Pathways to Peace

The Rhythm of Anxieties-Action < > Soothings-Reaction, creates Peace

This Learning Rhythm of Anxieties-Action < > Soothings-Reaction, is what creates Peace.

The Peace which baby-You experiences, is completely different from the Peace which we, grown in the world, seek. Or seek to destroy.

What is so beautiful, a perfect process, is that baby-You Anxieties Dynamic automatically produces Peace through Soothing. The caregiver needs to intervene with attention and satisfaction of baby needs & wants. Then the Learning Rhythm of Anxieties-Action < > Soothings-Reaction, creates Peace: automatically.

That’s how we’re able to say and see baby-You become more autonomous. Baby-You becomes more self-sufficient in accepting that baby’s needs & wants will be satisfied; that Soothing will happen; that Peace will come again.

It’s when baby’s Acceptance function is impaired; or Satisfaction is not adequate; or both: that the states we recognise as psychiatric conditions have the possibility of appearing.

What you already know about all psychiatric conditions is that they don’t contain Peace. Instead, they are stuck in an Immature Dynamic of Satisfaction Seeking and Satisfaction Frustration. More on this later.

We have now put, all but one of, the jigsaw pieces of You together.

When baby-You is at Peace, we know that this means:

Ø baby’s Anxieties Dynamic has activated Attention seeking behaviour

Ø caregiver has satisfied baby’s Wants, and so

Ø ended baby Frustration which had activated baby’s Anxieties Dynamic.

Baby’s Soothing Response is now activated. That switches off or turns down the Anxieties Reactor: till next time. Through this process being repeated, baby-You learns to self-soothe.

With adult-You, it is the same process.

Anxieties in Action trigger a Soothing Response.

But, we are all very complicated in our psychology. There are incomplete neural connections (brain bridges) and overcompensating connections (brain waterfalls). There are synaptic gaps which don’t, or can’t be bridged: too wide or too small. Bridges can take time to build. There are bridges between our conscious, aware mind, and our unconscious mind. And between countries in our brain (all within a United Kingdom of mind): the places of the brain where our highest-order thoughts process; and places like the Amygdalae (the baby brain).

Peace is not a place

I’m not here to change You. I believe in You.

I know, from science, that You were born with a perfect physical arrangement of your eyes, for seeing; your nose for smelling; your ears for hearing; your mouth for tasting; your baby fingers for touching.

I’ve never had the privilege of seeing my own DNA pop out of my DNA donating partner (one day: applications on the inside cover of the hardback edition please). But I, like you, have marvelled at the physical perfection of a new-born You. How Nature, with only DNA input from Mr & Mrs Ted, delivered a baby perfectly made to Grow into, well, us.

Growing is what a baby is perfectly made to do. Not resting in a never-moving place of “peace”.

Nature created Your Peace to be stepping stones in a journey of Your Growth.

I know equally, from science, that You were born with a perfect Anxieties-Soothing rhythm, for achieving Peace through Growth.

You will use your eyes to see, so that you can want, and see that you have received. When you want, you will use your perfectly formed Anxieties flowers to send out scent, which will attract the bees. The bees will deliver honey. You taste the honey, and your satisfaction, lets your Soothing tell your Anxieties petals that they can close now. Ready to open again, but having taken another step in learning through growing .

I may seem odd for us to think of Anxiety as a flower. Yet that is what it most closely resembles in nature. Later, we’re going to look at tending our Anxieties flowers. Not forever trying to dig them up, or concrete over the garden to make a fake patio of peace.

You don’t need to find yourself. You already know who you are.

You can close your eyes for a tiny fragment of a second, go inside yourself, and feel your flowers of Anxiety. They are sending out their pollen. Their messages which will be received and will deliver whatever you really want. Which is often not, perhaps, what our complicated higher minds think we want (or don’t).

Peace is not a place. Peace is a journey.

We breathe. The process of breathing In > Out repeats. But our life in the world is changed after every breath.

And from the moment we came into the world, Peace is the bridge between one moment of that journey, to the next. Moments pass. They always pass. One giving way to the next. The Anxieties>Soothing Dance repeats. But no moment ever repeats.

Peace is beautiful. But it’s simply something that appears in our feelings and thoughts, as our Anxieties>Soothing moments each step along their journey. Peace appears automatically. We don’t need to do anything, for the bridge of peace to be built, moment by moment. The passing of those moments builds those bridges. The bridges are just the passing of those moments.

I believe that my baby, and yours, was born able to bridge the moments between one episode of Anxieties>Soothing and the inevitable, nature called next.

In fact, I don’t believe it: I know it. As sure was we are all standing here today.

And just as I believe in my baby, I believe in You.

I wouldn’t change a thing about my baby, who I know as born perfect to grow through bridged moments of peace.

I know you were born perfect too.

Who am I, or any of us, to have any wish to change that?

The Peace Bridges

From: I Want to Love But: Realising the Power of You