How to feel safe in your body
To be able to enjoy our lives and not be in constant survival mode, we need to feel physically, emotionally and financially secure enough to be able to relax.
We all need to feel safe: in our bodies, in the world, in our relationships. It is one of the most important elements of a life well lived, and yet it might not be something you think about every day.
Your nervous system is wired to ensure you survive, not thrive in life. 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.
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. It is that uneasy, unsettled feeling in your body, when you feel that something is off that needs to be solved for you to feel okay.
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.
What it means to feel safe, and why safety is subjective
While there are events and places in life that are objectively unsafe, 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. We are all unique in what we need to feel safe, and in what triggers us to feel unsafe.
These needs and triggers 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 spiraling, 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.
I often hear people say about a stagnant job or relationship that it is the ´safe option´, meaning that it is not particularly exciting but at least it doesn´t cause anxiety. But feeling safe and feeling stagnant are not the same thing. Avoiding risks at all costs might feel like safety, but it is an artificially created safety. The fear is still there under the surface, you just don´t have to deal with it because you have created a life around avoiding risks. This means robbing yourself of meaningful growth, and a deeper sense of fulfilment. It can be very draining and time consuming to be focused on avoiding risks, energy you could also spend on living a meaningful life.
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.
It comes from gently stretching the resilience of our nervous system to be able to handle discomfort.
When we have inhereted fears from our upbringing, or when we have negative life experiences that we haven´t fully processed, certain situations will bring a lot of discomfort in the body. You go beyond the boundaries of what feels comfortable to you, and your nervous system needs time to catch up and process old experiences.
Noticing when you feel unsafe and how that feels in your body means you can learn to gently regulate yourself. Finding safety from within means finding a kind of safety that you can always access, whenever you might get triggered. Over time, this means you no longer have to avoid the situations that scare you, since you now have the capacity to feel fear without getting overwhelmed.
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 favorite 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.
Everytime you can get yourself back to safety from a place of being triggered, your nervous system becomes a little more resilient.
Finding safety in situations that feel threatening to you can be quite a process, and it is not something you have to do alone. Talking about it with loved ones and asking for help is very healing.
If you would like some guidance in the process of feeling safe, feel free to plan a free introduction call to see how I can help you.