Video from the 10th Anniversary Celebration
2025 USA
30 minutes
Language: English
Subtitles: –
Filmed by BCTV – Brattleboro Community TV
Website: https://innerfire.us/
Synopsis
The video opens with Mitzi Montague Bauer, Chair of Inner Fire’s Board, reflecting on the meaning of the organization’s mission, “the power of choice,” through her personal experience. After her son was hospitalized and told he would never recover, she felt the system stripped him of dignity and failed to support true healing, leading her to hope for a more compassionate alternative—one she later discovered in Inner Fire.
Founder Beatrice Birch then describes Inner Fire as a healing community centered on honoring individual choice, helping people strengthen themselves on a deeper soul and spiritual level so they can reclaim their lives without relying on mind-altering psychotropic medications.
Summary
The video begins with Mitzi Montague Bauer, Chair of Inner Fire’s Board, explaining that we often don’t fully understand the weight of Inner Fire’s mission statement, “the power of choice,” until we face a situation that puts it into perspective. When her son was admitted to a mental health facility, he was told that his brain was “broken” and that he would never recover. His autonomy and dignity were stripped away, and he was placed on medication. She recalls wondering: This isn’t working. There has to be a place where he can engage with people who will embrace him lovingly and gently, and guide him back to himself. Ultimately, unprepared to live on the cocktail of medications, her son chose suicide. Mitzi later learned that Beatrice Birch was creating Inner Fire.
Mitzi expresses gratitude to everyone who has contributed to making Inner Fire, a non-profit, a reality and describes Beatrice, founder, director and therapist as an inspiration, highlighting her patience, persistence, wisdom, and unwavering faith in the human spirit.
Beatrice then takes the stage. She emphasizes that Inner Fire is about honoring choice and celebrating the resilience of the human spirit—recognizing that we are body, soul, and spirit. She shares her view that “Mental Health is a reductionist term for Soul Health”. She describes how reassuring and heartwarming it is to see people begin to feel like themselves again.
Inner Fire is a proactive healing community that offers individuals the opportunity to recover from traumatic and debilitating life experiences—experiences that often lead to addiction or mental/soul health struggles. The goal is to help people strengthen themselves on a deeper soul and spiritual level so they can reclaim their lives without relying on mind-altering psychotropic medications.
Beatrice clarifies that Inner Fire is not anti-medication. Rather, it believes in honoring choice and supports those who want to avoid medication. That, she says, is the essence of their mission. She argues that “being-human” means thinking clearly, feeling deeply and being proactive yet medications often suppress those soul forces. She challenges the narrative that people are told—that their brains are permanently damaged and that they must remain on medication for life—which she describes as a powerful and harmful lie. Rather, the medications change the chemistry of the brain! She notes that society—from young to old—is becoming increasingly numbed/zombified. According to Beatrice, the system leaves little room for true healing. Pharmaceutical influence has grown and society has become complacent. She wonders when people will wake up and take action.
Beatrice reflects on how she never expected to create Inner Fire and shares how it came about. After encountering many individuals who expressed the same pain: “I hate being medicated !” and asked, “Isn’t there another choice?”– and then learning later that many of them had taken their lives, she chose to see their suicides as their “sacrifice and a wake-up call” and she made a commitment:”You have not died in vain”. She would dedicate herself to creating a space where individuals would have a choice. Although she didn’t know how she would achieve this, she said “Yes”. Soon after, she felt an overwhelming sense of clarity and energy, and within a little over a day, she had envisioned the entire program. Shortly after, she and her partner found the site for Inner Fire.
Inner Fire, founded in 2015, is a year long, healing program, honoring the whole human being. Seekers (residents) are helped to safely taper from the psychotropic medications and strengthen themselves on a deeper soul and spiritual level so they can reengage in life as active citizens.