we are stressed animals: healing scarcity, embracing abundance

There’s a built-in system in every human body known as the autonomic nervous system—composed of the sympathetic (fight-or-flight) and the parasympathetic (rest-and-digest) responses. It's like driving: the sympathetic is the gas pedal, urging us to react, flee, fight. The parasympathetic is the brake, slowing us down to reflect, recover, and restore.

As animals, human beings were never meant to live in a state of chronic activation. But in today’s world, we do. We are persistently stuck in sympathetic overdrive—tense, hyper-vigilant, exhausted. Why? Because the modern environment continuously signals to us that we are not safe.

The cost of living is sky-high. Our food systems are broken. We're surrounded by ultra-processed meals, genetically modified crops, and meat saturated with hormones and antibiotics. Housing is unaffordable. Medical care is impersonal and transactional. These stressors compound into one pervasive message: There is not enough.

This is the scarcity mindset—the deep, primal fear that resources are limited, that we must guard what we have, that if we don’t take, someone else will. It keeps our sympathetic systems humming in the background and, over time, depletes us emotionally, physically, and socially.

But here’s the truth: healing is not just biological—it’s cultural.

We don’t get back to peace through more pills or more productivity. We find it by challenging the narrative of scarcity. We shift by reminding ourselves and each other: There is enough, and we are enough.

Imagine what happens when we move from fear to trust. From "mine" to "ours." When one hand opens—not in defense, but in offering. When generosity stops being framed as a “handout” and instead becomes a hand up, a hand off—a cultural passing of abundance from one generation to the next.

Communities built on mutual giving—on relationship, reciprocity, and presence—don’t just feel good. They are good. They’re healing. Symbiotic, not parasitic. Alive.

This is the spirit behind Direct Primary Care (DPC). It's not just a business model. It's a revolution of care. It’s doctors stepping out of a system that once broke them, choosing instead to build something rooted in dignity, presence, and real connection. It’s patients becoming people again—not numbers on a billing form. And it’s a new kind of community, one where health isn’t extracted—it’s shared.

When we feel safe—truly safe—we stop clutching. We stop competing. We begin to create.

The question is: What world do we want to co-create? One driven by stress and scarcity—or one grounded in safety, generosity, and abundance?

We are animals. But we are also more. And we get to choose how we heal.