Our nervous systems are wired for connection—true safety often happens in relationship. But if people have been unsafe in the past, trusting others can feel terrifying. Rachel explores how to slowly rebuild safety with others through small, healing moments of connection.
If you're going to walk into a forest, a dark danger is forest. Do you feel safer walking into that forest alone or with a group of people? One of the hardest truths that I had to learn about mental health was that we need other people to feel safe. I know that can sound terrifying if people have been the source of your pain or the reason that you have felt unsafe in the past, but our nervous systems are wired for connection. Safety is built in relationships. Think about this, one was the last time that you felt really grounded.
Maybe it was with the best friend who gets you without explanation or with a partner who held you without trying to fix things , or maybe when you were with a pet who was curled up next to you. Often times I experienced this when I'm not even talking to someone, but I'm just physically surrounded by people. The reality is that by being in the presence of others, we start to feel safe and therefore regulated. The reason for this is if you think about survival, right, if you're going to go back to super survival mechanisms, if you're going to walk into a forest, a dark danger is forest.
Do you feel safer walking into that forest alone? Or with a group of people? Hopefully you said with a group of people because the truth is that when we have people around us, there is a higher likelihood of survival. So when there are people around us now, like whether it's at a coffee shop or with our friends or wherever it may be, people give us a sense of safety. We are more likely to survive. So on this very, very base level, very basic nervous system level, people regulate our nervous systems.
Now this can get really tricky if we've experienced a lot of unsafety around other people. If we've been traumatized by others, hurt by others, whether it's physically or emotionally, if we experience some kind of social anxiety, if for some reason human beings in the presence of them actually makes us feel unsafe, that might be an indication for us that there is an opportunity to start to practice feeling safe around other people so that we can experience that co-regulation that is required for us to feel safe in our own bodies.
I also just want to say that it is not your fault if you don't feel safe for another people. If you have a hard time trusting people in relationships, if you have a lot of walls up or feel like it's really difficult for you to open up to people , it is not your fault. Unfortunately, the work of healing that is on the burden of you and me. We have to do it on our own and we do it in the context of other people. So the work is not to just force yourself to just start trusting people. The work is to start really, really small.
So you find moments of relational safety. So finding one person who listens without judgment and marking that as a point of reference. Finding a community where you don't have to hide that can literally be here on cadre. Finding support groups online. Finding people that you can experience those small moments of safety with and connection. And your nervous system will start to learn over time that not everyone is dangerous and that safety is possible with people. You might not realize it but you're practicing right now by being here.
I'm so glad you're here and here's to more safety in relationships.
