How to teach safety to your nervous system

If your system is too overtaxed to read today, I’ve recorded this for you. Take a break from the screen and just listen.

Why Sacrificing Yourself Feels Safer Than Setting Boundaries

Sacrificing yourself feels safer because you’re the only thing that’s a for-sure. 

As someone who used to always push her feelings away, down down down into some hidden room in the basement of her body, I know why.

What fault can they find with self-sacrifice? Surely this will be the thing that keeps them happy. Keeps them from exploding. Keeps the peace in the room. In the house. In the dangerous minefield where you’ve learned the exact dance and pattern of steps that are required to stay safe.

The Cost of Hypervigilance: Walking the Emotional Minefield

But even then, that might not be enough. Something new can always be introduced. A new failing, a new disappointment you didn’t mean but somehow, 

oh, you’re so good at this. You’re so good at letting me down.

So a new pattern of steps. The area where you can step freely becomes smaller. Maybe eventually it’s better just to stand still until you’re told what to do. Because that would be certainty. The overthinking can stop. But what if they expect me to have done it without them asking? But what if they want me to wait? Nevermind. The overthinking must continue. 

Mapping Survival: Why Your Nervous System Mistakes Chaos for Love

So this is what you get used to. Survival is easier if we can learn the rules. Their rules. Because at the time, there was no other choice.

And even that - the feeling of not having a choice - becomes deep set into our bones. Becomes the extra weight we carry in that space between the shoulders, that space between the eyebrows. All along the tight set of your jaw. 

This is the pattern that was mapped into the system. This is why we mistake intensity for love. This is why chaos feels like it wants us.

Recognizing the Physical Toll of Fawning and Suppression

If we’ve always learned to farm out our safety to the reactions, microexpressions, the next move of someone else, it’s no wonder our entire body has learned to hold its breath. 

Building Nervous System Capacity for Unconditional Self-Love

Love is not unconditional. It is not because you did this, now you deserve love.

You deserve a love that is unreasonable. 

Unreasonably kind. Unreasonably forgiving. Unreasonably safe.

For no other reason than, “Because I love you.”

Would you let yourself believe that? Would you let yourself feel it? 

Would you be willing to change what you’re used to for the sake of you?

The Power of Conscious Pausing and Somatic Integration

But how?

Your nervous system capacity is something you can build.

In moments when you feel your body tense up, consciously relax..

In moments when you feel yourself rejecting how you feel, consciously accept.

In moments when you feel yourself having the same reaction, hear yourself saying the same words, consciously pause.

Our nervous systems can’t handle more explanations sometimes. More thinking = more stimulation. What it needs in moments when it’s already overtaxed and leaning into overwhelm is just one feeling.

A reminder that it’s safe.

A reminder that you’re safe.

But I already tried that.

Think of how many times you were told you weren’t enough. Think of how many years it took to train your nervous system that was “true.”

Now use the same dedication that they did.

Repeat.

Repeat relaxing. Repeat the deep breath. Repeat, “no, actually I’m not fine, this isn’t fine, this is anger. This is anxiety. This is grief.” 

Say it as many times as, "No, you’re wrong. You’re fine. Stop being dramatic," was repeated to you.

Guided Practice: Becoming Your Own Source of Safety

That is the secret. That is how. Repeat, repeat, repeat the new thing. Until this is what’s true. This is what’s real. Until you can feel what you feel without doubt. Without telling it to go away. Without wishing things were different, that you were different.

You become your source of safety when you can say unequivocally, with full fucking conviction, 

“Because I love you.”

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The words are the map, but the practice is the terrain. If your system is ready to move from understanding to integration, I’ve filmed a guided demo to help you name the truth in real time.