.

Let the psychoeducational assessment team do what they do best: get accommodations for kids so they can be understood at school. And if people want and need funding, try to get them that too.

My work can stand independently of all of this. It doesn't have to be either-or or better-than.

We try to heal what the person wants to heal. We accommodate what needs accommodating. We tutor what's left. And then we accept what is.

As much as possible along the way, we don't attack someone's character for being where they are. We try to make life easier by understanding what is getting in the way, keeping the conversation open, and offering options they can choose from.

Parents who heal themselves see more options, as do their kids.

Forcing Someone Into the Middle Pulls Me Out of Mine

This was the part I didn't fully see until I made the second infographic.

How I help someone move toward the middle is discussed in Healing at the Pace Your Body Can Handle. This is how we gain trust with a client—and more importantly, their body—that we will go at a pace they can handle, once they have realized for themselves that the extreme paths are now causing more harm than good.

But they have to realize that for themselves.

Part of this work for me is learning to recognize what belongs to me. If I resolve that, then it becomes much easier for me to give the other person their options without trying to influence or rescue them.

As Peter Mandel, founder of Esogetic Medicine, said: we can't want another person's healing more than they do.

This doesn't mean I stop caring. It means I stop making their readiness something I have to move them toward.

Finding the Sovereign Middle

It can be very hard to take the middle path because we are surrounded by messages telling us that if we don't control something, we are at the mercy of what we can't control.

But I don't think the alternative to control is helplessness.

We can learn to understand what is happening in our body, health, mind, and life. With that understanding, and with appropriate support, we can slowly build the capacity to feel how we feel, process what comes up, and let go of what we no longer need.

For me, this is the sovereign middle.

"I choose to run towards my problems, and not away from them. Because that's what heroes do."

This quote from Thor: Ragnarok stuck out for me because so many people run from their problems, and when they think about running towards them, they imagine fighting something out there.

But sometimes running towards a problem means sitting with an uncomfortable feeling inside of us and being open to what it might have to say: Why is this triggering me so much? What did I feel back then? Why do I avoid this? What is true now?

To me, this is running towards our problems: resolving our conflicts so that our outer experiences can begin to organize around a newer version of ourselves—one that doesn't need that old lesson repeated because we no longer hold it unresolved inside us.

Looking back, I am grateful for all that I went through because I came out the other side with a way of understanding myself and working with other people that I think makes me more able to help without needing to rescue.

What I Can Offer

I am not here to break anyone out of their cage. I was in a cage too.

Instead, I can read your Kirlian Photo, tell you what it says and what treatments or approaches might help, apply Esogetic treatment, look at your after photo, your experience over the next few days, and your photo when you come in for your next session to see how much we can shift you to a place where you are open to feeling how you feel and letting things go, so that your life can be easier.

But the choice to come out of the cage belongs to you.

It's not for everyone, but if you think it's for you because you're curious and tired of the way things have been for way too long, book a free 15-minute consultation.

There is zero pressure from me. This is honestly about finding the right fit.

This article shares how I understand life and the body through Esogetic Medicine and my own experiences. I may make different choices from the ones that are right for you. I try not to tell other people to do things the way I do because I don't know what you can handle or what is right for your unique life path, limits, and needs.

I don't need you to take my road. I want to help you become better able to recognize yours.