Recovering Our Sense Of Safety

If we have been through intense trauma in our past, we will likely have a difficulty feeling safe in certain situations.

Feeling safe is a necessary part of excelling in life, and if you don’t feel safe in a certain situation, you can look to see if it is either a real sense of danger, or if it is simply a psychological relation to a past event.

Being rational about our sense of safety can help us to make those small steps towards recovering our sense of safety.

Look to see in a situation where you are feeling unsafe, are you actually completely safe in that situation? If you are, then you can do two things. You can sit with the feeling of unsafety, and gently feel through it until it subsides, or, you can practice action steps that move you through the experience while recovering that sense of safety through the process of the activity.

To give an example, you may be feeling unsafe about calling someone on the phone for the first time. There could be many feelings, such as nervousness, or anxiety, or simply a feeling of fear or being afraid of the situation. In this situation, if you know you are completely safe, you can simply ‘show up!’. Show up for the phone call, and go through the process of the call and talking to this person, even beyond how you are feeling. As you successfully complete this situation, you will find that once it is over, you will feel accomplished, successful, and you will have realised that you can get through the feeling of not feeling safe.

This process can help us to realise that our sense of safety may simply be something that we have from past trauma. And moving through these situations will help us to recover our sense of safety.

If we intuitively feel unsafe in a situation, we can change what is occurring through our choices. Being in a place of safety may be very important for you, especially if you have been through trauma. So making sure that we actually are safe is important.

As we see that we are actually safe in situations, where our psychological sense of safety is what we are working through, we will be able to slowly and carefully extend our independence and autonomy in our life. Being in a sense of psychological safety can help us to become more independent. We can start doing things like catching buses, or turning up for appointments, or making phone calls to people without the need for supervision because we may be feeling unsafe.

The path to psychological safety is to turn up for those things with which we may be fearful, knowing we are safe. Making sure we are actually safe, and then going into a situation with which we may be fearful, can help us to let go and realise that we are truly safe.

And on a spiritual level, in ultimate reality, we are always safe. We are Life itself, and we cannot be harmed or damaged in any way. We cannot die, nor cease to exist. We are mind, body and spirit. And our spirit is always safe. This may be a stretch for you to comprehend if you have not thought about this before, though it can bring comfort to you, to know you are safe in Life, and that there is no ending to your life, it simply continues on and on.

This does not mean to go out and act as if you are safe in all situations. Though it does mean you can seek comfort from knowing you are always safe in life, wherever you are.

Making sure you feel safe is highly important, especially if you are wanting to fulfil your dreams in this lifetime. And slowly recovering your sense of safety will help you move forward towards more independence and reassurance that you are safe and loved by God, which is Life itself.

Sometimes staying safe means staying inside and laying in bed. If you are at that level, and need that sense of safety, maybe you can simply know that it’s okay that you are there. Sometimes not forcing things such as the need to feel safe in all situations is what we need to do. Though if you feel that you are ready to extend that boundary of safety, then try doing small things that will help you realise you are safe. Maybe you go out into the garden, or onto the street, and simply stand there for 10 minutes, then go back inside.

Wherever you are in terms of how safe you feel in life, make sure you are nurturing yourself and staying true to how you feel. Not overwhelming yourself is important in healing, and becoming someone who is capable of doing those things in life that some people take for granted, like catching the bus, is something that you can take slowly. You do not have to rush the healing process, in fact, it’s best if you take it slow, one step at a time.