What is safety?
"I don't know what safety feels like"​​
or
"I never felt safe"​​
​​​​
​The weight of these words is real​
For those of us with childhood trauma, the concept of safety can often feel elusive.
It is rarely discussed and even more rarely embodied.
Trauma can disrupt our body's ability to feel, experience, and locate safety within ourselves and those around us. And when this trauma occurs early in life, such safety distortion (ie stress) becomes all we know.
​​​
In healing spaces, safety is emphasized as foundational to recovery, but it seems to rarely be taught or defined​​ with any amount of clarity or tangibility. While safety does not seem to have a universal definition, it is universally desired by all living beings. It is part of our nature.
​
​​​So, how do we find it? And how do we ​​​​conceptualize safety as it relates to trauma?
​
I can tell you how I do it...​​
​
How I see safety
Safety is not absolute​​​. We do not need to have 100% safety in order to feel safe. We just need the level of safety to be greater than the level of threat​​​​​​.
Safety is not one thing​. ​It is not one "aha" moment that we need to chase.
Safety is a million little things. And many of these things are tangible.
They can be counted and intentionally applied.
​
I believe we can create a solid/foundational sense of safety by flooding the nervous system with small safety cues slowly, repetitively, and frequently over time, until the impact of safety surpasses the impact of trauma ​​​​​
​
Simply put, we need more safety than danger when working through trauma.
Creating a "Safety list"
​​Creating a safety list can be helpful. It can make safety feel more accessible, and it can feel empowering to have options to utilize anytime you may need resourcing, grounding, regulation, or connection to safety.
We can work together to create your list of tangible safety signals using the categories below. These 6 categories are how I organize safety in my mind. ​Your organization of safety may include more/less than the things listed below. These 6 categories are not fixed, and there is overlap between them.
​
The goal is to intentionally create safety signals for some/all of the categories and then saturate your system with them gradually. Over time, you will develop more safety than danger. ​​
​​
Body
safety
Feeling connected to your physical body
​
Somatic awareness
Embodiment
Heart
safety
Feeling connected to yourself
​
Intuition
Emotions
Inner child parts
Relational
safety
Feeling connected in relationships to others:
​
People
Animals
Spirituality
External
safety
Feeling connected to
your environment​
​
Nervous system
safety
(including the brain)
Feeling connected to
your nervous system
states
​
Self-regulation
Coregulation
Resilience​
Sensory
safety
Feeling connected
to your 8 Senses:
​
sight, sound, touch, smell, taste, balance, position,
& interoception​
Where felt sense safety meets tangibility
​
​The process of creating more safety is done slowly and gently. All it takes is one moment of safety, one safety signal to start. It starts with one. And it only takes one piece of safety for the dangers in a trauma body to begin to quiet. A trauma nervous system is already so overloaded with danger signals. Let's overload it with safety.
​​​
​​​​