When safety doesn’t feel safe
Ever find yourself in a situation where everything was going fine - great even - but you still couldn’t switch off? Still couldn’t find the sense of calm and peace you thought would come once the worst was over? Maybe you’re one of those people who only just manages to start relaxing the day before the holiday ends. If we’ve spent a long time in highly stressful or even traumatic environments, it won’t be possible to shift feelings with the flick of a switch, the human nervous system doesn’t work that way regardless of whether everything is going well. If our brain and body don’t believe we’re safe, we won’t feel safe.
Stepping Away from Stress
Last autumn I left my high-stress career and took a leap of faith to focus on my healing practice. The adrenaline that had been coursing through my body for years lingered though, keeping me buzzed and bouncing from project to project. Just after Christmas, however, the stress hormones started to leave my system and since then I’ve been doing intensive work to bring myself back into regulation.
Why?
Because my nervous system doesn’t trust that it’s safe to slow down and adjust to a new lifestyle. It doesn’t trust that everything I’ve been working for is actually here. And it certainly doesn’t trust that maybe, just maybe, things might work out. How this manifests in me is pretty typical and I’m willing to bet most readers know what I’m talking about.
I sit down after a day of doing everything I need to, open a book or have a glass of wine, and my nervous system starts pulsating. I have to re-read the same paragraph three times, I sip my wine a little too quickly, and invasive thoughts occur telling me I should be hustling because my luck is going to run out (probably tomorrow)!
The only way I can make this new lifestyle work is to heal: a) my nervous system; and 2) my core belief that safety isn’t possible for me.
When Things Start to Shift
Sometimes things seem to actually be working in our favor. These are moments when what we’ve been dreaming of appears to be getting closer; when life feels less unclear or chaotic. Very few of us can receive these moments comfortably.
If we’ve spent a long time in a high-stress situation our nervous system can’t flick a switch that takes us from survival to calm. Unfortunately the body - and remember that when we talk about stress or trauma we’re talking about the body - doesn’t work that way. Moving between states is a process by which we gradually move from fight/flight to preparing-for-fight/flight and eventually to rest/safety.
So what’s the takeaway? That it’s normal to be unable to switch off right away! We need to be patient with ourselves when shifting gears. Instead of resorting to hypervigilant thoughts that things are too good to be true or that a threat is lurking just around the corner, try putting your hand on your heart, taking a breath, and saying to yourself:
‘I’m safe in this moment. It’s okay to slow down. I’ve handled the tough times and I give myself permission to handle the easier times too.’
Self Compassion with EFT
Those of us who have worked with EFT know it’s one of the most effective ways to move out of survival mode and downshift into feeling calm and safe. When we’re doing the inner work and things look like they’re shifting, it’s always a good idea to pause and test the feelings. By ‘test’ I mean check whether there are any residual feelings or whether some part of us is fearful of better times.
If we’ve worked together, you’ll recognize this ‘test’ from times when I’ve led us in a body scan to check for places in which resistance may be hiding, or from when I’ve inserted an affirmation into a tapping sequence like, ‘It’s safe for me to release this.’ You may also notice me asking, ‘Is that true?’ after inserting such affirmations. Other times, I might ask you what would happen if you didn’t have this issue anymore. These are just a few ways to test whether we truly feel safe letting go of our issues.
It seems counter-intuitive that we would invest energy and money in therapy if we weren’t absolutely willing to make changes, but it’s not always our conscious mind that decides. If we’ve suffered, our unconscious mind and our nervous system will close ranks to protect us until they’re sure it’s safe to come out.
If adapting to threat is how we’ve managed to survive, of course we won’t be able to relax the moment things start to feel better! And that’s okay.
If we can’t seem to feel calm in moments of rest, there will be a reason. Many of us will recognize this feeling if we’ve ever experienced a good relationship after a series of bad ones and we struggled to trust our partner or relax into it.
How to Feel Safe in Safety
Building tolerance for comfort and safety is just as important as building tolerance for discomfort, and EFT is one of the best techniques to deploy in this process because of how quickly it can reveal unconscious blockages while regulating the nervous system. If you find yourself feeling frustrated because you can’t seem to trust that things are getting easier, it’s not a problem. Just do some self-tapping using phrases like:
A part of me still doesn’t feel safe
I can’t trust this feeling of relief
What if this is too good to be true
I’m frustrated that I can’t seem to relax
Trust your intuition when making these statements; if it comes out of our mouth it’s what our unconscious wants us to heal. But as always, if anything intense starts to come up, stop and take it to a trusted professional.
If you’d like to learn more about healing the nervous system through EFT ‘tapping’ therapy, feel free to book a free 20-minute Discovery Session here.