How your nervous system affects your sense of safety
Have you ever avoided taking a risk that could potentially bring your something great? Do you feel physically uncomfortable when you think about that risk? Then you are definitely not alone. Your nervous system is wired to look for safety, or what it perceives as safety. In this article, we explore why avoiding risks feels so much more comfortable, and how you can gradually create true safety within yourself and your body, one step at a time.
I often hear clients talk about a job or relationship as the ´safe option´. And with safe they mean that while it may not be the most exciting or fulfilling option for them, at least there are no risks involved. When you care less about your job or relationship, the risk of disappointment, heartbreak or failure is not as present. And when you stay in an unfulfilling role that pays plenty of money, there is less of a risk of financial ruin.
Making decisions based on safety can extend to many areas of life, from choosing where you live and who you date to where you travel to and how you make your money. And this makes a lot of sense, when you know how our nervous system works.
Your nervous system is wired to look for safety. We need to feel physically, emotionally and financially secure enough to relax to be able to enjoy life.
Your nervous system is constantly scanning your environment for cues of either safety or danger. When your body senses danger, the reflex is to take action to make it go away or to escape. The nervous system cannot rationalize whether it is actually in danger. It simply picks up cues from the environment and reacts to them.
A lot of the feelings that we want to feel, like calmness, contentment and connection to others, have to do with safety. To feel these feelings, your nervous system needs to be in a parasympathetic state. When you feel safe, it is something that you barely notice. When you feel unsafe, you are constantly aware of it, as your nervous system will remind you. You feel that uneasy, unsettled feeling in your body, where something feels off.
It is really challenging to feel creative, joyful and connected to others when you feel unsafe. It is like you have tunnel vision towards the thing that scares you, it takes all your energy and focus away from living your best life. Learning how to feel safe in your body might be the most lifechanging skill you will ever learn.
Whether we feel safe in any given moment has a lot to do with our previous experiences, our upbringing, and the sensitivity of our nervous system.
While there are certain things that are objectively unsafe, safety is mostly a very personal experience. We all have a unique set of fears that we picked up on through our caregivers, life experiences and even through our genes.
Your personal fears might not make logical sense. You might get triggered anytime you have to pay a large amount of money, even though you are more than able to pay for it. You could feel fear walking down the street, even when you live in a safe area. Perhaps you always feel a bit unsafe at your job, even though you are good at it and well-liked by those you work with. Any small health concern can send you spiralling, even if you are generally healthy. You might feel an intense fear when you put yourself out there, afraid of being judged or failing, even when you know rationally that it is not the end of the world.
Your tendency when you feel such fear might be to avoid situations that trigger it as much as possible or taking action to prevent them from happening. Sometimes, we can create safety by taking certain measures: taking better care of our finances, having a better routine, focusing on relationships that feel nourishing.
But safety is not the same as avoiding all danger and risks, it is a deeper feeling of trust in yourself and others to have the resilience to overcome challenges.
Avoiding risks might feel like safety, but it is more like an artificially created safety. The fear is still there under the surface, you are just not confronted with it because of the decisions you made around it. The problem with this strategy is that it means you are also avoiding opportunities that could bring you something deeply meaningful. New opportunities and doing things that feel slightly risky can give you growth and a deeper sense of fulfilment. You could find work or a relationship that feels exciting and nourishing.
True safety is not based on the control of your external circumstances. It comes from trusting that when these circumstances happen, you can handle them.
It might seem like a paradox, but from a place of true safety, you can take risks. You can do exciting, scary new things without getting overwhelmed when there is a foundation of safety beneath it. When you feel secure in a relationship, you can have conflicts without feeling like the relationship will end. When you feel safe in your workplace, you can try new things and risk making mistakes, without feeling that it will have terrible consequences. Knowing you are worthy whether you succeed or fail means you can handle rejection without feeling like a failure. When you trust your own ability to figure out a solution, and that you have the resilience to move through difficult situations, that is true safety.
Feeling safe in your body comes from gently stretching the resilience of your nervous system to be able to handle discomfort, while learning how to regulate yourself.
When you inherited fears from your upbringing, or when you have negative life experiences that you haven´t fully processed, certain situations will bring a lot of discomfort in the body. Your nervous system gets reminded of these previous experiences or inherent beliefs, and therefore it senses danger.
You can grow your inner safety by very gently exposing yourself to what feels uncomfortable, releasing some of the excess energy that is tied to the experience, and then regulating yourself back to safety. In this process it is important to take a gentle approach, as too much at once will overwhelm your nervous system. I highly recommend starting this process with an expert.
It starts with noticing when you feel unsafe. As you learn to recognize the situations that bring up discomfort, you discover more about what you are afraid of. Rather than getting stuck in the story, notice the sensations in your body. Notice where you feel tension and contraction and see if you can gently bring your attention there. Breathe into the sensations, and just let them be what they are.
Then, bring in some calming practices to regulate yourself back to safety. When there are things that make you feel unsafe, there are probably also things, people, places that make you feel safe. It could be the sound of the ocean, the smell of lavender or the feeling of your favourite sweater on your skin. It might be talking to a great friend or being in nature. When you find the things that calm your nervous system, you can gently expose yourself to situations that make you feel unsettled and bring yourself back to safety.
Every time you can get yourself back to safety from a place of being triggered, your nervous system becomes a little more resilient.
As you become more resilient, you no longer need to avoid what feels uncomfortable and you can gently move in the direction of meaningful growth.
Ready to learn how safety and growth can coexist? Let´s take the first step together.