Nov 14 (edited) • Reflections
November Reflections: Safety
This month, I keep returning to the theme of safety, and by safety, I don’t mean external stability or having everything “figured out.”I mean the felt sense of being safe within yourself.
In my experience, this is one of the most essential foundations for sustainable transformation.
Because yes, we can use every tool and technique to manage stress or navigate moments of trigger… but if we don’t feel fundamentally safe with ourselves, we will always default back into old patterns.
And a lack of internal safety doesn’t only show up as nervous system dysregulation. That’s the internal experience.
Externally, it can look like:
- not feeling safe to be fully seen, so you hide or dim parts of yourself
- not feeling safe to be heard, so you silence your opinions, truth, story
- not trusting your voice, your choices, or your intuition
- holding back because you fear the consequences of being the real you
- believing that slowing down means you’ll fall behind, lose momentum, or fall apart
We were never meant to live in a constant state of bracing, pushing, rushing, or running on stress.
That way of living is not only unsustainable; it’s quietly and visibly draining the life out of you.
**So the deeper question becomes**
How do we rebuild safety in a body that’s been conditioned for years to live in overdrive… and in a self that learned to hide, dim, or silence itself just to survive?
And before we get into the “how,” we need to understand why.
Your body learned these patterns for a reason.
Your high drive, your vigilance, your perfectionism, your tendency to stay busy, these were protective strategies.
They formed during times when being softer, slower, or more open did not feel safe (usually a patter of this, not just a one-off).
Your system chose survival over authenticity, protection over presence. And that was intelligent, adaptive, loving, even.
This is where compassion comes in.
Because you cannot build safety in a body you’re still judging.
So no, we don’t force.
We don’t push.
And we definitely don’t turn this into another thing to “accomplish.”
Creating safety begins with re-rooting in yourself through small, consistent daily acts that build stability from the inside out.
Think of a tree: its roots don’t just hold it in place. They nourish it. They give it the strength to grow, expand, and rise.
We need to re-root within ourselves in the same way.
And that starts with meeting yourself in the present moment without judgment. Releasing the “should haves,” “could haves,” “would haves,” and choosing radical acceptance.
Radical acceptance doesn’t mean settling or becoming complacent. It means you stop fighting a past you cannot change and come back into the present moment where you do have agency.
Because this moment, right now, is where you choose differently. This is where transformation becomes possible. This is where you take back your power.
**But re-rooting goes deeper.**
It asks you to get honest about the values you’re currently living by.
Are they truly yours?
Or were they handed to you, expected of you, conditioned into you?
Are you upholding boundaries that honor your energy?
Are you treating your time as sacred?
Are you making choices from truth, or from fear of disappointing someone?
We ask these questions not to judge ourselves, but to reclaim awareness.
Because you can only change what you’re aware of, and awareness only exists here, now.
**And then there’s the body, the place where most of us have abandoned ourselves without realizing it.**
So many people don’t actually feel safe within their physical body.
So how do we rebuild that connection if we’ve been numb, disconnected, or living in our heads for years?
Gently.
Slowly.
With softness.
With presence.
Start with simple body scans.
Gentle stretching, but with mindfulness. Feel the sensations of the stretch. Feel the breath move in and out. Notice what emotions or memories rise as you move, sway, or pause.
You’re not “trying” to feel something. You’re simply letting yourself feel whatever is already there.
You begin to create micro-moments of safety, tiny signals to your nervous system that say, “I’m here. I’m listening. You’re safe with me now.”
And those tiny moments? They accumulate. They rewire. They build trust. They rebuild your internal foundation.
They give you the capacity to be seen, heard, expressed, honest, and alive in ways you’ve never been before.
Because safety, real safety, isn’t the absence of discomfort.
It’s the ability to stay with yourself while you feel it.
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REFLECTION QUESTIONS FOR SAFETY
1. In what moments do I feel myself leaving my body or abandoning myself?
Think of the small, everyday places where you disconnect, when you go quiet, when you push through, when you override your needs, when you numb out, or when you dim your light. These moments show you exactly where safety has been compromised.
2. What parts of me still don’t feel safe to be fully seen or heard, and why?
Is it your voice? Your truth? Your desires? Your boundaries? Your softness? Your anger? Whatever you’re still hiding or diluting reveals the places where your system has learned visibility = threat.
3. What does “safety” currently feel like in my body, and what does it not feel like?
This question helps your reader locate their baseline. Does safety feel like calm? Like numbness? Like control? Like productivity? Like isolation? Like slowness? Like tension?
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November Reflections: Safety
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