I had the privilege of attending the Biology of Belonging conference held at the Crown Plaza in Glasgow this month where I was in the company of some of the leading experts in the field of developmental psychology and psychiatry and trauma-based therapy, including, Richard Schwartz, Dan Segal and Gordon Neufeld. My intention in this blog is to share some of the insights on how we can overcome the effects of ACE’s shared by Gordon Neufeld and my own experiences working with young people in education and through my work as a compassionate inquiry practitioner and mentor.

You may know Gordon through his book co-written with Gabor Mate, “Keep hold of your kids: Why parents matter more than peers”. He argues that children are increasingly prioritising their peers over their parents, which can hinder healthy development and undermine family cohesion.

As I look back to my own childhood, I certainly fell into this bracket, where my peer group gradually became more of a family than my biological one. It was my friends who became a place of safety for me, where I felt I could be myself without facing the fear or judgement I experienced at home. When I look at my own ACE score, it comes out between four of five out of the ten. For anyone with an ACE score of 4 and above you face a high risk of toxic stress. This can lead to mental and physical illness, addiction and up to a 20-year shortening of lifespan, and explains why I was so drawn towards body and mind practices as a means of self regulation from an early age.

Belonging, according to Neufeld, is a biological need – “I am because we are”, he shared in his opening remarks. He added that it is more important that we should reflect on how we should be rather than thinking about what we should do, especially in how we relate to the young people in our lives. I’ve recently had the pleasure of supporting a group of young people who have additional support needs at a high school just outside of Edinburgh, Scotland. They are aged between 12-17 years old, some of whom have ADHD, autism, suffer from anxiety or have other conditions that prevent them from accessing the full curriculum. Belonging, for  these children, is clearly a biological as well as a physical, social and emotional need. I have witnessed many young people who experience a deeper sense of belonging at school than they do at home, although for others, the reverse is true. Some of my clients have shared how life at school was a highly traumatising experience for them, and that they continue to carry the emotional scars into their adulthood. The wider effects can be seen in the documentary, “Boarding on Insanity”, which explores the trauma that resides in children who attend boarding school, and how many of our leaders have been affected and subsequently make decisions which has had huge negative impacts on our society.

Coming back to the work I have been doing in a mainstream school, the first day I was in supporting this small group of young people one of my colleagues who leads ‘The Learning Centre’ or ‘TLC’ refreshingly shared with me that any activities we offered the group was optional. Children are invited to take part rather than being forced to or disciplined if they refuse. Hearing this was music to my ears, and clearly to the students, who feel visibly empowered to make choices for themselves on what their needs are on any given day. These children’s mental and physical well-being is prioritised through fostering autonomy and healthy nurturing relationships. I have had the joy of spending time drawing, playing games and music, doing exercise, including boxing and body weight exercises, helping with maths, reading, writing and giving space to chat and for the young people to openly share their feelings.

Dr Neufeld explains how feelings serve as feedback for the operations of the animating brain, especially the emotions and instincts serving attachment. They enable intimacy, rest recovery and resilience and drive maturation, optimizing human and humane development. Feelings are pivotal to wellbeing and yet are often abandoned and sacrificed by the brain when togetherness is threatened. They are also routinely and carelessly medicated to reduce suffering and increase performance. How many times have you heard people being told to ‘man up!’ or “just get on with it”. There is a common misconception that in order to be strong and endure difficult circumstances that we should not feel. We are told that we should be hardy in the sense of not needing to be sheltered from stress or to remain cool or unaffected when under duress. These are often seen as positive attributes but hide the absence of feelings, whilst promoting/reinforcing disconnection from self and others. This deep systemic dysfunction increasingly puts at risk one’s own health and wellbeing and that of our society.  Some of the symptoms include:

• Becoming increasingly able to perform or function under stress.
• Not talking about what distresses or hurts them.
• No longer feeling unsafe or alarmed.
• Disassociated from feelings of sadness or disappointment.
• Not visibly affected by loss or lack.
• No longer feels as needy, empty, lonely or dependent.
• No longer engages in spontaneous re-play after a charged emotional event.

Dr Neufeld contends that unrecovered feelings is the most common denominator and root problem of almost all troubled experience and expression in humans. Safety is fostered through developing trusting dependence in the context of attachment, where we have healthy attachment to caregivers throughout our childhood, in our education systems and within therapeutic settings.

There is also a need for our brains to be in the play drive. Think about your own life, where do you give yourself the space to play, whether it be through movement, dance, music or games? Rather than focusing on outcomes in our schools or at home, Dr Neufeld contends that we should prioritise play, where feelings are at the heart of the matter.

Our objective, according to Neufeld, should be to embed ourselves and our children in environments of cascading care as opposed to pushing for independence or promoting self-care, which can often lead to marginalisation and isolation. I believe we should be questioning, which self is it that we are caring for. And if we are in a professional or personal capacity where we have a duty of care for others, that we have a responsibility to identify whose interests and whose needs are truly being met.

Cascading care, according to Neufeld, should promote our dependent instincts where we have:

• An invitation to exist
• Contact and connection
• Safety and comfort
• Warmth and love
• Recognition and understanding
• A relational home
• A sense of togetherness

How do we create more of these dependent instincts throughout our culture, whether it be at home, school, our place of work or local community? By taking a strong caring lead where we invite dependence by taking the initiative; Make it safe for others to depend on and never use relational needs against another; Be generous with one’s care, providing more than is pursued; And not to be fooled by the myriad illusions of independence, which our culture continues to advocate.

It’s important that we take the time to reflect on how we are fostering a sense of belonging in our lives and noticing what might be getting in the way. Which adverse childhood experiences do we have that influence our core beliefs and how can we change them in a healthy and sustained way? How can we bring more play into our lives and to those around us within a field of cascading care that promotes our dependent instincts? And how can we create more time in our days to feel more, where doing is dissolved into a deeper state of being, presence and belonging?