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In psychology, we call it grounding. In Numbers 6, we see it referred to as peace.
Chris and Beth Bruno host conversations at the intersection of psychology and theology. This podcast is powered by ReStory Counseling.
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Want to know what it takes to Restore Your Life? We are Chris and Beth Bruno and we lead a team of brilliant story work counselors around the country all committed to helping you come alive. We call it the Restorey Approach. So if you're a story explorer, kingdom seeker, or just a day-to-dayer, you've come to the right place. Welcome to the Restorey Podcast.
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decades ago there were in the realm of psychology a couple of research projects that today probably wouldn't pass the governing boards of ethics and all that kind of stuff but they did produce some pretty interesting results and one of those experiments is commonly known as the still face experiment. this is where there's a mother
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and her infant child and the child is sitting in a, you know, high chair or something like that. And the mother is there sitting directly across from the kid and they're interacting and they're talking and they're playing with toys and, and the face of the mother is full of just like presence and she's totally locked in on the child and she's interacting and the child is showing mom things and the child is preverbal. There's no, there's no,
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words that are being exchanged from the child towards the mom. Though the mom has, you know, oh, that's so sweet and that's so cool and that kind of thing. Well, the experiment is to start in that place where there's that deep, fun, delightful interaction between the two. And then mom turns her face away and then turns her face back. And when she turns back to the child, her face is completely blank. And she has
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no expression. She has no response. She's not saying anything. It's just completely blank. She's just looking at the child. And you see in the video of this, you can see it on YouTube. If you see on the video, the child at first is like, Hey mom, like here we are. We're still in this place and, and all that. And then slowly the child starts to, you see a shift happen on their face, the child's face.
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And that is that they start to squirm and scream and start to bang the toys in order to get attention and start to just squeal a little bit like, ah, this is uncomfortable because I once had my mom's face and now I don't, and I don't know what to do to get her back. And this internal sense of chaos is evident as the child unfolds in the high chair. Then the experiment, after a few minutes of that, right? We don't want to torture the child.
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So the experiment then has the mother turn her face back, away and then back towards the child. And when she comes back, then she's like back. She's back and she's engaging and the child sees that and you can see the panic inside of the child begin to dissipate. And the crying that was happening, the frustration that was on the kid's face goes away and now they're back to where they were in the beginning.
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And so again, like I said, right, this, I don't know if this experiment would pass the ethics board right now of causing harm to that poor child, but it did produce some interesting results that there is something about the interaction of the faces of a mother and a child, or some adult and another person that is so, so important for us to listen to. And in this series where we're talking about this blessing in Numbers chapter six,
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I mentioned back in episode 70 a lot about the face of God and it's so evident in Numbers chapter six in the blessing that the face of God is kind of the centerpiece of the blessing. So let me read it real quick. And it says in Numbers chapter six verse 22, it says, the Lord said to Moses, tell Aaron and his sons, this is how you are to bless the Israelites, say to them, the Lord bless you and keep you.
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the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord turn his face towards you and give you peace. So they will put my name on the Israelites and I will bless them. This is what it says here in number six. And I just love this passage because it gives, it gives us like ancient wisdom that we've come to discover through psychology, through experiments like this, you know, thousands of years later, it's evident here in the scriptures. And I just absolutely love it.
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Well, in episode 70, we talked a little bit about, I mean, we talked about the face of God and how in psychological terms, that's attunement, right? I mean, that's what the mother is offering that child. And we talked last week in episode 71 about the Lord bless you and keep you as such a beautiful template of containment. And this week, we're gonna dive into what does it mean when
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It says the Lord will give you peace. And what is the parallel to that in the world of psychology? Yeah. Well, so I think, thank you for bringing those terms in. You know, there's the attunement, which is tuning in to one another where I can feel you and you can feel me. And there's a mutual exchange of, of feeling and expression and emotion. Last week you talked about mirroring, right? That there's something that's, that's
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being mirrored back and forth, that's the attunement. Then there's the containment, which is what we talked about in the last episode, 71, being kept, right? And so attunement and containment are part of the human relationship, the interchange, the exchange that happens between people. And here, obviously, what's being offered from God to us. So today, as you mentioned, like, what does it mean for this peace? And I wanna say that peace is the result.
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of attunement and containment. That when we have attunement and when we have containment, there is internal peace that results inside of us because now we're both being felt by someone else and kept by someone else. And now internally something we can rest, something can calm, something can be like, Oh, So I hear there, there's a sense of
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were grounded. Were grounded. A sense of I am at rest in myself. Yeah. And so the word here in this blessing for peace is that word shalom. It is not the absence of war. It is the presence of rest.
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Right, because shalom means having right relationships with God and self and others. And it is all about that sense of all is right in my connections with people. I mean, I'm sure you've seen Beth and many of our listeners have seen those movies where, you know, there's like the world is ending or whatever, the, you know, the aliens are invading or the volcano is exploding, whatever it is.
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child and in the midst of the whirlwind of craziness around, they have found themselves kind of kneeling down huddled together in the corner of a room. And there's, you know, the loud, you know, the music is playing that all the things are happening around them. And it's, you know, that there is imminent danger and yet there is peace. There is Shalom. There's a right relationship that happening right there. And so when there is attunement and when there is containment, there is Shalom.
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There is that rightness that happens. And like I said, that doesn't mean that there is an absence of war. That doesn't mean that all things are resolved. That doesn't mean that everything is tied together with a pretty bow. It doesn't, but it means that I have been found and I am being felt and I'm being held. And I love that this is here again in Numbers chapter six, that the result of the face of God attuning to us and containing us is that there will be peace available for us. So,
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a little while ago, you and I partnered with some friends of ours to do a marriage conference. deliver some content and then hope that people will go home and implement it. Because we all know you go to the thing, you take some notes, you go home, you put the notebook on yourself and you forget. Well, we really wanted in the midst of this marriage conference and in the marriage work that we do in thrive and all of that, there's this, there's this sense of like, I want to help.
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people find each other, attune and contain and find peace. Cause that ultimately is what is gonna bring closeness and intimacy and a friendship or relationship or marriage. It's what's going to help people walk through the world that I can face whatever there is out there in the world because I know that there is a safe, attuned, contained place where I can go, which is maybe not a physical place, but a-
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person place, a person that I can go to, where I can be held and contained and attuned to, and there will be peace available for me there. And so much of the work that we do in marriage counseling is helping the couple find each other.
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in order to come to the place of like we are aligned, we are together, and whatever the whatever the world is going to bring at us or against us, we're going to be able to do this together because that piece is here. that piece is here. and and i say that and i know that i can just let that roll off my tongue and i know that that is a hard one thing.
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It's so hard to find because we live in a dissonant world. We live in a broken world. We live in a world where there's broken relationships and there's unsafe relationships and all, there's just all kinds of things. So I know that it's hard won and I love that this blessing is here in Numbers because it actually gives us hope that this kind of peace is available to us and for us.
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from God himself and it's available to me through you, Beth, and it's available to our kids through us and it's available to you through your friends and me through my friends. It's available and we're gonna have to work for it. We're gonna have to find it. And the Lord just seems to love to offer that to us through this blessing. Well, I love how last week you said, the reason we long for it and desire it is because
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something in us was created for us for it. And to see this, to think about the, the parallels to psychology that we've been talking about to wonder, is this how we were made? This is what we were designed to have. That's why we, we crave and want it. There's something that feels so sacred about all of that. Yes. And so next week we're going to continue the conversation.
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about what does it look like for us to actually have, not just the face of God turned towards us, but someone's face turned towards us in delight and in the delight of the shining face of God. Thanks for listening to the Restory Podcast today. If you're curious about who we are over at Restoration Counseling, you can find links to learn more in the show notes. And I'll just say, we have a lot of good stuff going on.
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We have a women's and men's Restory Trauma Intensive coming up in the next few months, and you can learn more about those and other upcoming things by clicking Upcoming in the menu on our website. And if you're in need of some immediate intervention on a particular topic, one of our many, many courses might be of interest to you. Head over to Restory Labs to learn more, and that'll be in the show notes too. Have a great weekend, and join us next time as we unpack more of the psychology and the Aaronic blessing.