The Gift of Calmness

The Gifts Healing Brings to Ourselves and the World

As I healed, I was surprised to find that deep inside of me was a remarkable human being. Shame and religion had taught me something entirely different. It taught me that I was unworthy, flawed, and some would say, wicked. When introduced to the “8 Cs of Self Leadership”—a core concept of Internal Family Systems (IFS)—I recognized a me that had always been there but often got buried underneath layers of pain and trauma-based coping strategies. Un-layering this me was a gift I gave to myself and it has enabled me to give hope to others. For the eight days leading up to and including Christmas, I will be writing about each of these gifts that I treasure every day: Calmness, Clarity, Curiosity, Compassion, Confidence, Courage, Creativity, and Connectedness. These gifts, handed to us at birth, were intended to be opened in safe, nurturing childhoods but it is never too late to open the gift.

Photo by Mia Golic on Unsplash

The Gift of Calmness

Serenity regardless of the circumstances.
Ability to react to triggers in your environment in less automatic and extreme ways.
—IFS Source—

I could feel the couch beneath me as I stared at the question on the intake form. I do not remember the exact question, but in my mind, it asked, “What are you hoping for?” I wrote the word Peace. I am sure that I had no idea what that would look or feel like, but it certainly was not what I was feeling inside of me. I had no words to describe what I was feeling but now I understand that it was dysregulation. All I knew was that I wanted that to stop.

I thought I knew what being calm was. I did not. What I thought was calmness was dissociation. It was the unconscious protective coping strategy that I depended on because my earliest experiences did not include the co-regulation that would have enabled me to develop self-regulation skills. When life overwhelmed me, I would drift away, live above the turmoil, and deny the problem. Externally I —mostly—appeared calm and yet, I wrote peace on the intake form.

While I say that calmness is a gift we are given at birth, it does require assembly, and most caregivers are not given a set of directions. They must assemble ways to calm their newborn based on how they experienced it or watched it being done by others. Maybe they read parenting books but most parenting books over the past century were based on flawed models of behaviorism. It was a perfect storm and now adults—like me—are completing the arduous task of learning how to re-parent ourselves in ways that build self-regulation skills, ways that lead to the IFS definition of calmness.

I write about self-regulation often because learning that I did not have to live with constant dysregulation changed my life. I use the terms self-regulation and being grounded to express the concept of calmness or peace because they imply something that can be developed. We often pray for peace or calm as if there were a magic wand that would open the gift. For many of us, it is a gift that requires assembly.

In response to a recent post on Facebook, a friend said, “I spent most of my life ungrounded. Being taught how to become grounded is one of the most beautiful gifts I’ve ever been given!” Me too, my friend. Me too!

So, if calmness is a gift that must be assembled, how can I be sure that every child receives this gift? Because, when healthy, safe, and well-nurtured, babies always exhibit the calmness that is their birthright. It is our birthright.

Photo by Pranav Kumar Jain on Unsplash