Last week, I had the moving honour and great pleasure of spending a few days on the road with Dr. Nils Bergman, a physician and advocate of skin-to-skin contact. He gave presentations in Turnhout, Antwerp, and Amsterdam, and I was his driver and conversation partner. Finally, I was also the interviewer for my podcast episode with him.

In 2011, I completed the Dutch translation of ‘Hold Your Prem’ (now ‘Koester je kleintje’, ‘Cherish Your Little One’), written by his wife, Jill Bergman, with an abundance of literature references supporting the advocated care for extremely premature babies. This means I have been aware and completely convinced of his vision for quite some time, and yet these days I listened and marvelled at his story with amazement again. His work is constantly deepening, and as I gain more knowledge myself, I see even more clearly how important his approach is and how far, as a society, we are still removed from achieving ‘zero separation’ as standard of care.

Anyone who has ever heard Nils speak knows that his presentation slides are chock-full of diagrams, quotes, terms, and countless arrows that illustrate the relationships between phenomena and that connect disciplines. For example, you could talk about ‘highly conserved neuroendocrine behaviour’ but you could also say ‘instinct’. The former is scientific, evidence-based terminology for mammalian behaviour; the latter is an easily term parents to understand their infant’s behaviour. They observe this instinct when their baby lies skin-to-skin, seeking and emptying the breast, when their child calms with closeness and a reassuring voice, and when they subsequently feel overwhelmed by love for their newborn. Skin-to-skin contact also awakens a very ancient behaviour in them: the instinct to hold and protect their child. Thus, protocolised science becomes tangible in loving parenting.

Nils Bergman has coined this unity of caregiving behaviour and science ‘nurturescience’, the science about the effect of the presence or absence of protective care. He also places toxic stress in this context: ‘strong and prolonged activation of the body’s stress management systems in the absence of buffering protection of adult support’. Toxic stress is harmful to the developing brain and therefore to all bodily functions. That is why it is important for a baby to be in the right place: the mother’s body. Nils repeatedly quotes a statement by James McKenna: “Nothing a baby can or cannot do makes sense except in light of the mother’s body.” When newborn babies are in that environment, it becomes clear how profoundly competent they are and how much beneficial reciprocity there is in mother-child interaction.

Babies make an ‘appraisal’ of the level of threat they experience. Is the threat far away and the mother nearby? Then crying is the best strategy. Is the threat nearby and the mother absent? Then freezing or dissociation offers the greatest chance of survival. What appears as ‘rest’ and ‘relaxation’ can in fact be a state of mortal fear. That is why we need the insights of nurturescience, so we can understand why proximity to the mother’s body is crucial. “Nurturescience is the physiology we have lost”, says Nils. “The right place determines the baby’s psychobiology”, the sense of security that ensures relaxation and homeostasis. “We don’t want self-regulation in newborns”, he says powerfully, “but coregulation!”

Occasionally, there were concerned questions from the audience: “How do we manage this? How do we organize that? How do we approach this? What does this mean for that?” One question was something like this: “What do you do when a mother is mentally distressed or almost psychotic? How do we get that right for the baby?” Nils turned it around: “A baby needs the mother’s body. Place the baby on the mother’s chest and the baby will fix the mother’s mind.” This answer brought tears to my eyes. What a paradigm shift this is, such confidence in the idea that a baby can restore what is often seen as a reason to separate mother and child!
Therefore, Nils approaches this from a salutogenetic perspective: not just preventing harm (primum non nocere, or non-maleficence, prevention), but proactively doing good (beneficence, amplition) and striving for everything that promotes well-being and health. Then the emphasis shifts from ‘avoiding out of fear’ to ‘pursuing out of motivation’ – a revolutionary change.

I am looking forward to the PDF of the presentations, with plenty of material to study and learn from even more! A deep bow to Nils and his passionate perseverance, often swimming against the current!

In all its simplicity, it was a luxurious, rich summer for me. Between February 2023 and February 2024, I had an intensive year because of my psychotherapeutic training in Compassionate Inquiry. I had chosen a ‘deep dive’ and a lot was stirred within me. All kinds of familiar interactions, behavioural patterns and inner beliefs felt either suddenly no good anylonger, or worse than in the many years before. In the spring of 2024, I was tired of all the emotions and insights gained and I was in urgent need of self-care, of a summer trip in which I could do exactly what my heart longed for and from which I would return happy and recharged. It took courage to deviate from the usual routine and express what I needed. However, my training had also been very useful for that kind of courage and so my plan slowly took shape.

I went looking for an off-grid camper, so that I could travel around without pre-determined locations and would not even need campsites. I found one that was available for almost six weeks. My husband also planned his three weeks of vacation differently than usual and after his first week I picked him up and we travelled together for two weeks through the Vosges, where we also campered wild.

Before that, however, I lived alone in the wonderful camper for three and a half weeks. I spent most of that time in the Dolomites, with their rugged peaks and valleys, in my experience a heartbreakingly beautiful environment. More than the flat Dutch landscape, those high mountain tops seem to do justice to my emotional life and my feeling about human existence, which rarely continues in a clear, straight, flat line.

When I crossed the Italian border from Austria on the third day and turned off the highway towards the Rosengarten massif (or Catinaccio), I felt my heart pounding. I was deeply moved by the sight of the peaks that were beautifully coloured pink-red-orange in the late afternoon light. It felt indescribable, the thought that I would be able to limitlessly intensely enjoy this natural beauty for more than three weeks, without anyone finding it strange or exaggerated, without having to coordinate with anyone what to do or not to do, without having to make even the slightest compromise. I would live in my house-on-wheels that felt very safe, cook on the three-burner stove with ingredients from the refrigerator that was perfectly cooled by the solar panels on the roof and I would (thanks to those same solar panels) shower with warm boiler water between the back doors and then crawl into bed fresh, drowsy and satisfied, with or without a plan for the next day.

The amazement and feeling of being deeply touched about all those aspects stayed with me during my holiday weeks, and they were accompanied by all kinds of realisations, insights, and inspired resolutions. I rested. My heart became calm. I began to feel softer and stronger, observing with interest how I reacted to all sorts of things, my presence of mind in a few difficult situations, my ability to do what had to be done afterwards, to enjoy my own company in relaxed gratitude. Brushing my teeth romantically under the stars and driving around hairpin bends with a big van like a Peugeot Boxer of more than six meters under my butt… it was all equally beautiful and all equally representative of very pure, unhindered aspects of who I really am.

During the few times that I stayed at a campsite and noticed what the stimuli of noisy, not always very friendly family members did to me, I became aware of what the off grid camping and the many walks had already brought me and how much the silence and beauty of nature are an inexhaustible source to refresh and quench yourself, also literally, when I could fill my water tank from a mountain stream. It also made it clear to me in what way I no longer want to communicate with others: I no longer want to function that way myself, and I no longer want to be subjected to it.

There were also sad moments, moments when I realised how differently things had gone over the years, very different from how I had organised them now and where I now felt comfortable, how I had often felt paralysing loneliness, not knowing how I myself could come to a different way or organising things, which would undoubtedly have changed the dynamics between me and those I was with. Above all, however, I could view all that with compassion, without any tendency to fix or escape or judge. I could understand where that old behaviour had found its origins. I managed to look with modest but appropriate pride at how many of those old patterns I have been able to let go of since, how I now look at things in a fundamentally different way and how I talk to myself and others.

In previous years I had met people who had made me ‘ripe’ for a personal development path, but… the work still needs to be done, so to speak, and I did it, with dedication. The Compassionate Inquiry training has consequently brought about an unexpectedly profound transformation in me. The follow-up to this training, the Mentorship Program, started during my vacation and I consider it an honour and a blessing that I have been admitted. Next year, during the Mentorship and the subsequent certification process (for which I will hopefully be invited in due course based on my competencies), will therefore be intense and transformative again. I am taking that into account, but undoubtedly things will happen again this year that I cannot possibly foresee. I enjoy the prospect. I am looking forward to the process. I want to commit myself to it with heart and soul, because I have already seen so often how Compassionate Inquiry supports people in finding their own, authentic Self again – magical!

Many of us have to choose very early in life between our authenticity and the attachment to parents/caregivers who, as a result of how they themselves were raised, are often unable to fully handle that authenticity. As Gabor often says: ‘You will have to choose between the pain of losing yourself for the sake of the attachment relationships, or the pain of having yourself and losing certain relationships.’ And under ideal circumstances, you can be authentic and maintain and grow the relationship with the other. However, this requires that you first discover who you are, that you become familiar with and feel safe in your own authenticity. It requires that you dare to stand up for your own needs (such as a holiday period alone, or whatever it may be that you need).

What we see as our ‘character’ and our ‘personality’ often consists of coping strategies that are based on early childhood trauma. ‘I’m just a quiet person’, ‘I’m just afraid of x’, ‘I’m just very exuberant’… these are inner beliefs. Certain ‘character traits’ were once the only way to maintain yourself in your social circumstances. A ‘compassionate inquiry’, a compassionate investigation based on sincere curiosity about underlying dynamics, can shed new light on this. It used to be a very wise decision to arrange your behaviour as you did and perhaps still do. We call that ‘the wisdom of trauma’ – title of the film about Gabor’s work. Even though some behavioural patterns no longer serve you… they once saved you; they therefore deserve self-compassion, not judgment. After all, by judging them you reject a part of yourself and hardly anyone develops a sense of security and relaxed growth from rejection. To feel safe in your own company, the first invitation is to stop snapping at yourself, but to conduct a gentle inner dialogue. When you can fully embrace everything that belongs to you and observe it in a compassionate way, the world will look different and life will feel easier. What a wonderful path to continually take further steps on!

As part of my training program, I will be conducting many Compassionate Inquiry conversations in the coming period. Here you can find more information about this approach, which is the brainchild of Gabor Maté. The essence of his approach is that ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences or early childhood trauma) are largely the source of health problems and lack of well-being. That is a strong, but scientifically sound statement. If you are struggling with ‘old pain’ or disturbed relationships, a session with Compassionate Inquiry can almost certainly give you new insights.

If you are interested in experiencing the power of this approach and using it in your own life… please let me know via info@aceaware.nl . Then we can perhaps make an appointment for a session. Welcome!

The day before yesterday it was March 14, my mother’s birthday. She died in 2006, aged 70, after a life that had been difficult for her, with the result that things were also very difficult in my family of origin and that my sister died at the age of 32. Yesterday I was asked whether I had thought about my mother’s birthday and whether it still has a strong meaning for me. I had certainly thought about it: your mother’s birthday… that is a special date. Without her you would not have been here – you owe your existence to the fact that she gave birth to you. And even before that birth you were inextricably linked to her; for us humans, the bond with our mother is the first relationship in our lives. That relationship provides a blueprint for all relationships that follow.

That is why I believe that it really matters how we as a social environment and as a society deal with the mother-child relationship, especially in the early phase of motherhood, when everything is still so new and the mother role still feels so unfamiliar. If we can protect and pamper the mother during pregnancy and the postpartum period, if we can see that her primary, honourable task in that phase is that she can focus on her baby with loving attention and is not overextended and overburdened… then we create circumstances in which the baby can develop a view of humanity and the world that already supports future parenthood. If we fail to do so or fail to do so sufficiently, we lay a foundation for pain and sadness, for loneliness and trauma. I know this from both personal experience and professional knowledge.

That is how my day started last Thursday, with that awareness, through a story that came to my attention through a colleague. A mother ended up in the hospital with her baby because her baby was not growing and both she and her baby were becoming increasingly stressed. (Let’s call the baby ‘Robin’.) Mother was fully breastfeeding and she experienced the breastfeeding relationship with Robin as very important. Once admitted to the hospital, she had to deal with the rules and protocols there. For example, the paediatrician announced that mother was no longer allowed to put the baby to the breast and she had to pump all her milk, so that the nurse could see how much Robin was getting. Baby should leave at least three hours between feedings and if Robin asked to be fed sooner, mother had to ‘stretch’ and make baby wait. She was surprised by this, as the hospital admission had mainly taken place due to insufficient growth; should she not rather feed very often, mother wondered? The milk was thickened, and Robin subsequently had difficulty drinking. Robin got tired during feedings and would then stop; the nurse then took Robin into a headlock and forced the baby to continue drinking.

Mother was instructed to limit cuddling, because Robin would need rest. Not being allowed to latch and not or hardly being allowed to cuddle created a fear in mother that Robin would refuse to breastfeed and she said she could only cry all day, but she was told: “You are here for a reason, so for now you just have to do as we say.” Due to the stress of all the policies, milk production had dwindled even further. Bottle feeding was a struggle, because Robin needed a break every now and then, which was hardly given to her, and as a result, at least once, she spit out half the food, with a long time of restlessness afterwards. Mother felt broken, stated that she could no longer indicate her boundaries or fend for herself; additionally, she experienced little to no support in her own social environment. However, she was happy with the support and responses from the digital environment.

I read the story, read dozens of responses and felt painful sadness and considerable anger welling up. And yes… that of course also says something about me, that it affects me so much… I am well aware of that. And yet… the essence is that this situation was based on protocols and rules, not on the biological blueprint of mother and child. This probably happened due to a lack of knowledge, but there is a good chance that trauma also played a role, both among the healthcare providers (who no longer had confidence in the process) and the mother (who no longer dared to raise her voice). In that sense, compassion was more appropriate and my anger was therefore actually out of place, but well… sometimes the feeling of injustice about the workings of the ‘system’ takes over. After all, the approach chosen here undermines and hinders the natural behaviour of mother and baby. That is not the start you wish for mother and child, if a ‘promising start’ during the ‘first 1000 days’ is your goal. It’s not the experience they should be getting this early on. Childbed and early postpartum are ideally a phase in which mother and child are jointly ‘marinated’ in oxytocin: then the baby’s neurological development can get off to a flying start and the mother will gain the feeling that she is powerful and competent, equipped for her task as protector and ‘cheerleader’ of her baby.

It is therefore deeply sad that despite the ubiquitous insistence on ‘evidence-based’ approaches in healthcare, a mother-child couple is treated in this way. An approach like this… there is nothing ‘evidence based’ about it; this approach actually goes against all evidence.
This raises the question of why we as a society often still fall short with perinatal care. What are the consequences of this? Do we all fully realise how things can get way out of hand in the longer term…? And what can we do to reduce the knowledge gap and transform attitudes? How can we ensure that trauma-sensitive approaches becomes the norm in all sectors, so that people can flourish?

Last Tuesday I spoke for Elaa/ONE, the organisation that implements the Promising Start-program in Almere. After a short introduction, we watched the documentary ‘Resilience – The Biology of Stress & the Science of Hope’ together, and afterwards we discussed the film. Beautiful things were contributed and I would have loved and enjoyed working with the group for a whole day. Hopefully we can follow up on it, because people were inspired: ‘Starting with young parents’, ‘Creating awareness’, ‘How we deal with each other as a cause of depression (not the genes)’, ‘I’m going to ask more questions’, ‘Tackling your own problems so that you don’t pass them on’, ‘The influence of emotions and trauma and the importance of talking about them’. Those are great insights! Talking about emotions is indeed very important: the origin of the word ‘e-motion’ means ‘to move outward’. Emotions want to be shared, heard and seen; If they remain ‘stuck’ inside, it causes stress and stress is the basis of almost all health problems.

Unresolved emotions… they were the basis of my mother’s difficulty with life. They were also the basis of my sister’s early death. Their pain in life is an important aspect of my intrinsic motivation for this subject: children and young parents deserve recognition and support for everything that presents itself. As individuals, as (extended) families, as a society, we all benefit from a safe and nurturing start to life. That is what I always think about on my mother’s birthday, about how she missed out on that. It is also what I think about with every presentation, every training, every consultation, how I can sow seeds in those I meet, hoping and trusting that those seeds, with warmth and a nourishing environment, will blossom in their own time.

It was the summer of 1994 and after a beautiful home birth our third daughter was born. She’s getting married in a few weeks; her white baby clothes from the first days, contrasting so beautifully with her pitch black hair and deep dark brown eyes, are in the attic. In August, they will be replaced by a truly beautiful white wedding dress. Again her eyes and hair, slightly lighter in colour but still beautifully dark, will contrast with her clothes, both with what she will wear during the pre-wedding drinks and with what she will wear during the festive day (that wedding dress) and in the evening, when we are all expected in gala outfit.

On the day of her birth, I could not have imagined that almost thirty years later I would be working as a lactation consultant and medical anthropologist/sociologist. Especially the lactation science is directly connected to her birth. I was literally deathly ill in childbed due to puerperal fever and when we were together in the hospital because of my recovery, I saw that the support for breastfeeding often left a lot to be desired. That is why I became a volunteer at the Dutch breastfeeding association VBN, later a lactation consultant in my own practice, and eventually the trauma-sensitive anthropologist I am today. Some people thought that I was suddenly doing something completely different with that anthropology studies, but I always only saw a straight line from micro to macro to meta level. What happens between mother and child in early life is a template for what follows. What we experience on a small scale in our family of origin becomes on a large scale our frame of reference for how we view the world. And how we all are in the world is the basis of our societies and their associated cultures. Thus, in my experience a direct connection from small to large, from inner to outer environment, from healthy, secure attachment in the parent-child relationship (or lack thereof) to peaceful, empathetic resilience in the world (or lack thereof).

When I was reminded last year that I had to renew my lactation consultant certification this summer (every five years, if we want to keep our ‘IBCLC’ credentials), I did not hesitate: of course I want to remain a lactation consultant! My trauma work as an anthropologist/sociologist within ACE Aware NL and my lactation consultant work for Breastfeeding Center Panta Rhei form such a relevant combination – I want to continue that. In fact… I want to expand it!

So there was no escape: I had to go through the recertification procedure. Since the obligation to take the re-examination has been abolished for re-certifiers (allowed, not required), you must demonstrate in a different way every five years that you have received sufficient training and are also otherwise competent to practice the profession. I consider that justified in itself: mothers and babies are entitled to high-quality care. The only follow-up question then is: how do you demonstrate that you deliver such care? You can provide credits, but have you integrated the knowledge? If, on top of your many years of lactation consultant experience, you have done and learned things other than what the requirements prescribe, does that mean that by definition you cannot provide good care?

With the abolition of the re-examination, the requirements have been adjusted somewhat and thus I had to make the corresponding ‘self-assessment’ for the first time this summer, so that it would become clear in which areas of knowledge I scored sufficiently and where I had fallen behind and should catch up. Nowadays you must also successfully complete a resuscitation course; you must still be able to demonstrate 75 training points (minimum 50 L (‘lactation’) and 5 E (‘ethics’) and a maximum of 20 R (‘related’)), and if necessary, you must be able to provide convincing timesheets. Colleagues said reassuringly that although you have to have everything in order, you will only be asked for ‘evidence’ if chosen for a random survey. I did all the calculations, submitted my recertification application on July 13th and paid off a few hundred euros. A few hours waiting and then the website would report that I can continue for another five years.

The latter was delayed… not a few hours, but days and days. In the meantime I had been away for a week for a retreat in a place associated with my childhood. I needed it and it did me good. However, I kept checking my e-mail and half way through my week I had a message: “Thank you for submitting your application. You have been selected for an audit; we look forward to receiving your documents! Remember: late submission means the end of your certification.”

Ai, ai, ai… the lack of a quick confirmation had already made me suspect this… and also made me fear this to some extent. Now I had to collect a lot of attachments and prove that I really am still worthy of that credential.
Self-assessment: check. CPR course: check. Training points: check, big check – more training than I thought! But that one part, that time registration… I dreaded that. My rough estimate beforehand now needed more detail. A very busy master year for my studies, a year of board work with limited time for consultations, for all kinds of reasons re-energising after that board year, focus shifted to more biopsychosocial aspects of early childhood… would I get the required number of lactation hours?

In my mind, I went back to all my activities in the preceding five years. I realised that, in addition to the consultations, I had worked hard on the thorough revision of the professional profile. I had also made a solidly substantiated version of it, translated into English, for the European lactation consultant organisation. In addition, I had written an evidence-based essay in response to a draft guideline on the parent-child relationship and the role of breastfeeding and secure attachment therein. I had made the Dutch translation of James McKenna’s second, thick book and had gotten it published by a major Dutch publisher. I had followed all kinds of trainings and courses for ACE Aware NL and read endless books and articles that gave me more and more insight into why it is often so difficult for mothers during the early postpartum period, why their births do not always go smoothly, and how they then struggle with breastfeeding problems. However, none of these things had earned me CERPs, the educational points accredited by the international lactation consultants certifying body. Now that I had to demonstrate both my hours and my CERPs, I became aware that the frame of reference is actually rather narrow. That R category… I was only allowed to record 20 points in that category, while much of what makes me a much better lactation consultant now than before falls exactly in that category or in none at all.

Working out my hours and my CERPs, placing them in exactly the right row… it made me a bit rebellious, but mostly sad. Once again I realised how far we are from a trauma-sensitive approach, from a holistic rather than a fragmented, reductionist approach to health problems. A mother and a baby who together cannot get the breastfeeding relationship going smoothly… there is almost always much more going on than ‘just’ a lactation-related, ‘technical’ bottleneck. Of course, latch should be observed and corrected if need be; of course, anatomical or neurological problems in the baby must be ruled out. And naturally you have to look at how pre-existing medical problems have a place within the breastfeeding relationship, but… from a trauma-sensitive approach you know that even all these things may (and very often probably do) have much deeper roots.

There is still a lot of hesitancy to include these trauma aspects. And there is often a lot of fear to talk about them with clients: can they handle it, do they want to talk about it, is it not rude to discuss them? In such cases, it is good to remember that when such questions come up, they are often a mirror for your own pain, for your own triggers and your own survival strategies. When you develop the competencies that are necessary to enter into that vulnerable, intensely personal conversation with the client in a safe, constructive, compassionate way, a wonderfully beautiful depth arises in the consultations. Then a moving connection arises, because the client feels the safety to restore the connection with their deepest Self. What an honour to be allowed to be present and to contribute to it… talking about high-quality care!

Elsewhere in Europe it took them a few days to study all my attachments, but it all worked out: last Monday I received the message that I am recertified until December 2028 – hurray!
Free rein, therefore, to further the development of trauma-sensitive lactation consultations!

Last week, we read the first half of the blog by Janis Isaman, Marianne’s Compassionate Inquiry colleague, and how she experienced her year of training with this psychotherapeutic approach of Gabor Maté. In the first half, she made a distinction between the story we tell ourselves (the facts) and the emotions that come with an experience (the feelings). In this second half, she dives more deeply into the bodily experiences, on what happens inside us.
Janis’ blog originally appeared on the website Elephant Journal, where Nicole Cameron is the managing editor.

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When we focus on the story, we don’t need to explore what happened inside of us. Stories and facts are external. Feelings and sensations are internal.
When we connect to the somatic, then attach it to an emotion and identify all of it out loud, we take responsibility for the events inside of us, rather than the (often disputable) facts of what occurred.
We are pulled away from life as a court ruling and toward our experiences as connecting, vulnerable, and healing.
One of the most present and authentic things we can do for ourselves is to notice and name the physical sensations happening in our body. I can think back in my life to moments of laughter, love, rage, and ruin, and recall precisely the sensations that a photograph could never capture.
The details of our body matter, and we can titrate and dose the amount we can tolerate. Perhaps it is: “I notice my body” or “I notice a hot sensation.” There is a possibility that we can add detail, tone, and specificity.

The last time I was triggered, it was by a tone of voice. My stomach clenched, like a fist had been inserted inside my abdomen and squeezed. Atop it, my chest cavity tenderized, like a scratching so deep within threatened to make it raw with heat. My throat inexplicably narrowed, almost as if a sickness was coming on, my vocal cords narrowed, a lump building and threatening to overtake it.

I spoke, my voice stern: “Please watch your tone. It’s scaring me.”
And I could notice that I had fear.
The fear was old, rather than the young voice sitting beside me and speaking the words that sent my body sideways.
Just like I had been with my friend, my body was two.
During my year of studies, I could slowly, as I practiced the skills over and over and over, identify that I was triggered.

We can start to piece together the combinations of body sensations and emotions that led to our youngest belief system:
I am not good enough. I am not lovable. I am a failure. I am a bad person.

When we have sensations and feelings that lead to these perceptions of shame and unworthiness, our coping strategy is to go back to facts.
Mine was: Tell the story. Prove I’m right. Discredit the other person.
But in the year of my course, although we had the usual lectures and reading list, the work was not intellectual. The monthly meetings and weekly practices with my colleagues required me to, time and time and time again, pull back into my body. I did hundreds of practice sessions.
Sometimes, I couldn’t go into my body. It was intolerable and I dissociated. Sometimes, I could add nuance and stay with the feeling until it dissipated like a firecracker or a hot air balloon floating away from me that I still wanted to hold.
And then I graduated.
In the pause without information intake or formalized practice sessions, I could practice on my own.

Now, my body has become the only part of the story that matters. What is happening inside me is indisputable, no matter what someone else has done. I tell shorter stories and spend more time on what my body is sharing.
I can notice and name sensations in an instant.
I can identify when I’m triggered and I can take responsibility for it.

These seemingly simple questions took a year of practice, and another year of integration. And they are the most profound learnings of my life.
The same conversation I had previously with a friend wouldn’t end up the same way these days. Now, I would share that I have a pit in my stomach, and that the anxiety I’m feeling is reminding me of being a small child on a tricycle.

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A small child on a tricycle… we can almost see Janis. Most us of will be able to picture a two or a three-year old cycling, full of wonder; we may have children that age or grandchildren, nieces, nephews, neighbour kids, kindergartners in our class. It should not be too hard to understand that for such little ones the world is a completely different place than for an adult. As an adult, we have so many more options to take our lives into our own hands. We can move if the house is dreadful; we can change our daily environment if the atmosphere is nasty; we can sever ties if we feel unjustly treated. These are all options not available to young children.

And speaking of justice… Janis mentions ‘life as a court ruling’. That is a beautifully applicable image, as it also implies the presence of judges. Judges listen to the facts, to the stories, and based upon those facts they pass judgment. In personal experiences and interpersonal relations, judgments are usually the things that do not solve but rather create and exacerbate the turmoil.

Judging others, judging ourselves… not so much good comes from it, most of the time, yet for most of us it is very hard to go through life without passing judgment towards others or self. That is to a great extent because it is impossible to get all the ‘facts’ straight. Can we really know the other person’s emotional life well enough to understand their response or behaviour? Is it actually, factually true what we make ourselves believe about ourselves?

As Gabor Maté often quotes the Buddha: “With our minds we create the world.” What we consider to be a response to the facts, is often primarily our perception or our interpretation of those ‘facts’. And why is that? That is, as Gabor follows up on the quote, because before with our minds we create the world, the world creates our minds. Our daily life, the social environment we grow up in, is the biggest factor in molding our brain and our stress regulation. Already before birth it is our mother’s stress level that literally infuses our womb world, through the umbilical cord. If she has a tough life while she carries us, we will be physiologically prepared for a harsh world. If the first years or our lives are filled with toxic stress and ACEs, we will develop features and behaviours that try to help us survive in a hostile environment. All of that makes perfect sense; as Gabor says: ‘It is a normal response to an abnormal circumstance.’

As Janis’ blog amazingly illustrates: we do well making an effort to provide our little ones with a living environment where their emotions are welcome, seen and heard, embraced and accepted. The more acceptance the child feels for genuine emotions, the easier it will be to self-regulate, as safe expression of emotions means they do not have to be suppressed. Suppression of emotions is exhausting; it will wear us out and often make us ill in some way. And even if we have not yet reached that illness stage that Gabor describes as ‘suffering into truth’… it is a big assignment to re-establish the connection with all those emotions once we have built habits and personalities around their suppression.

Recognising what Janis speaks about is easy; I, too, have a biweekly session with my group of eighteen students, a weekly session with my triad, several Zoom-calls and facilitated workshops every month, heaps and heaps of videos to watch and digest, and most of all… an almost insane amount of introspection 25/7 to disentangle all the different threads of emotions, triggers, perceptions, beliefs, personality parts, concepts, disappointments, characteristics, and bodily experiences. But like Janis, I also immensely enjoy being in a community where I can go through “the most profound learnings of my life”.