Extinction burst

Healing—whether personal or collective—is never linear. It spirals, doubling back on itself, unearthing what was buried, demanding to be faced again. It can feel like we’re backsliding when, in truth, we are revisiting the basement levels of our pain—the unresolved trauma stored in our bodies, our histories, the very fabric of our world.

I know this intimately. My own healing journey unraveled three inches of a severe curve in my spine—not through force, but through meeting the depths of what my body was holding. And in the two decades I’ve worked with clients, I’ve witnessed the same pattern thousands of times. The unraveling, the tightening, the moment when it feels like nothing is working—until, finally, something breaks free.

This is the wisdom of the extinction burst, a concept from behavioral psychology. When a deeply ingrained pattern is about to be unlearned, it often flares up more intensely before it disappears. It’s the nervous system’s last-ditch effort to hold onto what is familiar.

We see this in personal healing—when old symptoms, self-sabotaging behaviors, or limiting beliefs resurface just as transformation is within reach. And we see it playing out on a larger scale.

Right now, we are in a collective extinction burst.

The violent resistance to progress—the attempt to roll back rights for women, queer people, people of color, and all who have fought to take up space in a world that was not built for us—is not just cruelty. It is the last desperate grasp of collapsing power structures. We see it everywhere: the climate crisis accelerating as industries extract every last drop, late-stage capitalism tightening its grip as workers demand dignity, and extremism raging as it fights for survival. These forces aren’t flaring up because they are winning, but because they are losing.

This contraction is painful, but it is not the end—it is the breaking point before something greater. Just as the nervous system resists change before reorganizing into a new state, the world is resisting its own transformation. And just as personal healing expands our capacity to hold what once felt unbearable, collective healing depends on each of us doing the inner work to regulate, rewire, and reclaim our wholeness.

As Fannie Lou Hamer said, "Nobody’s free until everybody’s free." Our liberation is bound together. And what comes next—if we choose it—is a future built on justice, reverence, and love.

Healing—of the body, the mind, and the world—is a commitment to defy the odds. It is an act of radical faith in the future, in our wholeness, in liberation itself. And the more we heal, the more we expand the aperture of possibility—to live a life of power, freedom, and aliveness.

This is why my clients work with me. Because I don’t just see their individual healing—I see its place in the larger movement toward justice, liberation, and love. And I know—because I’ve walked this path myself and guided thousands through it—that we can move through this contraction and create a more just future for all people.

So if you’re in a moment of doubt, if your symptoms are flaring, if the world feels unbearable—keep going. Healing starts within. And every time one of us breaks through, we make it possible for others to do the same.