Peace Guidebook Part 1: Activating the Calm State
If you missed the Introduction which I shared yesterday then go read that first. Also I realized that I put the guidebook introduction below the book cover which takes up the whole screen and if someone doesn’t scroll down far enough they might have not seen the actual introduction.
Part 1: Activating the Calm State
Important knowledge can come from unexpected places. This first valuable piece of understanding came to me through my work as a video producer.
I’ve done a bunch of video work with a local non-profit organization that helps people who are living on the streets to improve their wellbeing. The organization accomplishes this by providing housing and support. When I did my first job with them back in December 2020, they gave me their annual report for research to understand the organization, and in the report there was a page sharing what they call the human states, or as I call them, the three mental states.
For the purpose of helping people get off the streets and into homes, they use these three states to understand the psychology of traumatized individuals and get them into the better mental state so that they are able to do the right things to live well. When I first read this, I thought, this is important not just for people living on the streets. This is important for everybody!
Here are the three mental states:
The organization realized that many people living on the street are stuck in a constant state of danger or threat, and in those states your rational thinking is severely reduced! In such conditions we become prone to making bad decisions.
The most vital thing for a human being to live well is our ability to feel safe. With this knowledge, the organization focuses on creating safe environments, by providing housing, where the minds of stressed out and traumatized people can return to a calm state. Once in a calm state, people can regain rational thinking and start making good decisions to live well again. That's the goal.
Relating this knowledge to ourselves though, I think most of us have probably had a situation where you might be able to relate to this in your own life, either individually or collectively. We’ve all probably had times when our rational thinking was turned off due to being in a threat state and this has caused conflict. Perhaps you can think of experiences or situations with people that we all possibly go through where understanding these mental states could help?
I know I can.
As I was told by people from the organization, the human states is the updated psychological understanding based on the work of Dr. Stephen Porges. These three mental states are the fundamentals of Porges’ theory on the human nervous system which he calls the Polyvagal Theory. He first introduced the theory in 1994.
I researched further into Porges’ work and I read his book Our Polyvagal World which was recently published in 2023. After reading this book, I’ve gained a much deeper understanding of how integral the need to feel safe is and the wide ranging impact that this has on our nervous system, our individual wellbeing and the functioning of society. I think this need for feeling safe is really important to understand especially in a world that is feeling less and less safe.
If you want to learn more I highly recommend you read the book.
I think it's important to note that the human states model has similarities to another model from earlier psychology. In 1942, we can see how our psychological needs were already starting to be understood with the psychologist Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.
The Hierarchy of Needs is a model for human development that is typically shown as a pyramid. We start at the bottom of the pyramid with physiological needs. These needs are a base for acquiring everything else up the pyramid. If you want to have the things on top, you then have to start with the primary needs as a foundation.
Once you have physiological needs met, then you can get your safety needs met. Once you have that, you can get love and belonging. Once you have that, then you can get esteem.
Finally, if you have esteem, you can go to the top which is self actualization, which is the desire to become the most that you can be. Ultimately I think this is what we all want to achieve.
While Porges’ three mental states go much deeper into explaining how our mind works, I do believe Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is a good complimentary model to help understand the necessities that affect our wellbeing. Similarly to how in the three mental states you can't achieve optimal living when you’re stuck in a threat state, with the hierarchy of needs you first require to have your physiological and safety needs met in order to get to self actualization.
These needs are important. When we understand that we need these to activate the calm state in order to achieve the higher levels of functioning, we are ready to go on the path to personal peace, and also activate peace with other people.
With this knowledge, here are some questions to ask yourself when you are getting into conflict.
If you feel yourself getting into an aggressive state, try to ask yourself, do you need to get yourself to a safe place? Because if you're not feeling safe then you might not be making the best decisions.
If you are having a conflict such as an argument with someone, another question to ask is: is this person you're having a conflict with in a calm state? If they are not in a calm state, then their rational thinking is turned off and you're not going to get anywhere with them like you hope you would.
The final question is, how can you retain rational thinking even in a threatening situation? I do believe that is possible and I will address that in part two.
