Feeling safe in the warzone

"In the present moment - we were safe. Even when the alarm on our phones showed up, telling us we need to go to the ground floor because an attack is looming - we were still safe in this present moment."

What a beautiful reminder by a peer of mine of the Somatic Experiencing studies.

On their way from Europe to India to start the next training module with us, the war started - and they were stuck in Dubai for 1 week.

She studied, practiced hands on – on herself and her immediate environment – what being in the present moment really means. What feeling safe inside means, when so much outside is uncertain and unsafe.

I have not personally experienced a war. My bones probably have, my cells, from ancestors of mine. And then, if I extend the definition of war - I am certain my body knows what war feels like:

For maybe my entire life, I felt I had such a war going on inside. A fight between who I am – and who I thought I'm supposed to be. Between how I behaved and thought – and what I thought I'm supposed to act like and think. So many shoulds. So much shame - around who I am, how I think and what I do.

My physiology was in a chronic state of survival, tension, restlessness, alertness – while at the same time feeling exhausted, numb, disconnected.

This quote hangs on the walls of the Ashram where we happen to have our SE trainings:

What has been helping me more than anything to find peace inside – and for my physiology to expand, relax – is the same that helped my friends stay regulated in the middle east, in the midst of an official war:

Noticing the sensations... coming back to them, again and again...

Sensations are immediate, they don't lie. Which is why many say "the body doesn't lie". Nobody - neither my internal voices - can debate my sensations away. They're true, happen right here and now (even if what triggered the sensation might come from the past). That's a rather direct way to get into the present moment.

And if you think: so why do I have a hard time to stay in the present moment, why do I leave my body, why do I spend most of my life in my head?

Then it is because feeling all of this has at some point not felt safe. The accumulated stress couldn't get resolved. There was maybe high stress all the time - your body needed to watch out for threatening behavior or speech, needed to stay alert, ready to defend, run away or pretend nothing is happening so the charge in the other person would calm down... Or, you learnt to push away the bodily impulses and associated emotions when something threatening happened... yet that energy didn't have space to leave. It got stuck. And shaped your body.

And now your body doesn't know different than taking the same position, tensing up, breathing shallowly, clenching the jaw...Mmm. To help our bodies feel safe again requires a lot of trust from them in us*.

And usually, we cannot do it alone.

Like my friend said what was crucial too, in Dubai: "We were not alone. We had each other."

Tough times often (or mostly?), need relational support to not be traumatising. (which is why trauma integration tends to require another person present who can hold a safe space**).

A nervous system that has forgotten how to feel calm, will learn best by being close to a nervous system that can feel calm***.

🖤

*and, by the way, the body will not build that trust if we force ourselves to stay in the body, or to feel everything. We encourage it, as long as it feels safe enough. The moment it feels too much, we take a step back. Newly resourced, we can look at it. Cautiously: "are you there?" "Is it safe for me to come back?"

A picture I took years ago in a temple in Sri Lanka. Isn't it cute?

**or, as one of my teacher says: the spaceholder is actually letting themselves be held by space... 😮‍💨

***That said, "calm" is actually simplified. To be more correct, I'd need to say "regulated". A regulated nervous system does also act, respond, is activated – when the situation asks for it. The key lies in "not overwhelmed". Not leaving the body completely, but being able to come back to it.