where in your body do you feel safe?
For decades, I asked a lot of my body. Yoga 3-4x a week for almost 25 years, hiking, gym time. It was important to be as fit and thin as I could.
Perfectionism was a sign I was operating through my old paradigm. I had to avoid criticism to avoid perceived rejection. Safety came through control and in private, my inner critic was alive with judgment. One day, I’d pass the test—felt like a 9. Other days, my critic would remind me I ate a burrito the night before and to keep it in check today.
If someone had asked me back then if I felt safe, I wouldn’t have known how to respond. But today, I know I wasn’t.
A lot of women are used to looking for safety outside of themselves. In your environment, in relationships, at work.
But true safety starts in your body.
Perfectionism and anxiety was my sign that my nervous system was stuck in a flight mode response. My body would brace and be filled with tension to protect me from perceived threats. It was rigid.
When the body is in protection mode, it is not safe. It is in survival mode.
We cannot find true cues of safety outside of us when we don’t feel safe within—when we are in distress or anxiety. It becomes difficult to recognize and trust external cues of safety.
And then I went to live in Mexico.
The land, the people, the experience regulated my nervous system. Walking through town became my exercise. It was woven into the fabric of my life, not a separate activity I had to do. My body began to relax as I opened up to life.
Areas I used to be “hard”, I now have softness and curves. My belly and hips feel rounder, my legs feel more pliable. When I look in the mirror, I’m fascinated by what I see and how it feels when I place my hands on those places.
Especially my inner thighs, they feel soft, relaxed, safe. And I realized recently that this has always been a safe spot in my body, a part of my body that always felt soft, calm, and relaxed, and would often touch it. I just couldn’t recognize it for what it was because my thoughts were affected by the state of my nervous system. Instead of it feeling safe, it felt like a threat.
When you identify a spot in your body that feels safe, calm, and comfortable to you, you can use it as your anchor point to ground you and help cultivate greater sense of internal safety.
Here’s a daily practice to try:
Create a quiet, undisturbed space for yourself.
Direct your attention to your safe spot. Imagine breathing in and out of that specific part of your body.
Visualize this part of your body as a safe and secure place. You might imagine it as a warm, glowing light or a calm, peaceful space. Let this visualization deepen your sense of safety and comfort.
While focusing on your safe spot, you can also repeat phrases to yourself such as, “I am safe,” “I am grounded,” or “I am at peace.”
What part of your body signals safety to you?