The Quiet Science of Feeling: How Peace and Happiness Share One Nervous System

What if peace and happiness aren’t opposites, but two tempos of the same life force? We follow that question from the body’s first language—movement and breath—into the quiet work of integration, where your nervous system learns to trust its own rhythm again. Along the way, we introduce “ladolescence,” a stage beyond performance where joy becomes contribution, peace becomes belonging, and your days feel less like moods to manage and more like music to conduct.

We begin with the body’s memory: the quickening of curiosity, the soft landing of safety, and the early messages that taught many of us to dim our energy to stay loved. Then we offer a simple, daily practice—place a hand on your heart, breathe, and ask, “Is my energy rising or resting?” That small act of naming starts to reunite what got split, making peace the feeling of life force fully received and happiness the feeling of life force fully expressed.

From there, we map the nine core affects from Tomkins—interest, joy, surprise, distress, fear, anger, shame, disgust, and dissmell—and show how they shape connection under the words. You’ll learn why mutual interest accelerates bonding, how shared laughter builds trust, why clean anger protects dignity, how shame can melt into closeness when held with kindness, and how early warning signals like dissmell can prevent deeper ruptures. We show how our brains run simple scripts to seek more good feelings, reduce painful ones, and be recognized—and how wisdom is moving from being driven by feelings to being guided by them.

By the end, you’ll have a grounded framework for emotional health, attachment, and nervous system regulation that helps you relate more honestly to yourself and more safely with others. If you’re ready to stop performing and start integrating—inside your body and between you and the people you love—this conversation offers tools you can use today.

If this resonates, subscribe, share it with someone who needs it, and leave a review to help others find the show. Curious where you are in your growth journey? Take the free self-discovery snapshot at ScottConfright.com and join the newsletter for weekly insights and upcoming workshops.

Chapters

• 0:00 The Body Remembers Before Words
• 2:10 Peace and Happiness as One Energy
• 4:45 Ladolescence: From Performance to Integration
• 6:02 A Guided Practice: Name the Rhythm
• 8:11 The Nine Core Affects
• 14:05 Scripts, Safety, and Real Connection
• 18:09 Closing Reflections and Next Steps

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:02

Hi, I'm Dr. Scott Conkrite. What if your body is holding memories your mind can't access? We explore how early relationships shape your nervous system and how healing begins through relationship, not just insight. Tune in now. Your body has something to say. There's a current in you that's older than words. Before you ever learned to name your feelings, there was only movement, the body's raw, pulsing response to life itself. Sometimes it's a quickening, laughter, curiosity, a spark of light. Sometimes it's a slowing, the breath deepening, the body settling into itself. We call these movements happiness and peace, but they are simply two expressions of the same essential energy. Happiness is your energy in motion. Peace is your energy at rest. One expands, the other settles. Both are vital, but both are you. When I was little, I'd lie in the grass at dusk, my small body sinking into the earth, listening to crickets' rhythmic chant. That was peace. Then I'd leap up and chase lightning bugs, all breathless laughter and stumbling wonder. That was happiness. It was the same aliveness, just a different rhythm. As we mature, we're coached to compartmentalize. We chase one state at the expense of the other, forgetting they originate from the same source. The body, in its wisdom, never agreed to this division. Even now, beneath the weight of years and expectations, your body remembers that original seamless flow. It remembers how to hum when it feels safe again. That hum is the sound of you coming home. For many of us, that natural flow was interrupted. Maybe a burst of excitement was met with a sharp settle down. Maybe a moment of pride was met with a warning. Don't get a big head. Joy became entangled with risk. The body learns to contract. The current is damned, and a silent, desperate rule is written deep within. To be loved I must be less. This is the birth of the divided self. When your energy is sorted into acceptable and forbidden. The consequence is a subtle division within. Peace becomes a state of withdrawal, while happiness requires a certain presentation. We start relating to our own energy as something to be strategically deployed rather than simply lived. And yet that essential current is never erased. It waits in the background of your awareness, a testament to the fact that your aliveness was never the problem. It was the original undivided truth. This reclamation has a name, ladlescence. If adolescence is the frantic work of building the self, collecting pieces, trying on roles, then ladlescence is the quieter, deeper work of integration. It's when you stop seeing your feelings as isolated events to be managed and start feeling the underlying current they all share. It's the stage where you stop performing your life and start conducting it. In youth, happiness is often about discovery, the thrill of the new. In ladlescence, happiness becomes about contribution, the joy of sharing what you've learned. In youth, peace can feel like an escape from the world. In ladlescence, peace can feel like a deep belonging to the world and to yourself. This is when your system matures enough to trust its own rhythms. Peace becomes the steady hum of coherence. Happiness becomes the outward expression of love. They feed each other like the inhale and exhale of one continuous breath. You see in the small moments the curiosity that quietly returns after a loss, the laugh that rises up even on a difficult day, the stillness that arrives not as exhaustion, but as profound gratitude. This is latolescence. It is not the end of becoming, but the beginning of a more authentic becoming. Your life is no longer a series of moods to manage, but a symphony to participate in. Let's feel this right now. Place a hand on your heart or simply feel the breath in your chest. As you breathe in, don't try to change anything. Just notice is the energy in you wanting to rise or to rest? If you feel a warmth, a flutter, a quickening, that's the impulse of happiness. Don't chase it, just acknowledge it. Ah, there you are. If you feel a heaviness, a stillness, a deep calm, that's the presence of peace. Don't question it. Just allow it. Yes, this is welcome. Your only task is to notice and to allow. This is how you honor the rhythm, not through control, but through permission. Remember the simple practice, name the rhythm. Once today, just pause and ask, is my energy rising or is it resting? Naming is the first step in conducting it. So perhaps peace and happiness were never separate destinations. They are the same current, moving through the landscape of your life. Peace is what your life force feels like when it is fully received. Happiness is what it feels like when it is fully expressed. They are not opposites or even companions. They are one thing, one intelligence. It's the teacher who shows you how to live, how to rest, and how to begin again and again. Until next time, breathe. Notice what's moving. And remember, your life is not a problem to be solved. It is a feeling to be followed. In the previous section, we talked about the good energy inside you, but that energy doesn't stay inside. It connects with other people. There's a silent conversation happening all the time under the words. These are our core feelings. A scientist, psychologist named Tompkins called these nine feelings affects. We are all born with them. They help us survive, connect, and learn. Your body is always speaking this language of feeling. Your relationships depend on it. A core feeling is your body's first reaction to anything, to something, a surprise, a shift in your feeling state from one weather system to another, so to speak, from being content one minute to feeling disgust by something gross you just saw. Then relief when you realize it was just a Halloween trick. These reactions create a feeling in your body and a look on your face, unless you're consciously or practiced at hiding it. When you notice that feeling, you register it as a feeling. Keep in mind, often we're not aware of what we're feeling. We need to have some sort of awareness. One of the things I'm very interested in doing is teaching you, the listener, and others, how to recognize these nine feeling states. Once you name them, you're aware of them. When that feeling mixes with memories, you then have an emotion. But at the start, it's simple. It's a signal. When two people are together, their feelings talk to each other. They create a shared space. In that space, every feeling has a job. Some feelings open us up, others protect us. Some test if the connection is strong. Let's look at each of these nine core feelings. See how they feel in you and what they do between you and someone else. Interest excitement, the feeling of I want to know. This is the feeling of curiosity. Your eyes get focused, you lean in. With someone else, interest says, You seem cool, you're amazing, I want to know who you are, I want to know more about you. When both people are interested, talking is easy and fun. But if one person stops paying attention, the connection fades. Interest is the start of any friendship. The second positive feeling is enjoyment joy, the feeling of this is good. This is a smile, a warm, happy feeling that spreads. Shared laughter makes two people feel like they are in sync. It builds trust fast. But joy is delicate. If one person is afraid to laugh, the joy disappears. Real joy says I feel safe to be happy with you. Surprise startle, the reset feeling. This is a jump, a wide-eyed blink. It makes you stop and pay attention. In a relationship, fun surprise can make things exciting again. But if someone is already stressed, a surprise can feel scary instead of fun. Surprise needs to be handled with care. Distress is the cry for help. This is the feeling behind a cry. Your face gets sad, you feel hurt. It's a signal that says, I'm struggling, I can't handle this alone. When someone listens and helps, distress brings people closer. When someone ignores it, the hurt grows into loneliness. Asking for help is how we learn to trust. Fear and terror are the danger feelings. This is the feeling of being scared. Your body gets cold and tense, you want to run or hide. When two people are scared, they can't connect. They are just watching for danger. But if one person can stay calm, their calmness can be contagious. A safe person can help a scared person feel safe again. A safe person can help a scared or distressed person feel safe again. Anger rage is the no feeling. This is a hot, strong feeling. Your face gets red. It is the feeling of this is too much. This is not okay, it's got to stop. Good anger sets a boundary. It stands up for what's fair. Bad anger attacks and hurts people. Between people, anger can be a way to tell the truth, but it must be done without cruelty. Shame slash humiliation is one of the most complicated affects feeling states there are. It's the hide feeling, it's the self-conscious feeling. This feeling makes you want to disappear. Your eyes look down, your head drops. It asks a quiet question. If you see the real me, will you still like me? If the other person stays kind and doesn't look away, the shame melts away, the connection gets stronger. If they turn away, the shame grows. Staying with someone who feels shame is how deep trust is built. Disgust, the getaway feeling. This is the yuck feeling. Your face crunches up, it makes you want to push something away. In relationships, it can protect you from bad behavior or lies. But when it's turned against a person, it becomes contempt, which kills connection. Disgust should protect your values, not attack another person. Dismel, dismel is a word that Tompkins invented. It's the something's wrong feeling. Whereas disgust is usually associated with the mouth, like trying to get something out of your mouth. Dismell is that crinkly nose like you just smelled something poopy diaper gross stuff. It's the gut feeling that something is off. Or not even the gut feeling, you just smelled something horrible. You pull your head back, your nose wrinkles, it's your intuition, a warning before you know why, in relationships, that is. In relationships too, listening to this small feeling can prevent big problems. Saying to yourself or to the other person that something feels off between us can protect your connection. So what does this mean for us? Our brains are wired for three simple goals. Feel more good feelings, like interest and enjoyment, feel fewer bad feelings, like distress, fear, and shame. And the third is letting our feelings show, letting them all be recognized. This doesn't mean you have to act out or display or talk about any of the feelings that you have. What you do need to do as best as you can is to recognize what you're feeling and use that as data. This is our basic human programming, or scripts, as Tompkins calls them. We all use them to get more good feelings and less bad ones. Your personality is made from these habits, from these scripts. As we grow wiser, we learn to understand these habits. We stop being controlled by every feeling and start to understand what they're trying to tell us. In close relationships, this is the most important work. The goal isn't to be happy all the time, which is impossible, the goal is to be real. A strong relationship is a safe place where all feelings are allowed. You can be curious about each other, you can share joy, you can ask for help when you're sad, when you're distressed, you can feel scared, and allow yourself to be calmed. You can say no without losing love. You can feel ashamed and still be accepted. When you help each other with the bad feelings, you build trust. The space between you is alive with feeling. When you learn this language, your relationship can finally breathe. Until next time, breathe. Notice what you're feeling, and remember, your life is not a problem to solve. It's a feeling to follow. So be sure to subscribe and follow along. And if you're curious where you are on your own growth journey, take the free self-discovery snapchat at ScottConfright.com. You can also join our newsletter for weekly insights and learn about upcoming therapy meetups and workshops.