My favourite thing is peace and quiet, but why?

The question I ask myself most often is ‘why’?

Perhaps inevitably as I type that sentence, I am left asking myself why again. What is it about me that prompts me to seek answers, understanding and resolution to situations I encounter?

I suppose I was always a curious child - I was that annoying kid that always asked “why?, when presented with a new fact or piece of information. And when given the answer, as I was often, “that’s why”, I was left even more unsatisfied. I was always reading, thinking, exploring stuff to try to understand the meaning behind something - the reason it happened. The stuff under the surface.

I have taken that natural curiosity into the rest of my life and since my breakdown - when all I wanted to know when I went to therapy was why did this happen to me - I have focussed that curiosity more and more on the reasons behind my feelings and sought to understand the reasons I react the way I do to certain people, situations and scenarios.

I journal every day and I have noticed recently that whenever I capture my feelings about the previous day I will often write next to the feeling the word ‘why’ in capital letters - and then try to reflect and answer.

My training and practice as a psychotherapist has promoted even deeper self-reflection on my feelings and the experiences I’ve had that can be brought up again - triggered - by something someone else may be sharing. This process of reflection during my training was moving for me and left me re-examining issues from my life at a much deeper level - issues I thought were resolved but had in fact only been superficially addressed.

I love nothing more now than taking time to reflect - on my own or with a client - on what has prompted a reaction, or brought up a feeling after experiencing something and doing the detective work of working out what has happened - or as I sometimes say to clients, to work out ‘what’s that all about’.

It is both hugely satisfying to solve the mystery and empowering to realise that it was not silly, or stupid, or an overreaction but something that is connected with a deeper sense of oneself, of our previous experiences and our values and core beliefs. Something that makes perfect sense. Something that is to be honoured, respected and heard. Never dismissed.

I have deployed this approach recently when thinking about something which I know is of huge importance to me: the need for, and enjoyment of, peace and quiet. I know that I am an introvert and so quiet time is essential to me recharging my batteries and being able to go again when I need to, but there is something deeper going on for me. I knew this but didn’t know why. I didn’t know why quiet, especially at home, was critical to my wellbeing and to me managing my mental health.

Home has always been an important place for me - somewhere I turn to as a haven or sanctuary from stress, anxiety and attack. Bullied for years in school - and then again at times in work, and living a life in constant fear of abandonment and loss, home has always felt like somewhere I was safe. This place therefore needed to be calm, secure, certain. No surprises. No loud noises. No shouting. No pushing. No name-calling. No fear. No let-downs.

So when home sometimes wasn’t that place (at many different stages of my life) - too loud, too many arguments, too much tension, too many people, too much music, too much drink, too much everything - it was beyond disturbing. I need that quiet, safe place where nothing bad is going to happen. It is as important to me as food, water and fresh air.

I know of course that I cannot control that environment completely, but I try. I try because it helps me get through the days. It helps me to recharge. To go again. To feel held and safe.

My incredible wife, Aileen, knows this about me. She gives me that space and - despite not needing the same things - respects my need for quiet, even if it is at times annoying. As annoying as being asked “why” every five minutes by a relentlessly curious child.

This need for quiet includes the TV being at a low-ish volume; no noise from neighbours or the cars on the road outside; doors not being banged; voices not being raised; nothing unexpected happening like a dropped folk or remote control; nothing that might indicate danger. The danger of conflict; of attack; of loss. It is not hard for me to trace the roots of these fears in my previous experiences, but that is only because I have given myself the time to reflect: to ask why, and then to listen to the answer.

As I type this I know that tonight (New Year’s Eve) I will face what I always hate: fireworks. My worse nightmare. Loudness. No defined beginning and end. No certainty about their volume or duration. No need for them at all, IMHO. I would incidentally ban all fireworks if I was in charge of the world! But I know I can’t do that, or control what will happen at around midnight this evening. I will choose instead not to fight my feelings but to embrace them.

I understand them. I know why fireworks upset and trigger me, so I will be self-compassionate. I will be kind to myself (if not in my head to those settings off the said fireworks). I will accept there are good reasons for why I feel the way I do and I will see my reaction for what it is: a totally understandable desire for safety, certainly, protection and contentment. I know why. And that helps me, hugely.