What Makes You Feel Safe?

I’m a fan of Stephen Porges, author of The Polyvagal Theory, a difficult scientific theoretical textbook that discusses the various functions, anatomy, and health of the vagus nerve system as it roams through the body and provides many of the autonomic or automatic functions our body relies on to keep us health and moving through life. The book is extremely dry for a non-scientist such as myself, but the ideas are sound and with study, I’ve developed a great deal more energy towards learning how important vagal health is to health in general.

One line I read from a radio interview transcript with Porges and Dr. Ruth Buzyinski from years ago caught my attention and placed me on this vagal exploration. Porges said something along the lines of “…the pivotal point is, can we get people to feel safe?” I think this is the most profound question we should be asking, more of the time. In this current world, with politicians who tout anger and fear, with climate change and environmental problems, economic challenges and current threats of an expanding world war situation—it’s harder to feel safe than it used to be! How does one feel safe in unsafe times?

As I think about these factors that make many of us feel unsafe in our world, it becomes a guideline for why many of us behave the way we do. Whether we’re still nursing ourselves from the past’s abuses, whether we worry about the future, whether we can’t seem to find happiness in the present, or whether we just never have learned to feel safe, what do we do to create safety for ourselves?

Some choose hoarding behaviors. We all hope to surround ourselves with ‘things’ that make us feel comfortable. In dealing with a friend with hoarding tendencies on one occasion, I suggested they might choose to create a small clear, clutter-free space where they could feel comfortable. Their response stopped me: “This is my comfortable space!” I realized my judgment made me assume this person would be happier in a world that looked more like mine; calm, surrounded by people and things that gave me comfort and soothed me in more moments. I had until that moment not realized how each of us chooses to create what feels like safety to us, in our own methods.

For me and my partner, art is a large factor. We do enjoy a clean and clutter-free home, but we also love to surround ourselves with ‘things’ that make us look up and trigger feelings of calm and serenity. My office/sometimes treatment room in my home has a wall of perhaps 40 mementos of my life; trips to various countries and places are represented in the art and artifacts on the walls and shelves, with photos of those I love. I truly enjoy being in the room, my personal kingdom, where I’m able to be working and glance up to focus on any particular piece and feel a bit of the joy and safety it brings me. When I’m in an environment that feels chaotic to me, I feel less safe.

I’m not totally a social animal; when tested, I find I’m slightly introverted, and that feels correct. I’m less interested in large groups, especially in covid times. My partner is more social; to her, finding connections helps her to feel belonging and thus safety. I’d much rather stay at home, working in the garden, talking to my plants, enjoying nature. There’s my safety.

Thus I get it that what feels like serenity to me—calm, nature, solitude—feels unsafe to others who crave a bit of chaos to in some way offer them the safety I find through my coping skills. Being surrounded by things that give you joy makes sense; being overwhelmed by your things still makes little sense to me, but it’s not my way of creating safety.

What makes you feel safe? Is it a healthy bank account? A healthy relationship? Knowing that your family is there for you no matter what happens in your world? Is it remembering to take care of your body, learn to breathe more deeply and fully, to move more of the time? Is it turning off the news and isolating from the rest of the world? How do you create safety for yourself in an unsafe world?

I don’t have answers for you; I think I know what works for me. I do challenge you to consider the idea that we all behave as we do in a desire to feel safety in our world, and invite you to look at the world you’ve created and ask yourself: “Does this world make me feel safe?” If the answer is ‘no’, perhaps it’s time to think about a new way of being.