The Trailhead
I remember road marches during my Army days at Fort Benning, Georgia. We’d start around 2 a.m., moving out under the stars into miles of wilderness; miles of forest thick with loblolly and longleaf pines. Often, the Division of Land Management had just done a controlled burn. We would march straight into landscapes where the ground itself was aflame: trees smoldering from root to tip, underbrush crackling, smoke hanging low in the cool night air.
It should have felt dangerous, maybe even apocalyptic. But it didn’t. For some reason, it felt peaceful and strangely safe. Like walking through a movie that wasn’t horror but a quiet drama of resilience. The fire wasn’t there to destroy; it was there to preserve. In the flicker of that firelight, I learned something my younger self couldn’t yet name: that heat, handled with intention, can make space for life to flourish.
That image has stayed with me. Because our inner lives are much the same. Without intention, stress and resentment pile up like dry pine needles. One careless spark; an argument, a delayed response, an unmet expectation and suddenly we’re in an emotional wildfire. But with foresight, with small controlled burns, we can steward our inner forests: clearing space, preventing catastrophe, and making room for new growth.
This is a guide for how to do that: how to read your weather, manage your fuel loads, and light small fires on purpose, so the big ones don’t consume you.
Reading the Weather: Your Window of Tolerance
Firefighters know the weather determines fire behavior. Wind speed, humidity, and temperature all shape whether flames stay contained or roar out of control. Emotionally, our “weather” is what psychiatrist Dan Siegel calls the window of tolerance: the range where our nervous system can feel emotions without being hijacked into fight, flight, or freeze (Siegel, 2012).
When our window is wide, we can handle stress without spiraling. But when it narrows because of chronic stress, trauma reminders, or lack of sleep small; sparks feel like high winds on a dry hillside. Stephen Porges’ polyvagal theory explains why: our nervous system is constantly scanning for threat cues, even in everyday interactions (Porges, 2011). A raised eyebrow, a late pickup, or a text left on “read” can register as danger when our system is already taxed.
Controlled burn practices:
- Morning weather check. Spend two minutes naming your “forecast”: What stressors are the wind? Where are today’s pockets of shade? What value will anchor me?
- Physiology first. Before responding to a spark, lengthen your exhale for 60 seconds. Breathwork helps widen your window, so you’re choosing, not reacting.
Fuel Loads: What’s Drying Out Your Forest
The Forest Service doesn’t just watch the sky, they manage fuel. Dead brush and fallen branches create “ladder fuels” that let a ground fire climb into the canopy. Our emotional lives carry their own fuel loads: the unsaid, the avoided, the unhealed.
Neuroscientist Bruce McEwen calls this allostatic load. The cumulative wear and tear of stress on the body (McEwen, 1998). Over time, fuel builds silently until one spark is enough to ignite the whole system.
Common emotional fuel loads:
- Unnamed emotions. Research shows that simply labeling a feeling reduces its intensity (Gross, 2015). But many of us were never taught that language.
- Ambiguous boundaries. In co-parenting, classrooms, or workplaces, unclear expectations act like piles of dry tinder.
- Micro-deprivations. Skipped meals, sleepless nights, no movement. Burnout is often a mismatch between demand and resource, not weakness (Maslach & Leiter, 2016).
- Resentment sediment. Small, unresolved hurts accumulate until the layer itself becomes flammable.
Controlled burn practices:
- Name and note. At day’s end, jot down: “Today I felt ___ when ___; I needed ___.” Keep it under two minutes.
- Brush pile clearing. Once a week, choose one backlog item you’ve been avoiding (bill, text, hard email) and clear it intentionally, not reactively.
Sparks and Ignition: Triggers Are Not Enemies
Every wildfire starts with a spark. In our lives, these are triggers. Moments that light up old wounds. We often blame the spark (“If only she hadn’t said that!”), but therapy reminds us the real risk lies in the conditions around it.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) teaches that the goal isn’t eliminating triggers but choosing responses aligned with your values (Hayes et al., 2012). Sparks are inevitable. What matters is whether they land on dry grass or damp soil.
Controlled burn practices:
- Trigger inventory. List three sparks that reliably light you up (interruptions, lateness, raised voices). For each, script a values-based response you’ll try next time.
- If-then rehearsal. Psychologist James Gross highlights that planning responses in advance reduces emotional hijack (Gross, 1998). Example: “If my child rolls their eyes, then I will pause and say, ‘I want to understand what’s going on, help me see it.’”
Fire Behavior: When Emotions Run Uphill
Wildfires run fastest uphill. In our emotional lives, the slope is shame. Brené Brown’s research shows that shame thrives in secrecy and silence, accelerating everything in its path (Brown, 2012). Add John Gottman’s “Four Horsemen” of criticism, defensiveness, contempt, and stonewalling, and you’ve got wind on a steep grade (Gottman & Silver, 1999).
When the slope of shame makes conflict run fast and hot, balance becomes everything. Just like a fighter learns to absorb a blow without losing footing, we can learn to absorb emotional hits without collapsing. I explored this in The Power of Balance.
Controlled burn practices:
- Repair scripts. Gottman’s research found that timely repair attempts are the single best predictor of relationship health. Try phrases like:
- “Can we rewind?”
- “That came out sharp; let me try again.”
- “I’m flooded right now; give me 20 minutes and I’ll come back.”
- Self-compassion triage. Kristin Neff outlines three steps: mindfulness, common humanity, and kindness (Neff, 2003). Try whispering: “This is hard. I’m not alone. I can be gentle with myself.”
Firebreaks: Boundaries as Love with Edges
A firebreak is a deliberate gap in fuel that keeps flames from spreading. In relationships, boundaries serve the same role. They’re not walls to keep people out, they’re gaps that protect what matters most inside.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) calls this the dialectic of acceptance and change: I honor the relationship and I protect my own limits (Linehan, 2015).
Controlled burn practices:
- Boundary sentence stem: “To keep our relationship safe, I’m willing to ___; I’m not willing to ___; if ___ happens, I’ll ___.”
- Predictable rhythms. In co-parenting or leadership, clear schedules and expectations prevent unnecessary sparks from landing in dry grass.
Boundaries aren’t barriers; they’re commitments to walk the ridge with integrity. In The Ridge Between Us, I share how promises and presence shape trust in family life.
Planned Heat: Safe Burns for Growth
Controlled burns are lit on purpose, under safe conditions, to make forests healthier. Emotionally, this looks like leaning into small discomforts that strengthen resilience.
Examples:
- Hard conversation calendar. Schedule one 10-minute honest talk each week: one truth, one request, one curiosity.
- Graded exposure. Five minutes of the task you’ve been dreading—enough to prove the spark won’t consume you.
- Micro-recovery. Take two minutes between meetings for a walk or breath reset, keeping your forest hydrated.
Mindfulness pioneer Jon Kabat-Zinn likens this to carrying a headlamp on the trail: wide enough to see your footing, focused enough to avoid stumbling (Kabat-Zinn, 1990).
Sometimes our safe burns are simply daring to ask the brave question we’ve been avoiding. As I wrote in The Courage to Ask, growth often begins with the heat of curiosity and courage
Lookouts, Radios, and Incident Command: Community Matters
No one fights fire alone. Crews rely on lookouts, clear communication, and an Incident Command System with defined roles. Families and teams need the same: shared language, predictable check-ins, and explicit responsibilities.
Controlled burn practices:
- Weekly “weather” brief. 15 minutes: What feels hot this week? What support do we need? What can we safely let burn a little?
- Role rotation. Assign roles like Planning, Operations, Logistics, and rotate them monthly. This prevents resentment and spreads responsibility.
After-Action Reviews: Learning Without Blame
Every wildfire operation ends with an After-Action Review: What was planned? What happened? Why? What will we keep or change? The purpose isn’t blame; it’s learning.
Controlled burn practices:
- Three-by-three AAR. After conflict or a busy week, name three things that worked and three things to try differently. Keep it neutral and brief.
- Data over drama. Track one small metric (average sleep, repair attempts, successful boundaries). Let that data, not your worst moment guide your adjustments.
Teaching the Next Generation to Tend Their Forests
Children learn resilience not from perfect parents but from regulated ones. Siegel calls this co-regulation: your calm nervous system helping theirs widen their window (Siegel, 2012).
Controlled burn practices (family edition):
- Feelings map. Use a color chart (calm, warm, hot) on the fridge. Everyone points before dinner. No fixing, just noticing.
- Repair rituals. Families can have simple reset scripts: “Same team?” or “Rock-paper-scissors to see who talks first.”
When we normalize repair and recovery, kids grow up seeing fire not only as destructive but as a force that can create new life.
When the Fire Jumps the Line
Even the best crews lose control sometimes. Despite preparation, fires crown and leap across firebreaks. In our lives, this is when we reach for bigger help: therapy, medical care, or community support. None of this means failure. It means you’re human, living in a dry season, and wise enough to call in backup.
Controlled burns aren’t about domination. They’re about stewardship. They turn fear into respect, shame into courage, and resentment into spaciousness.
Reflection Questions
- Where is your forest driest right now? What’s one brush pile you can clear this week?
- Which spark most often lights you up – and what’s your values-aligned response?
- What boundary, stated clearly and kindly, would protect your closest relationship?
- Who belongs on your fire line – mentor, therapist, faith community?
- If you ran an After-Action Review on this past month, what would you keep, and what one thing would you change?
Closing: The Long View
Healthy forests need fire. The point isn’t to live flame-free but flame-wise. Controlled burns teach us to bring heat on purpose. To speak the hard truth in love, to feel emotions without being consumed by them, to create space for what matters most.
On the trail at Fort Benning, marching through smoke and ember glow, I didn’t yet have the language for resilience. But I knew it in my bones: fire isn’t always a threat. Sometimes it’s the very thing that keeps the forest alive.
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