Radical internal peace-making

I devoted a decade of my life to the STEM field, in both study and work, training my brain to think like a computer. I worshipped empirical data and cold reason as the highest forms of authority. It only reinforced the disdain I already carried for my own emotional, irrational feelings - feelings I worked hard to "logic" away. In the house I grew up in, emotions or needs that couldn’t pass the test of "objective" reason had no legitimacy.

We are a society, a species, that prides itself on intellect and rationalism, giving them the final say. In law, we have the "reasonable person" to steer us through what can’t be codified (who is this mythical person, I sometimes wonder?). Even the faithful try to meet atheists on the battlegrounds of logic — I remember my engineering professor giving lunchtime lectures on "proving" the existence of God.

There is comfort in cold, hard logic. A predictability, a universal language, a black-and-whiteness that crowds out the distress of facing the grey. And let's be honest — the grey is terrifying. That's partly what drew me to pursue engineering in the first place (despite finding it excruciatingly boring and meaningless). I was a young person adrift, in desperate for any sense of safety, even if it was an illusion.

You don't have to work in STEM to resonate with this. It’s the trajectory we’ve been on since the Enlightenment — a shift that elevated rationalism and individualism as antidotes to dogma and superstition. But somewhere along the way, that pursuit became all-encompassing… Rationalism seeped beyond its usefulness in communal life into the dominant way we try to relate to ourselves and our internal experiences.

When we apply cold, hard logic to ourselves, especially in the pursuit of internal safety, we end up gaslighting ourselves and undermine self-trust — sabotaging our very goal. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy's (CBT) unspoken motto might as well be: we don't negotiate with terrorists. I can't even begin to rant about how harmful that framing is to those of us with divergent, neglected nervous systems. Even Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT) puts the “reasonable mind” front and centre. Anyone who has tried cognitive-based therapies and was left feeling more alienated and deficient — you aren’t the only one.

These other wild untameable things — the emotional, relational, spiritual, somatic, intuitive — that we’ve cast as an existential threat to reason, doesn’t have to be the enemy. It doesn’t have to be a battle. And let's face it: it’s a battle that can’t be won. We are human, not machines (and thank goodness for that!). These other parts of us — these essential, desperately human parts — cannot be permanently tamed. The more we suppress it, the more fiercely it tends to fight back.

I’m still learning this. Over the years, this inner war left me fractured. My body doesn’t trust my mind (with good reason), always flirting with mutiny. My nervous system screams to be heard. My mind insists it's in the captain's chair, trying to analyse chaos into order. My soul is tired from all the infighting.

But I am taking a different approach now, a radical shift from my conditioning. It is one of integration and radical peace-making. Not forced, not backed into a corner, not about giving up needs or giving in to demands.

It balances empirical knowledge with faith in a different kind of knowing. It values the intensity of raw emotional responses alongside stoic critical analysis.

It’s only possible because I now have access to internal safety - maybe not much but just enough. And it’s growing as I continue on this road. I can feel the presence of an Adult self within me now, not just reasonable but deeply compassionate. An intrinsically benevolent inner leader who can begin the slow process of listening to all the disparate parts, systems and layers, and building trust with them. And eventually trust between them. Towards negotiation, collaboration, creative problem solving, and a united self.

It was a long road to get here, and the road ahead is just as long.

But here it is - laid out in all its splendour.

A path to wholeness.