**Self-care warning** This article discusses possible trauma triggers.
Now this may or may not surprise you, but it’s not uncommon for my clients to acknowledge that they don’t feel particularly safe in their life.
Whether it’s the external safety of feeling protected and looked after, and/or the feeling safe in your own skin… safety is one of our primary concerns as a human being.
N.B: Safety is associated with Muladhara chakra.
And yet… many people do not feel safe
They may be aware of this consciously, or not.
It could be a subconscious fear, or even something they do their best to suppress and pretend isn’t really there at all.
Not feeling safe can look like a pattern of anxiety and/or depression. It may extend to Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). You may even restrict what you do and when, such as not walking alone at night.
For some people, feeling safe means being in a relationship at all times. For others, it’s being alone, away from anyone who might seem like a threat.
You might avoid big crowds OR small groups of people.
It all depends on what feels like it could be most dangerous for you.
Some people simply find almost all circumstances are potentially threatening.
This isn’t unusual.
Most people have safety fears, and for good reason
Ultimately, our fears are trying to make sure we don’t put our life in danger.
The job of fear is to keep us safe.
Fear is a part of our ego and self-identity as a human being in a fragile and mortal physical body.
Which is all pretty reasonable, right?
Problems arise however, when our fear and stress response is over-stretched and we develop HPA axis dysregulation (Hypothalamus, Pituitary, Adrenals), and/or PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Response).
Which is a common outcome of not feeling safe over an extended period of time!
A key reason for not feeling safe is unresolved trauma
You might be thinking… I often don’t feel safe, and yet I don’t think I have unresolved trauma?!
See, there’s a belief that trauma has to be caused by something really big or significant, such as a car accident, being in a war zone or natural disaster.
Only, there’s a LOT more to trauma than that.
Trauma can also include:
- Experiencing physical, verbal or emotional abuse
- Growing up with a mentally unwell parent or other family member
- Being exposed to addictions as a child such as alcoholism or other drug abuse
- Feeling emotionally or physically abandoned
- Experiencing a shock – a fall, surgery, concussion, near death experience, etc
- Witnessing someone else’s traumatic experience – this is one of the reasons that health care workers and first responders have such a high incidence of stress, PTSD and burn out
There are many more examples I could list.
For example: if your mother was dealing with a lot of stress while pregnant, you could’ve been exposed to fetal trauma. If your birth was difficult in any way, this can also cause trauma. Adopted children can experience abandonment trauma. The list goes on.
Then there’s inter-generational trauma
Which is the ability for unresolved trauma to become hardwired into the energetic and DNA packaged passed to you from your ancestors.
This DNA handball is known as Epigenetics, an emerging field of scientific research
You can read more about Epigenetics here:
Can Trauma be Passed on through our DNA? (Uplift Connect)
Grandma’s Experiences Leave a Mark on Your Genes
(Discover Magazine)
Which means there’s a lot of us walking around in the world feeling unsafe and not knowing what to do about it. Or even that there IS something we can do.
Often, we don’t know that we feel unsafe until life circumstances offer us experiences that mirror our inner landscape.
Some examples: losing your job, losing your home, the death of a person close to you, a terminal diagnosis for you or someone you love, the end of a friendship or relationship.
When these things happen, you might feel as if you have nowhere to stand. You could feel groundless or untethered.
And this can remind you of everything you’ve been trying to avoid.
It’s a normal reaction to run away as fast as you can!
To ignore, suppress and pretend those awful things aren’t really going on.
Which may include self-medication with food, drugs, sex, entertainment or giving yourself an endless “to-do” list.
But what if you’re faced with an ongoing series of events that upend every attempt you make to feel safe?
You can strategise as much as you want, and do your best to create a life that looks and feels good.
However, eventually it becomes exhausting to keep avoiding your fears, because they’re part of what’s really going on for you.
So until you meet them in that space of groundlessness, they will persist because they are YOUR fears. You’re holding them in place!
Something I’ve learned is how to become my own safety zone
An unconditional safe harbor for myself.
Trusting that I’ve always got my own back, no matter what.
To no longer rely on people, places or experiences to participate in a façade of “safety”.
The more reliant and co-dependent we are on outside support to feel safe, the more dangerous life can feel
Why? Because what if it all goes away?
It can, and it does.
That “secure” job you have could be gone tomorrow. Redundancy has become a modern-day by-word of the 9-5 working world.
Your home? Only safe as long as it still stands and you can afford to live there. We regularly have bushfires in Australia, and sometimes they wipe out entire neighborhoods.
Friends and family? They aren’t guaranteed to always be there, no matter what you think.
The more expectation and demand we place on our outside world to support our concepts of safety, the more challenging the shock can be when those things are no longer.
Conversely, the more healing and personal development work you do to feel safe within yourself, the less dangerous life becomes.
So how do you find safety within yourself?
First, it’s a good idea to have a look at your life experiences. It’s not uncommon for people to downplay the trauma they’ve experienced in life, or not even recognise their experiences as trauma in the first place.
This is a survival strategy that many people adopt. It’s the same reason why those who’ve experienced traumatic events often have no recall of what happened.
Your mind does its best to protect you from the shock and fear, and simply blanks out things that feel too dangerous.
Do you really feel safe? Or only when you employ a series of strategies and ways of experiencing the world?
Perhaps there was a particular time in your life – or maybe even most of it – where you were exposed to people or experiences that made you feel unsure or stressed.
When this becomes chronic, ongoing over a period of time and if the stressor and trauma remains unresolved, it becomes a part of your reality: life isn’t safe.
It’s good to get clear on this.
From here, it becomes crucial to develop a sound, loving and nurturing relationship with yourself.
To learn to self-partner, and perhaps also self-parent
Self-partnering is about understanding all of your own needs, and working out how you can meet them without feeling dependant on anyone else for this purpose.
Self-parenting is for those who didn’t grow up with healthy parental role models. It’s possible to learn how to become a healthy and supportive parent to your own inner child. The adult version of yourself can learn to listen to, take care of and offer your inner child all the unconditional love you never received back then.
Time is funny that way! We can absolutely work with those parts of our younger self that feel frightened and traumatised, and let them know that we’ve got their back!
And so this becomes the journey…
How can I help myself to feel safe, resilient and cared for?
I’m not suggesting you should isolate yourself from external support. Far from it.
We need both inner and outer wisdom – a balance of both.
We thrive with community and connection, BUT we also need those things within ourselves, first and foremost.
It has to be an inside job, as well as inviting in external support.
However, if you’re living with some form of trauma, it’s a good idea to work with a practitioner who is experienced in working with trauma.
Because unlike a broken bone or other physical wounds… without treatment, trauma is NOT self-healing.
Imagine if a tree relied solely on other trees around it to stay upright
What if it didn’t have its own root system? It wouldn’t be a thriving healthy tree for too long, would it?
In fact, a sure way to kill a tree is to destroy its root system.
The best way you can develop your own “roots” and resilience is by meeting and addressing your fears and traumas, and finding out what’s needed to undo the programming that holds them in place within your conscious and sub-conscious mind.
Initially this can feel overwhelming, but…
- You don’t have to deal with it all at once
- And you don’t have to do it alone
My own trauma healing work is what initially brought me to Kinesiology
I found Kinesiology to be one of the most effective methods of diffusing stress and trauma in the body.
It wasn’t necessary to talk through everything in great detail.
Instead, using muscle testing it was possible to find out what’s going on, the core issue and related emotions that are stuck in the body, and work out what was needed to untangle the trauma.
Since becoming a Kinesiologist myself, I’ve been honored to help others walk their own journey of trauma healing and find their own liberation.
However you choose to approach this work, please know that with concerted effort and persistence, it is possible to feel safe in your own skin. And to also transform your experience of life in general from one of fear and distrust to safety and support.
Importantly, work with the practitioner(s) and modalities that you feel called to. That resonate and seem to work best for you.
If you’d like some support in this area, consider booking a Kinesiology session
I’d be happy to discuss this with you if you’d like to learn more about how Kinesiology works.
I’m also dedicated to making sure my clients receive appropriate and holistic care, and refer to other practitioners if what you need is outside of my areas of expertise.
You can contact me or use my online booking system to schedule a day and time that suits you.
Much love,
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Ambha Amanda Roberts is a Kinesiologist, Intuitive Healer, educator and facilitator based on the Sunshine Coast, Australia. She offers Kinesiology sessions both in-person and via Skype/Zoom all over the world. Ambha Amanda is the co-creator of Adventures of Staria, which includes a series of Staria cards, and an upcoming book for children (including inner children). |
