It’s helpful to think of peace as though it were a collectible commodity, something that can be gathered up and bottled: stored up for when it’s next needed. It can be preserved like juicy summer berries which have been turned into jam and enjoyed when the fields are baron in the winter.

This is because feelings of peace are a rarer human emotion. Too many other emotions can overshadow the need for this basic soul- nutrient. So, it often feels like a luxurious state of mind.

In our challenging lives, so many other factors take priority, such as the need to earn a living, juggling problems, or family commitments, that to attain a peaceful state of mind, is to try to find water in a desert.

Yet, more so than ever, we all desire, and need to feel calmer, and our souls yearn for the feelings of equilibrium. But our sensibilities can feel blocked, purely because we’re too busy to remember that we need this commodity to support our wellbeing. So, our own needs too frequently get shoved back into the depths of our thoughts.

Similarly, and just like jam, we cannot expect to purely dine on peace. It’s becoming increasingly more advised by professional mental health experts, that we should acknowledge, and absorb ourselves in all our emotions: happy, sad, good, and bad. The growing consensus is that we should not bat the emotions away, but instead note and recognise all our feelings, and in so allow ourselves sufficient time to try to understand, thus where personal growth and healing can truly start.

But, and just like the primal need for sweetness, early man sought berries to satisfy the human desire for a reward, and, it’s thought that they also munched through the fruit in case they couldn’t find meat; we do very much need peace in our lives.

It needs collecting and preserving, as opposed to thinking that we can source peace in catering quantities. Because realistically an entire day of nothing but peace is rare and fantastical. We don’t really live in a Disney set.

And, with this shift in mindset, there are ways to collect berries of peace: conserve them and then dip into them whenever we can.

When we consider the personal ways in which each of us enjoys peace, we can access these when we need to feel calmer.

So, for instance, birdsong and nature, and the sea breeze and the sun, all evoke within me a sense of tranquillity and peace. But I can’t be amongst nature all day. As much as I’d love to. I have to work and have a home to run, and dependants who need me. The notion of peace can get so easily forgotten.

However, I know where my peace – berries ripen. I can access birdsong and the sound of the sea on my devices. I make a concerted effort to pop on my Alexa or search for whale-song on YouTube. I can steal myself away, just units of five minutes in the garden I am blessed to have. I can hone into the birdsong as I wait for the bus.

The more consciously aware we become of any of our needs, then the easier it is for us to make them an invaluable part of our daily wellbeing.