October 2026 Substack: When words become allergens

When a useful concept becomes so overused that we stop feeling what it points towards.

Language is fluid and emergent and it walks alongside new ideas, innovations, ideologies and the evolving Zeitgeist.

We can call it a “concept”.

Today, language and concepts travel vast distances at high speed, almost tumbling and, at times, free-falling. New ideas are broadcast across the world at almost the same moment. This is marvellous. We can learn, share and develop ideas quickly, taking language along for the ride.

And sometimes the concept stays while the language changes — a new iteration of something already known, perhaps even something ancient.

Words go through phases of popularity.

But concepts do not necessarily disappear when the language moves on to the next fad.

In my fields of physiotherapy and integral coaching, I have witnessed many waves of language and concepts. Each one, in its moment, becomes a little cultural celebrity. Courses spring up. Experts emerge. Credentials multiply. Everyone has a framework, a five-step process, a morning routine and, preferably, a podcast.

Here are a few examples:

Mental health. Burnout. Stress management. Nervous system regulation. Neurodiversity. ADHD...

When you read these words, are you open and curious? Or are you already slightly disconnected because they have appeared in your feed ad nauseam?

I have spent decades working with the nervous system. For years, I could talk about the body, sensory experience, stress responses, trauma and the exquisite intelligence of our physiological responses and be met with a polite sort of blankness.

Then, suddenly, there was a recognition that perhaps there was something important here.

“Nervous system regulation” became a catchy topic at dinner parties.

People became curious about what happened in their bodies when they were stressed, overwhelmed, shut down or activated.

Wonderful.

People started to understand my work.

And then the experts arrived, in abundance.

After a while, we were flooded with the same words, diagnoses, explanations and cures appearing in our feeds.

Another ADHD test and I groan while swiping away a meaningful concept.

And that is a pity, because learning about ADHD, burnout, PTSD and nervous system regulation has opened the curtains to life for many people. It has given people language for experiences they may have struggled to understand for years.

Recently, I was in a session sharing about the nervous system. I felt unusually reluctant to use the words “nervous system”.

Afterwards, a participant mirrored my experience. She told me that every time I used the words “nervous system”, she felt angry.

I knew then that the words had become an allergen.

The language of the body will always be my guiding torch in the work I do as an integral coach and facilitator. But I have had to change the way I work with clients.

I have become much more careful about how I talk about our biology and how knowing about it can help us understand ourselves and others, and perhaps find pathways towards healing and resilience.

Knowing about the concept is important and I will always weave it into my work.

But my emphasis has shifted much more towards the actual human experience.

The subtle shifts in sensation that let us know we are open and curious, or overwhelmed.

The first signals that might interrupt our habitual ways of interpreting and behaving.

The moment when something becomes available that wasn’t available a moment before.

There might be a little more space and a little more choice.

A possibility of meeting ourselves, another person, or the world differently.

This shift of weaving the concepts more subtly in between experiencing it in the body — has given me renewed energy for the work I love: accompanying clients as they find their own pathways towards healing and resilience within the rich relational tapestry of being human.

Language may make us roll our eyes.

But our biology?

We cannot swipe that away.

NB: I have an inkling that the word embodiment is on its way to becoming an allergen, so I stayed away from it.