"Love is at the Root of Everything, all parenting, all learning, all relationships, Love or a Lack of it."
-Mister Rogers
Systems of Kindness
Systems are codes that influence how we all operate. Traumatic Systems Lack loving-kindness, whereas Kindness Systems make this the very foundation upon which they Stand. To the best of my understanding, Quality basic needs for All Children Everywhere (ACE) into a mutually beneficial relationship with the Ecosystems that surround them is the Kindness Systems' central Objective. Kindness requires curiosity, patience, and a compassionate understanding of the context.
I will not negate the importance of individual kindnesses, but I want to point out that it is simply not enough because we are *all* supporting traumatic systems that are very harmful to us. This is not y/Our fault! Traumatic systems use fear, scarcity, and division to make us submissive to them. They make it difficult for everyone to practice kindness.
Moving away from Individualism and towards Community Immunity health requires us to understand that when the Health or Safety of One Child is at risk it diminishes the Health and Safety of ALL children. And, to recognize that loving kindness is a Skill. Just as children who are not taught to read (through no fault of their own) become adults who can not read, children who do not receive enough assistance to master the skill of kindness (through no fault of their own) become adults who have difficulty being kind.
Unhealed trauma that causes the autonomic nervous system to run in traumatic loops (Fight, Flight, Freeze, Fawn) often expresses itself as violence. When children subconsciously associate Freeze/Fawning with safety, they may have internalized violence towards the self (ie: depression, "I'm worthless," self-harm, murder of the self). When children subconsciously learn to associate Fight with safety they may have externalized violence (ie: uncontrollable rage, "you're worthless," harm to others, murder of the other). Whether violence manifests internally or externally, it needs to be treated like any other public health issue: systemically.
You can follow my work in Kindness Systems at Somatic Schools on FaceBook. I also have a Somatic Schools website being developed for the public school system. The graphics you will see on this page are not complete. In fact, all of my work, writings, graphics, art, websites, and so forth are incomplete. I have done away with the notion of completion because "[love] is an active noun like struggle." -Mister Rogers