Something BRILLIANT my therapist helped me see.
“I am safe, AND I am feeling ______.”
There were moments in this post-heart attack and post-hard-ass emotional summer – that I felt NOT OK.
The subconscious sensation of my difficult emotions and thoughts was that I was not safe feeling these things – “I’m not ok.”
He gave me this distinction to begin telling myself, my body in these moments. (It’s working).
I am safe, and I am feeling grief.
I am safe, and I am feeling anxious.
Many of us were “trained” by caregivers and society not to feel safe if we felt strong emotions.
- “Stop that crying bullshit.”
- “I’ll give you something to cry about.”
- “Suck it up.”
- “Stop worrying.”
- “You’re being a baby.”
- “You’re just being dramatic.”
The subtle threat of withdrawal, rejection and disconnection often came with these words, and it trained our physical and emotional muscle memory that strong and uncomfortable emotion = threat that then cues the fight, flight, freeze, or fawn response.
No amount of cognitive insight can override a body that subconsciously doesn’t feel safe. So we can begin to learn the skills of creating internal and somatic safety and self-regulation.
We can learn to KNOW that we are safe- and we are safe to FEEL ________.
So much of what stops us in life isn’t just our thinking (that’s the surface) – it’s the internal safety and learned ability to experience difficult emotions.
