The Safety You Didn’t Know Your Body Needed

The Safety You Didn't Know Your Body Needed

How Nervous System Attunement Creates the Ground for Growth

Reading time: 10 minutes
Best experienced: In a comfortable, quiet space

You can tell someone a hundred times that they're safe. You can offer all the logical reassurance in the world. But their body remains tense. Their breathing shallow. Their nervous system still scanning for threat.

This disconnect between what the mind knows and what the body believes is one of the most frustrating aspects of transformation work. It's why willpower alone so often fails. Why affirmations can feel hollow. Why people find themselves stuck in patterns they cognitively understand they should change.

The reason:Safety is not primarily a cognitive reality. It's a physiological state.

The Nervous System's Three Gears

Imagine your nervous system has three gears:

Gear One (Ventral Vagal): The "all-clear" state. Your heart rate is steady and flexible. Your breathing is deep and rhythmic. Your facial expression is animated. You can think clearly, connect with others, access creativity. This is the state where genuine learning, healing, and transformation become possible.

Gear Two (Sympathetic): The "alert" state. Your heart rate increases. Your breathing becomes faster and shallower. Your muscles tense. Blood flows to your large muscles, away from your digestive and immune systems. This is the fight-or-flight response—useful when genuinely facing danger, but exhausting if chronically activated.

Gear Three (Dorsal Vagal): The "shutdown" state. Your heart rate drops. Your energy plummets. You feel numb, dissociated, or collapsed. This is defensive immobilisation—the nervous system's last resort when both fighting and fleeing seem impossible.

Here's what's crucial:The gear you're in determines what's cognitively possible.

When you're in Gear Three—shutdown—no amount of positive thinking will help. The neural systems necessary for higher reasoning are offline. You're in survival mode.

When you're in Gear Two—sympathetic activation—your prefrontal cortex (your "thinking brain") becomes less accessible. You're reactive, not reflective. You're focused on threat, not possibility.

Only when you're in Gear One—ventral vagal activation—can you access the full range of your capacities. This is when you can reflect, imagine alternatives, connect authentically with others, and respond creatively to challenges.

So the question becomes: How do you help your nervous system shift into Gear One?

The answer is simpler than you might think:Through body awareness and interoceptive practice.

Your Nervous System Is Constantly Assessing

Right now, your nervous system is making assessments about safety. It's not doing this consciously—it's happening automatically. It's evaluating subtle cues:

●The tone of voice you're reading in your head

●The quality of light around you

●The comfort of your position

●Whether you feel rushed or spacious

●The presence of others nearby

●Your sense of being either in control or at the mercy of circumstances

This automatic safety assessment is calledneuroception—your nervous system's constant, unconscious evaluation of whether you're safe.

Here's what's fascinating:Your nervous system often gets it wrong.If you experienced trauma, chronic stress, or developmental disruption, your nervous system may be biased toward detecting threat even in objectively safe situations. You might find yourself in a peaceful situation—a quiet coffee shop, a loved one's embrace—yet your body remains in high alert.

This is not weakness. This is not something to shame. This is a nervous system that has learned to protect you. But protection that's no longer needed can become a prison.

The Practice: Nervous System Attunement

So how do you help your nervous system learn that it's actually safe? Throughinteroception—direct, non-judgmental awareness of bodily sensations.

Here's a practice you can do right now:

The 5-Minute Grounding Sequence

Find a position where you feel supported—seated, lying down, or standing—whatever feels right.

Step 1: Ground (1 minute)

Bring awareness to the points where your body contacts the surface supporting you. If you're seated: your sit bones on the chair, your feet on the floor. If lying down: your back, head, and legs on the mattress or floor.

Notice the weight. The pressure. The stability of support beneath you.

Internally say: "I am held. I am supported. The earth beneath me is steady."

Step 2: Breathe (1 minute)

Bring attention to your breath. Not to change it—just to notice it. How deep? How fast? Where do you feel it—chest, belly, nostrils?

Begin to slightly lengthen your exhale. If you normally breathe in for a count of 4, breathe out for a count of 5 or 6. The longer exhale activates your parasympathetic nervous system—the brake pedal.

Step 3: Sense (2 minutes)

Slowly scan through your body: Where do you notice ease? Where tension? Where warmth? Where numbness?

Notice without judgment. You're not trying to relax or fix anything. You're simply gathering information about your current state.

Step 4: Integrate (1 minute)

Take three deeper breaths. With each exhale, imagine any holding or tension releasing.

Wiggle your fingers and toes. Slowly open your eyes if they've been closed.

Notice: Has anything shifted? Your energy level? Your sense of presence? Your emotional state?

Practice this sequence 2-3 times daily for one week. You're literally rewiring your nervous system. You're teaching it: "When I pay attention to my body in this way, safety returns. I can breathe. I can relax. I am okay."

The Sacred Dimension: Why Your Body Matters Spiritually

In many spiritual traditions, there's been a subtle message: transcend the body. Rise above the flesh. Become purely spiritual.

But Celtic theology—and increasingly, contemporary spirituality—is reclaiming a different truth:The body is not something to transcend. The body is where the sacred lives.

Celtic theologian J. Philip Newell writes that the body is "the sacred text of our lives." Your body's signals—its sensations, its wisdom, its needs—are not distractions from spiritual truth. They arechannelsthrough which divine wisdom reaches you.

When your heart quickens, that's not merely physiology—it's your whole being responding to something that matters.

When you feel peace in your body, that's not merely chemistry—it's the Spirit's presence.

When your body resists something even though your mind says it's "supposed to" be okay, that resistance is sacred knowledge.

Honoring your body's wisdom is, paradoxically, a profound spiritual practice.

The Deeper Truth

Here's what happens when you consistently practice nervous system attunement:

1. You begin to trust yourself again. You realise your body isn't an enemy to be managed but an ally offering guidance.

2. Early warning systems activate.Before dysregulation becomes severe, you notice subtle shifts. Before you're overwhelmed, you sense the beginning of overwhelm and can intervene.

3. Genuine safety develops.Not because external circumstances change, but because your nervous system learns: "I can notice when I'm dysregulated. I have tools to restore balance. I am fundamentally capable."

4. Presence becomes possible.When your nervous system isn't in survival mode, you can actually be here—with your life, your relationships, your work.

5. Transformation becomes sustainable.Changes that are grounded in nervous system regulation tend to last, because they're embodied rather than merely cognitive.

This is why Safety is the first pillar of the SSS Framework. Without it, the other pillars—Story and Strategy—lack foundation. But with it, anything becomes possible.

Your Homework

For the next week:

1. Practice the grounding sequence2-3 times daily.

2. Notice your body's signalsthroughout the day. What does your body tell you about situations, people, and choices? What sensations arise?

3. When you feel dysregulated(anxious, angry, numb), pause and ask: "What does my body need right now?" Often the answer is simple: breath, movement, rest, connection, or simply acknowledgment.

4. Trust what you discover. You're not crazy. Your body's messages are valid.

Closing Reflection

Before you finish reading, do one more thing:

Notice your body right now. Is your jaw relaxed or clenched? Are your shoulders tense or open? Is your breathing full or shallow? Are you present or somewhere else mentally?

Don't fix anything. Just notice.

This noticing—this simple act of bringing attention home to your body—is an act of profound self-care. You're saying to yourself: "You matter. Your experience matters. I'm paying attention."

Do that enough times, and your nervous system gets the message. You're safe. You're worth attending to. You can relax.

Next post:We'll explore the second pillar—Story—and discover how the narratives held in your body can be transformed through embodied awareness.